Category Archives: Primary Elections

Delegate Math 2020 — Super Tuesday (Part 4 — California and Texas)

By tmess2 | Published March 3, 2020

Texas and California as the two largest states in the country are the big prizes on Super Tuesday.  They also have several unusual features that will impact the process.

For Texas, early voting is a significant percentage of the vote.    By definition, people who vote early are locked in regardless of developments that occur between when they vote and the election.  In Nevada, we saw a solid majority of the vote coming from people who voted before the Nevada debate.  In Texas, we could easily have a majority of the vote coming from people who voted before the South Carolina debate (or the results from South Carolina).  The other big thing that makes Texas different is how it splits the district-level delegates.  The national rules only require that states with multiple congressional districts elect delegates from the individual congressional district or some smaller district.  For over thirty years, Texas has used its state senate districts rather than congressional districts in its delegate selection process.  Texas has 31 state senate districts.  Back in the 1980s and 1990s, Texas had fewer than 31 seats in Congress.  Since 2000, Texas has had more than 31 representatives in Congress.  Even though state senate districts are now larger than congressional districts, Texas still uses state senate districts to allocate district-level delegates.

What makes California somewhat unique (some other Pacific Coast states have similar rules) is its liberal rules on voting by mail.  A mail ballot can be dropped off at a ballot drop-off location up until the time that polls close.  In addition, a mail ballot counts if it is mailed on or before election day and received within three days of the election.  Approximately two-thirds of the vote in California is by mail-in or other early vote.  Counting the mail-in vote typically takes several weeks.  Often there is a significant difference between in-person votes on election day and mail-in ballots.  Given how little it takes to change the delegate count in California, any initial estimate of the delegates won in California are just an estimate and the final results could see a change of a delegate in a congressional district or three or four state-wide delegates. Continue Reading...

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Delegate Math 2020 — Super Tuesday (Part 2 — Early Prime Time States)

By tmess2 | Published March 1, 2020

On any election day, 8:00 p.m. EST/7:00 p.m. CST, is a key time when polls close in a significant number of states in the Eastern and Central time zones.  (For the general election, the polls close in seventeen states at that time, the largest single batch of states.)  On Super Tuesday, six states will close their polls at that time:  Alabama, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Oklahoma, and Tennessee.  As with the states closing earlier that evening, poll closing is not an exact end to the voting.  Instead, all voters still in line at a precinct still get to vote.  Additionally, election workers have to get the ballots from the precinct to a centralized vote counting location.  So there is a lag between the polls closing and the results being reported.  However, this time is when the news media can release exit polls and make projections and counties can report the totals from early votes.

Before going much further into the details, one significant change from earlier reports.  Maine law currently allow parties to opt to use ranked-choice voting for their primaries.  Early drafts of the Maine delegate selection plan indicated that the Maine Democrats would use ranked-choice voting.  Ultimately, the party decided against using ranked-choice voting.  (Apparently, Maine’s law required a party using ranked-choice to continue the process until one candidate got a majority of the vote and did not give the option of using it to determine who met a party’s threshold for delegates).

While Tom Steyer has ended his campaign, we still have five candidates in the race who have won delegates in at least one state.  We also have Michael Bloomberg who has put a lot of money into these states.  So far, we have not had any district (or state-wide) result in which more than four candidates reached 15%, but every one of these six candidates has at least one state or district in which they expect to be viable.  How many are viable in each district will impact the math for the distribution.  (And with early voting/absentee ballots and his ad spending, Tom Steyer could still get a significant number of votes in some locations even if he is not viable.) Continue Reading...

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An Open Letter to Joe Biden

By DocJess | Published March 1, 2020

Dear Uncle Joe –

First, congratulations on winning South Carolina.

Sadly, HOW you won exposes the inherent weakness of your candidacy and how you can lose in November. Then again, knowledge is power and if you pay attention, you may yet be able to win in November, which is all any of us non-cult people care about. Continue Reading...

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Delegate Math 2020 — Super Tuesday (Part 1 — Early States and Territories)

By tmess2 | Published February 29, 2020

Super Tuesday is always a hard day for delegate math.  There are fifteen contests ranging from a territorial caucus in American Samoa (which given the time gaps will actually be taking while it is still Monday in most of the United States) to the massive primary in California in which a final count will not be available for several weeks.  Every candidate still running (and this post is going live while we are still waiting for the results in South Carolina) can point to some contest in which they might win delegates.  Super Tuesday is also the day on which we will see if Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s strategy of skipping the early caucuses and primaries worked.

As with the first four states in the “early” window,  these contests are complicated by the number of candidates running.  While the states differ from each other, in all of them, there is the question of how many candidates will reach the 15% threshold (either state-wide) or in a single district.  In Iowa (with the exception of the Second District in which only three candidates won delegates) every district and the state-wide results had four candidates break 15%.  In New Hampshire, in every district and state-wide, three candidates broke 15%.  In Nevada, one district had three viable candidates but the other districts and the state-wide results had only two viable candidates .  It seems likely that — in at least some districts and states — three or more candidates will reach that 15% threshold.  And multiple candidates reaching 15% will cause weird fractional issues.  Additionally, the possibility of some candidates getting between 10-13% could allow the viable candidates to gain more delegates than the minimum numbers discussed below.

Trying to do things chronologically, the first four contests to end (not necessarily the first four contests to report the results) are American Samoa, North Carolina, Virginia, and Vermont.  All of these contests close by 7:30 p.m. EST.  Part 2 will deal with the contests that close at 8 p.m. EST/7 p.m. CST,   Part 3 will deal with the states that close after 8 p.m. EST (excluding Texas and California).  Part 4 will deal with Texas and California. Continue Reading...

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Delegate Math 2020 — South Carolina

By tmess2 | Published February 23, 2020

Now that Nevada is over, we have a one-week break until South Carolina.  After South Carolina, the pace increases with multiple states per week holding contests (March 3, March 10, March 14, and March 17).  The next time that we have a break of this length will be between the multi-state contests on March 17 and Georgia on March 24.  In the seventeen days between South Carolina and March 17, over half of the national convention delegates will be allocated.  In short, the pace is about to pick up quickly.  South Carolina is also the last state in which Michael Bloomberg will not be on the ballot.

Additionally, as things stand now, assuming that nobody drops out as a result of Nevada, Vice-President Biden and Tom Steyer have both invested heavily in South Carolina as the state where they make their stand.  Additionally, while Nevada was the first state in which both African-Americans and Latinos each have more than 10% of the likely primary votes, South Carolina is the first primary that is likely to be majority-minority.  At least through New Hampshire, the newer candidates have had trouble getting much support from African-American voters in South Carolina according to the polls. If this does not change, the results in South Carolina may differ dramatically from the results in Iowa and New Hampshire.

One other complicating factor in South Carolina is the fact that the Republicans have cancelled their primary.  South Carolina is an open primary state and voters have the option to choose which party’s primary they wish to vote in.  With no Republican primary, Republicans and Republican-leaning independents are free to vote in the Democratic Primary.    When we get the exit polls, we will have a good idea of whether a significant number of Republicans opted to vote in the Democratic Primary.  We may never know whether they opted to participate because they are tired of the would-be-dictator-in-chief and want to find an acceptable alternative or because they belong to the Church of Trump and want to eliminate the candidates most likely to beat Trump. Continue Reading...

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Contested Convention? — February 2020 Edition

By tmess2 | Published February 20, 2020

The eleven days between New Hampshire and Nevada is the third longest “break” of the primary process.  So with a little time to spare before the pace picks up (and March is the busiest month in the primary cycle), time to turn to one of the perennial topics of discussion in the primary process.  (Whether there is a second edition this year will depend on how things look at the next major break — the three weeks between Wisconsin and the Mid-Atlantic states.   Every four years, there is speculation about the possibility that the race will not be decided until the convention.  And every four years, by mid-April, it’s pretty clear that the race is over.  So why has this speculation been wrong in the past and why might it be true this year (or why will the speculation go bust again this year).

Before getting to the issue of a contested convention, there is a question of terminology.  Many people talk about the possibility of a “brokered” convention.  Prior to 1968, state party leaders had solid control over the delegate selection process.  Most states used a caucus system with little if any role for presidential preference in the election of delegates.  The delegates elected tended to be loyal to state party leaders not to any particular presidential candidate.  And even if an individual delegate might want to go rogue, there were tools like the unit rule mandating that a state vote as a block (i.e. as the majority of the delegation decided) to prevent it.   So, even if the convention only went one ballot, most conventions for 130 years were brokered conventions in the sense that the party leaders talked with each other and reached an agreement as to who should be the nominee (sometimes on the first ballot and sometimes after many, many ballots).

Since 1968, the two parties have enacted mechanisms in which presidential preference in the primary/caucus controls the vote on the first ballot.  The Republican rules give a little less power to the presidential candidate, but the typical Democratic delegate is more loyal to the candidate than to the state party leadership.  Even that loyalty is loyalty to a movement and, not necessarily, to the personal success of the candidate.  In other words, it is unclear that — in the case of a contested convention — presidential candidates could deliver their delegates. Continue Reading...

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Delegate Math 2020 — Nevada

By tmess2 | Published February 17, 2020

Welcome to the third issue of delegate math for the 2020 delegate selection process.

Nevada is the second caucus state of this cycle.  Like in Iowa, a key part of the caucus process is the opportunity of participants to realign if their initial candidate is not viable.  Generally speaking, in almost all precincts, it will take 15% for a candidate to become viable (except in precincts which elect three or fewer delegates).   Like in Iowa, based on the results in each precinct, each precinct will elect a number of delegates to the county conventions, and it is the count of delegates won (not the raw votes) that will be used to allocate the national convention delegates.

Because of the tourist-heavy nature of the Las Vegas economy, Nevada has two types of precinct caucuses — regular precincts and special “strip caucuses.”  The strip caucuses are held at several casinos for workers who have to work during the regular caucus hours.  The precinct caucuses, on the other hand, basically cover voters living in the individual precinct.  For the precinct caucuses, part of the vote will come from ranked choice-voting by individuals voting at early vote locations.  Like in Iowa, if a presidential contender is viable after the first vote (based on the alignment of in-person voters and the first preference vote of early voters), the supporters of that candidate may not switch to a different candidate prior to the second vote.  During realignment, the supporters of non-viable candidates may switch to a viable candidate or attempt to join with the supporters of other non-viable candidates to reach viability.  As best as I can determine from the rules and guidance published by the Nevada Democratic Party, the first preference of early voters will be considered in determining if a group has become viable — both for the initial alignment and after realignment.  If, after realignment, the first preference of early voters is not viable, those voters will be considered to have realigned to their highest viable preference, but those second preference will not help a non-viable group become viable. Continue Reading...

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Technology and the Caucus States

By tmess2 | Published February 14, 2020

By now, everyone has heard of the problems with the app that the Iowa Democratic Party purchased to aid in getting the caucus results.

First, I don’t believe that there was anything sinister with the provider of the app.  Yes, the company that makes the app has connections to people working for several of the campaigns and the Obama Administration.  But the world of political consultants is rather small.  Political parties need data bases to track voters and contacts in the various precincts and counties; so they tend to have relationship with certain software providers who have divided that type of information.  And political campaigns need that same type of data; so they are likely to have connections to the same consultants.  Some of the features needed for keeping an up-to-date list of voters and tracking the likely Democrats in each precinct (and updating based on canvasses) would seem to be comparable to what is needed to run caucuses and get results.  In any case, the process includes a paper “back-up” that has to be verified by the local representatives of each campaign.  So, while mistakes were made, to support a conspiracy theory, you would need to imply a lot of plants in all of the campaigns in the right locations.

Second, what does seem to have happened as a common tech problem.  As a government attorney, I have seen multiple generations of case management systems.  While the programming is beyond me, successful new systems have several things in common.  After getting the basic parameters, the programmers design a program to meet the requirements.  A bunch of internal alpha testers then sit down and try to use the system.  Their comments on what works and what doesn’t work then lead to revisions designed to fix any bugs in the software and make the system more user friendly.  Then you recruit beta testers from the pool of people who will have to use the system once it goes live.  Again, updates are made based on the comments from the beta testers.  Then the system is rolled out gradually starting with some pilot counties or pilot units within the office.  This gradual rollout allows training of small groups of users and a chance to fix the system when the real world experience doesn’t match the testing.   It may take eight or nine months (or even longer for something going to every county in a large state) before the system is running in every county and every office.  While there are certainly target dates, there are no absolute deadline.  So if things go poorly in the pilot counties, you can take the time to fix the problem.  (For example, when my state went to an electronic filing system for court pleadings, it took three to four years to get to 100+ counties.  And this gradual process allowed the trainers to spend two to three months with court staff in each county and to offer multiple training opportunities to attorneys.   Since my practice at the time involved multiple counties, by the middle of the process, I was used to using the system in half of my counties and couldn’t wait for the rest of the counties to get the system.) Continue Reading...

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Winnowing Out???

By tmess2 | Published February 12, 2020

Historically, the main role played by the Iowa Caucuses and the New Hampshire Primary is to narrow the field.  While, for different reasons, they are not necessarily representative of what it takes to win the nomination or the general election, they are both small enough that even candidates not well-known to the general public have a chance to make their case to the voters.  (Of course, for all of its flaws, the party-sponsored debates are eliminating some of that aspect of Iowa and New Hampshire.)  And candidates who fail to show any signs of life in these two states tend to lose their supporters (both financially and vote-wise) who begin to look for somebody who has a chance at making it to the convention.

This year seems like it might be a bit different than in the past.  In part due to the chaos that was Iowa, nobody dropped out after Iowa.  Last night, when it was clear that the results were not going to be there for them, Senator Michael Bennet and Andrew Yang announced that they had reached the end of the road.  And Governor Deval Patrick is apparently taking time to consider if he still has a path forward.  Bu that seems to be the extent of the winnowing that we will see for now.

With the possible exception of Representative Tulsi Gabbard, the remaining candidates each seem to think that they have a path forward that, at least, justifies staying in the race a little bit longer.  Both Vice-President Joe Biden and Tom Steyer have invested heavily in South Carolina.  Biden still leads the polls in South Carolina and Steyer is either second or third depending upon which poll you credit.  If they can hold onto that support, South Carolina would breathe new life into their campaign.  As the last remaining person of color in the race, Governor Deval Patrick apparently hopes that he can become the second choice of South Carolina voters in Biden’s support collapses. Continue Reading...

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How to Win in November

By DocJess | Published February 12, 2020

The most important thing that happened yesterday was NOT the New Hampshire primary. It was the unconscionable meddling by Bill Barr and his thugs on the Roger Stone and Mike Flynn legal cases. However, that has great impact on what we must do to insure that we win in November. Because every time you think they can’t go lower and more dangerous, they find a way. It’s what they excel at. And our only hope is to win back the Presidency….and a few other things.

There’s a lot of pain coming out of New Hampshire as people’s pick fave candidates drop out, or are on the verge of dropping out….as establishment Democrats and Movement people consider their options and our party schisms further.

So here’s my simple solution: as I see it, there are only two candidates who have a believable path to victory against the Orange Menace – we should all pick one, and get on that train, but commit to supporting the other if our pick isn’t successful — because we eat our young, and we will lose in November if we don’t. Continue Reading...

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