The Delegate Fight: 2016

[Erc]

Coming up on Tuesday is the Oregon primary, which may be the last time anyone who isn't Trump wins delegates.  The state is proportional with a very low threshold (3.57%), so Cruz and Kasich should still pick up some delegates.

In their favor is the fact that Oregon does entirely postal voting, and some may have received and sent off their ballots before Cruz and Kasich dropped out last week.

[Erc]

Cruz wins 5 delegates and Kasich 4 in Oregon (roughly).  Incidentally, this is Cruz's largest haul since Wisconsin.

If Washington goes similarly, neither candidate breaks the 20% threshold statewide, but Kasich may pick up a delegate or two in the Seattle area.

If these die-hard never-Trump percentages hold, Trump may not sweep New Mexico, either.

[Erc]

Yesterday had some of the final delegate binding events of the season, with a few caucus states finishing up their conventions.

Most notably, in Iowa, Clinton won that final delegate, 714-571; some Sanders folks stayed home and clearly a few defected to Clinton.

The final event should be the Idaho state convention, which finishes up today.

[Erc]

Erc-

Given all the recent talk about a convention coup against Trump, I don't suppose you can give us any insight into approx. what %age of the RNC delegates will be true blue Trump loyalists?

I mostly stopped tracking this after Cruz dropped out, but I can take another look.

[Erc]

Erc-

Given all the recent talk about a convention coup against Trump, I don't suppose you can give us any insight into approx. what %age of the RNC delegates will be true blue Trump loyalists?

I mostly stopped tracking this after Cruz dropped out, but I can take another look.

Obviously the media has since done a better job of tracking this particular figure, but the bare minimum (which he seems to have exceeded) is around 444: these are the delegates who supported Trump before Indiana, plus any which the Trump campaign has gotten to hand-pick.

Obviously, a fair number of delegates chosen since Indiana support Trump as well; a very (very) rough estimate [just simply giving him any bound Trump delegates that were selected after Indiana, a formula which may be too generous in WTA states] would give him another 485 delegates, for a total of 929 loyal supporters, but this could easily be off by a hundred in either direction.

[Erc]

Final postscript for this campaign season (barring something truly odd in Philadelphia):

Canegata's sham of a slate was recognized as the official delegation and seated at Cleveland; the Yobs were not.  The Republican National Committeeman from the Virgin Islands, Holland Redfield III, no friend to Canegata, refused to attend the convention, for presumably related reasons.  As RNC members have no alternates, the Virgin Islands only had 8 votes at the convention this year.