The Delegate Fight: 2016

[Erc]

PA TL;DR:

Trump: 20
District Winner: 18
Uncommitted: 12
Cruz: 3
Kasich: 1

Of those "District Winners," Trump will obviously win most of them; PA-7 seems the one he's most likely to lose at the moment.

So if this holds up....of the ~180 delegates who will be unbound on the first ballot, do you have a revised estimate as to how many would likely vote for Trump on the first ballot?

Whatever he gets in PA, plus 4.  (So, around 39 total.)

Of the remainder, some could be convinced (some of the 12 remaining PA uncommitted, probably a couple in ND and LA and some insular folks); any more than around 20 gets difficult unless he's already winning the nomination.

Last week you said:

Absolute maximum is probably around 75, most of them from PA.

So that's what you'd still be guessing today?  If the unbound delegates hold the balance of power, then probably only ~40-50 will vote for Trump, with the possibility of it going up to ~75 in the best case for Trump?

I'd expect around 55, with a maximum of 80 or so.  Vermont's a real wildcard here.

[Erc]

On the Democratic side, the situation is even more bleak for Sanders.

He now needs to win around 64.5% of the remaining pledged delegates, corresponding to roughly a 64.3% vote share...he needs to reliably win 5 delegates in 7 delegate CDs.

Obviously, this isn't happening.

I'm going to be winding down coverage on the Democratic side; in particular, I'm not updating the individual superdelegate-by-state pages in this thread anymore.  I'll continue to do the overall count and update after each primary, though coverage here may lag results on my spreadsheet.

Oh, and Clinton now has over 500 superdelegate endorsements.

[Erc]

So if Trump clinches on the 1st ballot but Cruz has a majority on the floor in Cleveland, Cruz effectively gets to set the 2020 delegate rules, right?  And he would obviously consider himself the next-in-line for the nomination.  So look for Texas to have 750 delegates awarded WTA to the statewide winner in 2020, while the all of the Northeast states combined get to elect 200 formally unpledged delegates at conventions, with convention meetings to be held from 1-7 am on a Monday morning in the least populous county in each state?

Possibly? It's certainly an interesting question of what the Republicans will do to prevent Trump-like candidates in the future (without reopening the door to Paul-like candidates).

The convention itself is a relatively short span of time, I doubt much will be done on this front then...unless Cruz has realized he is going to lose the nomination and uses the convention to lay the  groundwork for his 2020 run.

More likely is him leaning on Texas to move that primary back into the WTA window.

[Erc]

So if Trump clinches on the 1st ballot but Cruz has a majority on the floor in Cleveland, Cruz effectively gets to set the 2020 delegate rules, right?  And he would obviously consider himself the next-in-line for the nomination.  So look for Texas to have 750 delegates awarded WTA to the statewide winner in 2020, while the all of the Northeast states combined get to elect 200 formally unpledged delegates at conventions, with convention meetings to be held from 1-7 am on a Monday morning in the least populous county in each state?

A lot of those decisions are determined by the state parties and state legislatures/governments, not the national party. He could probably convince Texas to go to WTA, but the stuff in the Northeast won't happen. Also I can't imagine them going away from delegating delegates to each state based on the # of Republican voters.

Except that's not quite how it's done on the Republican side; states are awarded bonuses based on whether they voted for Romney in 2012 (plus a smattering of extras for electing Republican governors, state legislatures, Senators, etc.).  Wisconsin, with a very active GOP base (albeit one that loses Presidential elections narrowly) gets around as many bonus delegates as New York, Massachusetts, or Maryland, where it's not even close.  Wisconsin (1.4 million Romney voters) had 42 delegates, while Maryland (970k Romney voters) had 38 delegates.

Conversely, states that vote narrowly for a candidate get huge bonuses; Oklahoma (890k Romney voters) had 43 delegates.

There's definitely some room to mess around with the formulas, but I don't know how much of an effect it will have; the most overrepresented states are the small Mountain West states where Cruz does well, anyway.  At some point after the primaries are over I may crunch the numbers.

It'll be get even weirder in 2020 when it's based off of the few states that Trump wins this time around--i.e. the deep South and the Mountain West, which (with Trump out of the picture) has a good shot of being Cruz country.

One of the larger, and honestly overlooked, problems with Trump winning the nomination is that we will have to deal with Cruz in 2020.  If Trump lost the nomination and Cruz lost the general, we wouldn't have to deal with either of them next cycle.

[Erc]

Trump didn't seem to anticipate doing as well as he did in Rhode Island, knocking Cruz below 10% there.  He only had one delegate candidate on the ballot there, out of the two he is entitled to from the primary result.  It seems that Trump's "Screening Committee" gets to pick the new delegate, so he doesn't actually miss out on any delegates here, first ballot or otherwise.

[Erc]

Historically, of course, the system was even weirder.  There didn't used to be any bonus delegates at all, it was purely based on population...so the almost-nonexistent Republican parties of the Deep South had a disproportionate influence for many decades.

Of course, the only reason the Republican vote was so small was because the Republicans were disenfranchised, so it made moral sense to not further penalize them.

[Erc]

Historically, of course, the system was even weirder.  There didn't used to be any bonus delegates at all, it was purely based on population...so the almost-nonexistent Republican parties of the Deep South had a disproportionate influence for many decades.

Of course, the only reason the Republican vote was so small was because the Republicans were disenfranchised, so it made moral sense to not further penalize them.

Were the Republican delegates from the South during ~1890-1940 generally black civil rights activists then?  Perhaps with a few Northerners who moved and federal employees under generally Republican administrations thrown in?

Not uniformly.  Many places saw a split into a "lily white" faction that agreed to Jim Crow in an attempt to achieve electoral success under Jim Crow, and a "black & tan" faction that maintained its opposition to Jim Crow and still had black members.  In 1912, apparently Louisiana sent three separate delegations to the convention: a lily white pro-Roosevelt, a lily white pro-Taft, and a black & tan pro-Taft delegation.

[Erc]

ABC called every unbound delegate apparently

https://mobile.twitter.com/ryanstruyk/status/725797756644806656

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Unfortunately their pledged delegate count is a bit kooky last time I checked; I can try to disentangle it but no guarantees it would be worthwhile.

[Erc]

ABC called every unbound delegate apparently

https://mobile.twitter.com/ryanstruyk/status/725797756644806656

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Unfortunately their pledged delegate count is a bit kooky last time I checked; I can try to disentangle it but no guarantees it would be worthwhile.

Interesting, what did they screw up previously?

They seem to have fixed most of their flagrant errors.

Pledged delegates:

Two months later, they still don't understand the rules in Oklahoma and have the wrong delegate count there.

They have yet to call 2 delegates (1 Trump, 1 Kasich) in New York.

They have yet to call 1 delegate for Trump in Rhode Island.

On the unbound side:

Cruz is at 33, not 34 in Colorado.
Cruz is at 19 (1 unbound only) in Louisiana.
They don't have any of Cruz's unbound pickups in Oklahoma or Minnesota, or Kasich's in New Hampshire.
Kasich has an unbound delegate in the Virgin Islands; they seem to be making the right choice and going with the Yob delegation here.
Rubio seems to still have his delegate in Wyoming, but Cruz has an extra unbound delegate beyond what I have.
No endorsements at all in American Samoa.
41 unbound in Pennsylvania for Trump (1 ahead of my count)
I can't find their results for North Dakota.

[Erc]

CNN just said Trump has now passed 1,000 delegates

He just hit 1000 on my count after a clarification from the RI GOP as to how they're handling the rounding rules.

Discrepancies between my count and others' count re: Trump's total will generally have to do with general GA/VI issues (as noted on the front page), and unbound delegates.  I'm usually ahead of other outlets outside of PA, but may be a couple-few delegates behind in PA.

[Erc]

Alaska officially clarifies that Rubio keeps his delegates on the first ballot.

Basically, the clarification was that his "suspension" doesn't count as him "dropping out," so his delegates are not reallocated.

A separate question that they don't even talk about is whether he is "maintaining an active campaign," in which case his delegates would be released (not reallocated) on the first ballot.  Bit of an academic distinction anyway, since it sounds like they'd be voting for Rubio regardless, but something that even the AK GOP seems to have forgotten about.

[Erc]

CNN just said Trump has now passed 1,000 delegates

He just hit 1000 on my count after a clarification from the RI GOP as to how they're handling the rounding rules.

Discrepancies between my count and others' count re: Trump's total will generally have to do with general GA/VI issues (as noted on the front page), and unbound delegates.  I'm usually ahead of other outlets outside of PA, but may be a couple-few delegates behind in PA.

So Trump just got a 12th delegate out of RI at the expense of Cruz, but that only brings him to 997 in e.g. 538's count, even with the support of 40 of the PA unpledged, which is surely equal to or more than you have assigned him from PA.  Have you assigned him 2 delegates from the USVI slate?  That seems unwise as the Cruz or Cruz/Kasich majority Rules Committee will surely decide the credentials fight in favor of the all unbound Yob slate if it matters.  Do you have the Emineth guy in ND as a verified Trump backer?  

I have Trump presently at 39 in PA (down 1 from my earlier count), so he's back at 999.

I side with the Yobs in the USVI, so Trump has 0 out of there.

Other Trump unbound included in my count are 2 in American Samoa, Gary Emineth (who has dropped the pretense of being undecided) in ND, and one guy in Oklahoma.

My only difference among pledged delegates with the 538 tracker appears to be that 538 sides with Canegata in the USVI, thus giving Trump an extra delegate.

[Erc]

I side with the Yobs in the USVI, so Trump has 0 out of there.

Surely the only incentive for the Yobs to make it as delegates to the RNC is to pick up favors from Trump in exchange for their votes...? I've got a hard time believing they wouldn't go to Trump.

The USVI business is a proxy battle for the MI GOP and has little to do with Trump vs. NeverTrump (it's honestly closer to Cruz vs. NeverCruz).  While the Yobs could very well side with Trump, we have no explicit evidence at all at present that they would do so.  The Canegata slate, however, does have a delegate explicitly bound to Trump.

[Erc]

The Iowa State Democratic Party congressional district conventions are occurring today. Delegates splits that I could find on twitter:

IA-1: 4-4
IA-2: 4-4 (Tentative, delegates still being selected)
IA-3: 4-3 Clinton
IA-4: 3-3

Someone else said that the final count was 15 for Clinton and 14 for Sanders out of the Congressional District delegates, so a split in IA-2 makes sense. The statewide convention is next month I believe.

This is in line with expectations from the February caucuses (and last month's county conventions); no huge surprises here.

Cruz actually won four delegates in Massachusetts
https://www.conservativereview.com/commentary/2016/04/trump-crushes-mass-caucuses-cruz-cruises-in-missouri

Will be really interesting to see what happens in Vermont next month, where Kasich's 8 delegates are at stake on the first ballot.  That said, the process is more multi-tiered, which may disfavor Trump.

[Erc]

It continues to amaze me that Trump pulled off 3/4ths of the PA unpledged delegates.  He's still getting creamed in that type of contest everywhere else.

There's a huge difference between motivating people to turn out to multiple stages of caucuses (which in many states started before the primary, etc.) and getting people who are already turning out to a primary to vote for the correct names on the ballot.

Trump appears to have gotten his act together on the second, but the first may be unsalvageable in many states.

That shouldn't diminish the scale of the operation he pulled off; it's extremely impressive, and made his path to 1237 quite measurably easier.

[Erc]

Jon Ralston says that Carson has released his 2 delegates from Nevada, which are now unbound.

Interesting.  Guess they are feeling confident in Trump winning at the State Convention; otherwise I might have gone for the safer bet of reallocation if I were them.

[Erc]

Here is an article that has the Arkansas delegates that were selected
(arkansasonline.com/news/2016/may/01/state-republicans-convene-select-12-to-/?news-arkansas)

MN 8th district delegates
(brainerddispatch.com/news/politics/4022579-cruz-campaign-sweeps-delegates-8th-cd-gop-convention)

MN 7th district 1 delegate
(twitter.com/seifertmn?lang=en)

Virginia's At Large delegates support on second ballot
(pilotonline.com/news/government/politics/virginia/behind-weight-of-cuccinelli-virginia-gop-convention-approves-cruz-heavy/article_06d21020-40e5-5f13-a606-5843299a22c6.html)

Nate Leupp preference in SC CD-4 is a Cruz preference
(youtube.com/watch?v=UwsWAVb9-Yk)

SC CD-2 delegates
(scgop.com/stateconvention/national-convention-delegatealternate-election-results/)

Thanks again for these finds!

[Erc]

What happens to Cruz's delegates?

Like Rubio, he keeps most of them.

Where he loses them outright:

Louisiana (18), just as Rubio lost his 5.
Michigan (17).

It's unclear in Missouri (15), where a candidate loses them when he "becomes inactive"; the same sort of standard applies in Alaska, where Rubio got to keep his.

It's also unclear in Wyoming (23), where the GOP chair there says a candidate keeps their delegates as long as they are "still in the race."  Rubio lost his one delegate in the state, but he was never going to be placed into nomination; Cruz still could.

Including Wyoming, Cruz still has eight states under Rule 40 and can be placed into nomination (of course Wyoming's delegates, even if unbound, could still support Cruz under Rule 40 as well).  If he's not, he loses more delegates (e.g. Oklahoma, Minnesota, etc.).

If Cruz wants to have his name placed into nomination, he certainly can; if he doesn't and just wants to cede the floor to Trump, he can do so as well.

[Erc]

Updated projections (which could be too favorable to Kasich, we'll see) have Trump coming in at 1416 pledged delegates by the end of the night on June 7.

I think now's a good time to discuss the future of this thread.  I'm planning to maintain the spreadsheet until July, but my motivation for updating the main page of this thread is rapidly diminishing.

What would be most useful for you folks going forward?  Continuing to track the delegate counts for a race that's all but over, or freezing it as a snapshot before Cruz's suspension?

[Erc]

For comparison, I ended my main page coverage of the 2012 race around April 15, 2012, a few days after Santorum suspended (on April 10), but before Gingrich announced he would be suspending (on April 25).

[Erc]

Updated projections (which could be too favorable to Kasich, we'll see) have Trump coming in at 1416 pledged delegates by the end of the night on June 7.

I think now's a good time to discuss the future of this thread.  I'm planning to maintain the spreadsheet until July, but my motivation for updating the main page of this thread is rapidly diminishing.

What would be most useful for you folks going forward?  Continuing to track the delegate counts for a race that's all but over, or freezing it as a snapshot before Cruz's suspension?

I haven't been commenting on this thread but I have been reading it. Is there any way you could make a new thread to continue to track delegates and leave this one as a snapshot?

I'm still tracking the current delegate count on the spreadsheet (see sig); alternatively I could quote the original post as a snapshot.

[Erc]

I'm fine with unstickying it.

[Erc]

With Kasich suspending, he also loses the binding of his delegates in Michigan (in addition to Vermont and New Hampshire, which he already clearly didn't have).

Anyway, the race is over.  Trump should sweep the remaining delegates outside of West Virginia (where the arcane rules mathematically prevent Trump from winning all of them) and Oregon (where the low threshold means that Cruz and Kasich should still win some delegates).

I'll continue to track the Democratic side on the spreadsheet as Clinton continues her slow and inevitable march to victory.

[Erc]

I know this thread is done, but I'm seeing that Kasich won a West Virginia delegate (according to the New York Times). Anyone know why this is?

West Virginia has weird geographic requirements, so that no more than two delegates from each county can be elected delegates.

Trump slate had too many folks in Kanawha County, so there was no way he was going to get a complete slate elected.  While the race was still competitive, he was attempting to get Uncommitted, friendly-to-Trump delegates elected; don't know if he kept this up after Cruz dropped out.

Apparently, Trump won all but 4 delegates (which is better than my initial projection); 3 were Uncommitted (2 of which say they're supporting Trump) and 1 explicitly Kasich delegate was elected.

Note the clear gap in the vote totals between the Trump delegates and the 3 Uncommitted delegates, and the gap between the 3 Uncommitted and the 1 Kasich.

[Erc]

On the Democratic side, this may have been noted elsewhere, but Sanders had a minor success at last weekend's Maine State Convention.

Sanders picked up a delegate in Maine CD 1, making the breakdown 7-3 in his favor rather than 6-4.

This was Sanders' best target for picking up a delegate anywhere in the country, apart from the Iowa At-Large delegate, requiring only a 1% swing.

He may also have wanted to target an At-Large delegate in Maine, which would have been his 5th-best remaining target in the country.  This would have required a 5.5% swing, however, which he did not achieve.

Next target for Sanders is Alaska, where he could pick up a delegate at this weekend's convention; this would require a 3.9% swing on top of his already-large total.