Democratic Grand Finale Tuesday results thread (1st polls close @8pm ET)

[NOVA Green]

Slow update night, so swing from Election Day to Present Cali Dem Results...

Dark Blue= +2.5% Bernie direct swing from ED (Ergo 47.5% Bernie would become 50% Bernie)
Cyan= +1.7% from ED.
Green= 1.0-1.7% swing from ED.
Pink/Purple- 0.1-0.9% Bernie swing from ED.
Red= No updates since ED.

Key items to note are the Metro counties that are mostly finished reporting (Check the previous post for those).

Santa Clara Co (39-61 Hillary ED) to (42-58 Hillary) with 99% counted
Orange Co (45-55 Hillary ED) to (47.5-52.5 Hillary) with 97%? counted


Other items to note are dramatic swings in the Central Coast and Central Valley, including in counties that Clinton won by large numbers on ED, and how that will play out in final margins with large numbers of Provisional ballots outstanding.

There does appear to be a direct correlation between counties that have reported a significant number of provisional ballots, and those with large numbers outstanding.

Vast majority of votes outstanding are in SoCal, so we should start to see updates rapidly by Monday at the latest, but at least this can provide some clues as to final margins, and how the "Late VbM" and "Provisional Ballot" scene is starting to play out in '16

[NOVA Green]

So still a relatively slow day in California Dem Primary results, like yesterday, so although there are a few interesting items to note am combining the 6/22 and 6/23 numbers, since I didn't provide much of an update yesterday.

So another ~45k Dem ballots counted on 6/22 and 6/23 (54-46 Bernie) mostly provisionals but a 13k Late VbM dump from San Mateo (44-56 Hillary) skewed the raw data regarding provisional ballots where results were (58-42 Bernie), so is not indicative of Provisional trending.

Key items to note:

1.) Tuolumne County flips (As Wulfric stated earlier) for a net +3.2% Bernie gain from ED. All Provisionals (68-32 Bernie). Mainly interesting for map purposes and estimation for how similar counties in the Sierra Nevada rural counties will close.

2.) Napa County dumps basically all Late Vote-by-Mails and Provisionals and swings 6.5% from Election Day for a final vote count. (39-61 Hillary ED) to (46-54 Hillary). This is utterly bizarre considering that the largest swings from ED to final county reporting is something like 3.5%. I have no explanation whatsoever, but it does seem to indicate that Sonoma County that has not yet reported any numbers since ED will not only flip, but also flip hard with Late VbMs and Provisionals combined.

3.) Bay Area (Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, San Francisco, San Mateo, Santa Clara, and Solano) account for about 25% of total Democratic Party ballots and are almost completely done counting their ballots. Election Day numbers were (349k-478k or 42.2-57.8% Hillary). Since ED numbers are now (540k-681k and 44.2-55.8% Hillary). There still appear to be ~25k Provisional ballots out in Marin and Contra Costa that don't appear to have yet reported Provo numbers, but Obama did narrowly win the Bay Area in '08 Primary, so at the end of the day looks like maybe a +2.2% Bernie swing from ED in the Bay at the end of the day, and a key reason for the '16 Dem Primary in California not being significantly closer.

4.) Central Valley- Not tons of updates, but there is a trend since I have been noting since post ED results with Late VbMs trending heavily Bernie in counties where Hillary won by ~20% margins on ED. Fresno county provided the first large dump of Provisional ballots from a major county thus far and was (58-42 Bernie). This definitely indicates a major trend for remaining provisional ballots from not only Fresno Co, but also places like San Joaquin and Kern county, that haven't yet started counting provisional ballots.

5.) SoCal- Where to start. Almost 2.45 Mil Dem Ballots counted to Date so over 50% of the total.

Starters Election Day numbers in what is Metro LA/OC/SD ( LA, Orange, Riverside, San Bernadino, San Diego, Ventura) were (43-57 Hillary with 1.83 Milion votes cast).

We have minimal data thus far compared to the Bay Area, but currently it looks like there are 2.44 Mil Dem ballots counted (45-55 Hillary).

Note that the vast majority of ballots outstanding are provisionals, heavily from LA County as well as a decent chunk of votes remaining from San Diego County, and we should have a better idea when San Bernadino does a vote dump tomorrow, as well as Ventura and Orange being likely to finalize results.

Provisionals in LA County went (56-44 Bernie) in the first vote dump, and we can likely assume margins will be similar for the remainders of the 180k Provisionals (All parties but should be fairly heavily Dem ballots). San Diego County has been averaging ~60% Bernie on provisionals with likely an additional ~30k Dem ballots yet to be counted. OC is mostly done, but should trend heavily Bernie. Ventura still has some outstanding, and should provide close to a final update tomorrow. Riverside, trended heavily Bernie with Late VbMs but was a drop on the first provisional report.

Regardless, the theory that I posted that Bernie will do better in SoCal than Bay Area appears to be absolutely proven by the math, and additionally will be the key driver for final 2016 Dem Primary Margins...

Hard to believe, but at the end of the day, Bernie might end up performing better in LA County than in the entire Bay Area....

[NOVA Green]

Yeah. Still surprising though. I was also expecting Berkeley to vote for Sanders by a higher margin.

Most colleges are in finals or done completely by June 7. So no out of state/out of county students around, or everyone's too bust studying.

Also, might be a bit of the "town"/"gown"dichotomy that we have seen in some other college towns.

For example, look at the precinct results from Davis, where heavily student neighborhoods went overwhelmingly Sanders, but "professor" and middle-age/ middle-class public sector employees went Clinton.

Haven't checked out the precinct results from Benton County Oregon yet, but the overwhelmingly college town went from 70-30 Obama in '08 to 61-39 Sanders in '16 despite a large student population.

Plus, many students might well have voted by mail at their "home" (RE: parents address) rather than in their College town address.

Still the Berkeley numbers surprised me a bit....

[NOVA Green]

Alameda county final results.

Awesome!

Thanks for pulling this data.... decided to take a break from precinct/city level breakdown considering how long it takes to count the vote in Cali these days.

Not totally surprised by Oakland after we started to see votes trickling in from Alameda and figured Fremont, etc that are now basically extensions of Silicon Valley would vote similar to parts of Santa Clara County.

[NOVA Green]

Oakland for Sanders?!? WOW

Gentrification along with a young population.

Not sure about the gentrification theory, since I consider virtually all of the Bay Area to have been long since post-gentrification, meaning that it has become the least affordable Metro Area in the US, and I lived out in South Bay for a year for work in '12.

True, the African-American population of the city has been declining over the past few decades for multiple reasons, but still Oak-Town is still one of the most multi-ethnic cities in the US, and still has deep working-class roots tied to the Port of Oakland (ILWU), a strong activist tradition from the war in Vietnam, Civil Rights Movement, and more recently Pro-Immigration Reform activism from a rapidly growing Latino and Asian-American communities.

Still, would be extremely interested in looking at more detailed breakdown of voting patterns in various neighborhoods throughout the city with a compare/contrast against the 2008 numbers.

[NOVA Green]

So another huge dump of outstanding Democratic ballots, almost 100k additional votes counted within the past 24 hours (55-45 Bernie).

These are overwhelmingly provisional ballots, and are heavily from Socal with some smaller numbers from Bay Area counties.

1.) LA County- 35.2k Dem Votes (57-43 Bernie). Almost exclusively Provisional Ballots, but assuming update times are accurate there are likely another 100k Dem Provisional ballots outstanding.

2. Contra Costa- 11.1k Dem Votes (58-42 Bernie). All provisional ballots, and the last Bay Area County with votes outstanding. They haven't updated their numbers since 6/16 but looks like there are some Provisional ballots outstanding.

3.) Marin- 9.2k Dem Votes (46-54 Hillary). Appears to be all provisionals and the last of the outstanding vote. Notable as one of the only county in the state where Hillary appears to have won provisional ballots.

4.) San Bernadino- 8.2k Dem Votes (60-40 Bernie). A few late VbMs but predominately provisionals. Appears to be a chunk of provisional ballots left.

5.) San Mateo- 8.2k Dem Votes (37-63 Hillary). Looks to be a mix of late VbMs and provisionals, with some provisionals yet to be counted. Again, one of the only places in the Bay Area where Hillary appears to be leading among these votes.

6.) Ventura- 6.8k Dem Votes (63-37 Bernie). All Provisionals and a chunk remaining.

7.) Orange/ Sacramento / San Diego- about 3,2k each with roughly 2:1 in Orange/SD and 52-48 Bernie in Sac and all Provisionals, with varying amounts of outstanding votes, but likely a significant number in the latter. Riverside 1.7k Dem votes (57-43 Bernie).

8.) Fresno 2.4k Dem (66-34 Bernie) all Provos. Madera 2.2k Dem (56-44 Bernie), San Benito 1.8k Dem (52-48 Bernie). These are all heavily Latino Central Valley counties that went overwhelmingly Hillary.

I'll need to look at these numbers further to recalibrate estimated final margins, but the race is *finally* starting to wind down as part of the spectacle that is the four week California vote counting cycle.

[NOVA Green]

I don't think there is enough left to flip them, but Orange and Ventura counties are getting pretty close.

Doesn't look like enough votes out to flip either, regardless of Bernie's strong performance among provisional ballots in both counties.

Ventura is a 4.5k gap with 1.2k Provisional outstanding and OC is a ~15k vote gap and honestly I would be a bit surprised if there's much if anything out there.

I could potentially see El Dorado and Sutter counties flipping, assuming the unprocessed ballot report is current, and it looks like Sutter classified most provisionals as "other" for some weird reason.

Other than that, we have several counties with no updates since election day (Sonoma and Placer), where there is the potential for flips.

Sonoma really feels like a likely flip, considering the ED margins, and the major margin shift in Napa & Yolo. The main question is will it act more like Marin or Wine Country/ North Coast.

Placer seems like an unlikely flip, considering the ED % margin spread, but with only a 4.5k vote margin and some 39.4k Late VbMs and 4.4k Provisionals, it certainly isn't outside the realm of possibility. Many of these are likely Republican ballots in a heavily Republican County. Hillary only got 47.7% in '08, and in order for it to flip it would require something slightly greater than a Napa like swing from ED (+6%).

San Diego County is mathematically possible to flip with a 24k vote spread and 45k provisionals, but this would require an extremely unlikely scenario of virtually all of the provisionals being valid Dem ballots and Bernie winning 75% of them. Needless to say, final margins will probably be more like  (48-52 Hillary).

Did I miss any other potential county flips?

[NOVA Green]

Count updated to:

Clinton 53.9% - 2,632,238
Sanders 45.2% - 2,203,663

Standing by my prediction of a 53-46 final margin.

Ok--- for fun I'll use a slightly more conservative model and call it a +7.5% Clinton so roughly something like (45.8-53.3% Hillary).

This assumes that Sonoma and Placer County Dem VbMs ~44k will only go (52-48 Bernie). LA County provisionals (80-100k Dem) will continue only (57-43 Bernie), only 55% of outstanding Central Valley votes will be valid Dem ballots and only break 55-57% Bernie, North Coast will be 70% Dem and break 65-70% Bernie, San Diego/Riverside/San Bernadino provisionals will break about 60% Dem averaging 60% Bernie, relatively constant with the trending, and Sac Provisionals will be a rough split (53-47 Bernie), and there will be a little extra change for Bernie elsewhere along with another 4.5k vote gain on Hillary from Santa Cruz/ SLO/ Monterey and Santa Barbara combined.

[NOVA Green]

So I haven't been following the count that closely lately. Looked at the results by congressional district and CD-46 flipped! That is not a district I would have expected Bernie to do well in, not to mention actually win.

Still looking at the CD numbers now that we're finally starting to get some real numbers from SoCal, but its actually not that surprising considering what we have seen elsewhere in some of the heavily Latino working-class urban communities in the state.

For example, Inner Mission in SF was (57-43 Bernie) on ED with early votes+ Same Day. Watsonville in SC County (49-51 ED), East LA (44-56 Hillary on ED), San Jose City in general good ED numbers...

Even if we look at heavily Latino Central Valley Counties and the huge swings from ED votes, there appears to be a huge  swing from '08 Clinton margins among Latinos.

Honestly, it wouldn't surprise me to see Bernie actually having performed better among Latinos than Anglos overall in Cali considering the age/class gap, and what is essentially two different political coalitions built from the '08 Obama/Clinton and '16 Bernie/Hillary campaigns.

That's probably a future study for Poly-Sci students working on their Masters or PhD studies, and in the meantime, in the absence of exit polls, we'll need to settle for gradually sifting through the raw data of precinct reports, Census Data, etc...

Edited to change "Would surprise me to wouldn't surprise me"

[NOVA Green]

Even if Bernie did better among Anglos than Latinos in the state as a whole, he definitely didn't in the Bay Area and Southern California.

Okay--- this might well be correct, unfortunately we don't have any exit polling data to work off of, so what do you see to make such a definitive statement?

Curious and not argumentative... just working towards the further pursuit of knowledge through data...

[NOVA Green]

Even if Bernie did better among Anglos than Latinos in the state as a whole, he definitely didn't in the Bay Area and Southern California.

Any clue as to how Asians voted?

No real idea about SoCal, but it does appear that Obama did better in '08 among Asian-American communities in Sunset, and heavily Asian-American parts of Silicon Valley in Santa Clara County...

Wouldn't be surprised if the Asian-American and Latino vote in Oakland is what caused the city to vote narrowly Bernie, but again no precinct level data at this point to truly break down ethnic demographics  by neighborhood, and even the LA County city level data has not been updated since ED, so much data lacking.

However, it does appear that upper-income Asian-Americans in both the South Bay & Peninsula in the Bay Area and in SoCal voted like their neighbors overwhelmingly for Clinton. Meanwhile more middle-class Asian-American communities in places like Santa Clara and Milipitas appear to have moved away from Clinton versus '08 numbers.

[NOVA Green]

Even if Bernie did better among Anglos than Latinos in the state as a whole, he definitely didn't in the Bay Area and Southern California.

Looking at some of the CD results, I would not be surprised if Whites and Latinos voted fairly similarly in Southern California. That is something the polls were picking up on.

Yeah looking at places like CD-46 (Anaheim and Santa Ana) and CD-40 which is 87% Latino (East LA, Downey, Huntington Park, etc...) where Bernie got 47% and 43% respectively so far, it really seems like, at least within the larger Metro areas there wasn't that much of an ethnic divide and more age/income divide.

I'm seeing similar results looking at Santa Clara County county precinct numbers where in the South Bay  it's not really looking like there were significant differences in votes based upon ethnicity, but greater correlation between "Middle-Class" versus "Wealthy" areas in voting patterns.

I thought this was what we talked about right after the election, where I commented on CD-46 in particular.... is there something new you are picking up on?

[NOVA Green]

Even if Bernie did better among Anglos than Latinos in the state as a whole, he definitely didn't in the Bay Area and Southern California.

Okay--- this might well be correct, unfortunately we don't have any exit polling data to work off of, so what do you see to make such a definitive statement?

Curious and not argumentative... just working towards the further pursuit of knowledge through data...

Hillary doing better in CD-14 and 18 than 17 and 19 for example. CD-13 obviously. In SoCal you have CD-34 vs CD-33. CD-46 as mentioned. CD 29 vs CD 30. Also note that I am not saying that Bernie did better than Hillary among Latinos in the Bay Area and SoCal, just that he didn't do worse. I am saying that it was a tie.

Also, I know we already talked about it. Just astounded Bernie actually ended up winning CD-46.

This is definitely the story of the 'Cali '16 Dem Primary, where in a majority-minority state and primary electorate (52% of '08 Dems in Exit polls self-identified as "minority", whatever the F**k that means in modern day America.... I'm assuming (and without exit polls that somewhere close to 55% of the '16 Cali Dem Primary electorate does not self-identify as "White" (Whatever the F**k that means).

The old California of "California Uber Alles" Brown/Reagan dichotomy  is long dead and gone, and a fading ghost of a fictional paradise of rose tinted glasses in OC back in the late '50s and early '60s.

The New California has come of age, and as the most multi-ethnic state in the union has clearly come of age to the point that even in the 2016 Democratic Primary race/ethnicity has become essentially a non-issue and primarily the Democratic electorate is voting more along economic class based lines rather than tribal politics...

Trump has obviously motivated a buttload of new voters to register Dem early, many of whom voted in the Dem Primary, and hopefully that battleship will continue to the GE regardless of the new voters in places like Long Beach, Fresno, Sacramento, and Modesto that voted for the first time in an election for Bernie, and this investment needs to continue to fuel increased Dem turnout in overwhelmingly Latino districts in Cali, where for too long, there has been a single party state.

"Si Se Puede"----

[NOVA Green]

So Bernie probably lost whites in CA?

It looks like the jury is still out, pending more detailed precinct level analysis....

What does seem clear is that Clinton significantly under-performed her '08 numbers among Latino voters throughout the state, lost some ground among Asian-American voters in the Bay Area, gained significantly among upper-income Anglos in Bay Area and LA versus '08 numbers, won the African-American vote in Bay Area, Sacramento, and Metro LA, and lost some ground among working and lower-middle class Anglos in rural and small-town NorCal and Sierra Nevada regions. It does also appear that she performed significantly better than she did among LGBT voters in the Bay Area from '08 to '16, but the only data point without exit polling, is the precinct level data from the Castro District in the SFC where Obama won in '08 and was Hillary's 2nd best neighborhood in the City in '16.

So at this point, without some final election precinct numbers and deep dive into county-by-county, city-by-city, it will be difficult to definitively assess vote breakdown by ethnic self-identification, considering the giant rainbow quilt that is California of the 2010s, and will likely be a "crowd-sourcing" endeavor of final precinct level data, combined with GIS maps, census tract level data, and data modelling.

I think we were still mining the data from the '08 Dem primary by county precinct level data well into March 2009 to try to understand the respective Obama/Hillary California coalitions, but at least then we did have an exit poll to give us a reference point!

Much is made of race/ethnicity whenever California politics are discussed, since obviously as the future model of pluralistic and multi-ethnic America, it is easy to look at elections through that prism. In the 2008 Democratic Primary the media narrative focused heavily on that theme, for obvious reasons, as well as the historic nature of the Obama/Clinton contest, and I personally believe that was overshadowed in that narrative in the context of the California primary was that many upper middle-class Anglos backed Obama heavily on the basis of the Iraq War, rather than the more pragmatic "economics" oriented theme of the Hillary campaign that help frame the contrast and coalitions of the two respective candidates.

The 2016 Democratic Primary was more of a contrast of economic policy, rather than foreign policy, so the California Democratic electorate split more along "social/economic class" and "age". And sure, there was likely a bit of a gender gap as well in '16, as there was in '08, but since men and women generally live roughly 51-49 Female in most neighborhoods and cities, this is a variable that has less overall significance in an overwhelmingly Democratic state like California, than in many other parts of the country, where the female share of the Democratic electorate is significantly larger than in Cali.

Honestly wouldn't be surprised and Sbane might well be right, that Latinos and Anglos voted about the same in Bay Area and SoCal overall, and that Hillary won by similar margins among the three largest ethnic groups in Cali, including Asian-Americans, and also won 60-40 of the African-American vote in the Bay Area (Only have Tenderloin, and Bayview-Hunterspoint, and overall Oakland numbers to base this on) and a bit higher in SoCal (Limited data but Hillary won by impressive margins in heavily AA neighborhoods in Compton and North Long Beach).

[NOVA Green]

So Bernie probably lost whites in CA?

It does also appear that she performed significantly better than she did among LGBT voters in the Bay Area from '08 to '16, but the only data point without exit polling, is the precinct level data from the Castro District in the SFC where Obama won in '08 and was Hillary's 2nd best neighborhood in the City in '16.

This pleases me greatly.

Cool--- Happy you like the results from a community that obviously has a special place in the heart of the not only LGBT America (Next to lower Eastside Manhatten) as an epicenter for liberation, self-determination, and struggle for true equality in America, but also for all Americans whose lives have been touched deeply and personally for decades as a result of that struggle for social justice and equality.

Personally for me, the Castro is not only one of my favorite neighborhoods in the City, but also one of the friendliest, and most welcoming parts of the City. Although SF has become increasingly gentrified and impersonal since I first visited in 1989 and spent much time in subsequent years, at a time where political demonstrations were commonplace, the Castro really is the "heart of the City", and every time driving or taking a trolley up Telegraph Avenue and getting off at Duboce Triangle, and seeing the giant rainbow flag flying, and even when I was living in South Bay in 2012 taking CalTrain up for a weekend, was a welcome relief from an extremely stressful job scene.

Now, my data is based upon SFC precinct level results that include three "distinct" neighborhoods that are widely defined as part of the Castro District (Duboce Triangle, Corona Heights, Eureka Valley/ Dolores Heights). I did run the numbers to include later provisional ballots, and it still appears that Hillary still won the Castro District by 63-37 or 62-38 despite dropping a few points from Early Voting/Ed numbers compared to final results.

2008 Cali Dem Primary exit polls show Hillary winning the LGBT vote 62-32 Statewide, although she narrowly lost the Castro District in '08 and won by 20+ Points in '16.

Now, we can't assume LGBT voting habits in Cali based upon one neighborhood of one city, but in the absence of any exit polling (And am thinking Cali was the only Dem Primary in '08 where this question was asked and not asked anywhere in '16) , do we have any other neighborhoods/precincts, for example in certain parts of West LA, Sac, and Oakland, that could indicate a dramatic '08 to '16 swing towards Hillary among LGBT Californians?

Elections are always won and lost on the margins, so if Hillary lost the Castro in '08 to Obama when she was beating Obama by 30 points in Cali in '08 among LGBT exit polls statewide, was there a huge swing outside of one particular heavily LGBT neighborhood that moved the needle a point or two?

[NOVA Green]

Ok... new update, and first since late Friday when we had a major vote dump.

77.3k New Dem ballots since late Friday 46k-31k Bernie (59-41 Bernie)/

1.) LA County- 58.1 Dem Ballots almost all provisionals (57.4-42.6 Bernie).

What is particularly interesting is not the margin, which has been relatively consistently (57-43 Bernie) since they first started counting provisionals on 6/21, but that based upon the official outstanding "uncounted ballot report", the LA Count Election department website, it appears that almost 90% of the provisional ballots counted in the latest update are valid Dem Party ballots.

Now I am not convinced that at the end of the day the remaining ~110k ballots will be 90% valid Dem, but needless to say if the vast majority of outstanding LA County ballots are valid D and continue the 57-43 Bernie number, that will impact not only the LA County total numbers, but also a 0.1% or two off of statewide margins. *If* that trend continues, which I believe the latest vote is not representative of we could potentially see only a (45.5-54.5% Hillary) win in LA County which will swing statewide margins.

2.) Monterey County- 6k (56-44 Bernie) since last update. There aren't very many votes remaining here, but it appears that at the end of the day Hillary's margins will be a bit lower than in '08 over Obama.

3.) San Mateo County- 3.4k (90-10 Bernie). I have no real explanation for these results from one of Hillary's strongest counties in the state that it appears that they might be providing updates upon municipality precinct orders, otherwise it make absolutely no sense that you could provisional results even more Hillary than ED numbers among provisionals, and then a few days later have such an extreme contrast that hasn't been seen among provisional votes even in the strongest Bernie counties in the state. Still there are a few k votes out there, and giant wild card based upon the extremely weird variance thus far.

4.) Solano County- 2.5k Dem Provisonal ballots (62-38 Bernie). Not a county on the radar as the unprocessed ballot report indicated there were no more outstanding ballots.

5.) San Diego County- 2.2k Dem Provisional ballots (66-34 Bernie). Still a ton of provisionals out of SD County, although it appears that <55% are valid Dem Party ballots.

6.) Ventura County- 1.8k Dem ballots (66-34 Bernie) and I think the county is pretty much done counting provisionals.

7.) SLO- 1.2k Dem Provisonal ballots (71-29 Bernie). Not much out there, but provisional trend indicates there will some drip on the margins.

8.) Riverside- 1.2k Dem Provisional ballots (67-33 Bernie). There are actually a decent chunk of provisional ballots from Riverside and appear heavily valid Dem ballots. Obviously these are significant provisional margins in terms of overall county percentage, as well as Democratic votes outstanding.

9.) Imperial- 1k Dem Provisional ballots (43-57 Hillary). Her strongest county in the state in both '08 and '16 and also an indication of her dramatic collapse in support among rural Latinos between '08 and '16, of which there are even better examples in the South Central Valley.

So far now, I will hold at my 7.5% Hillary win prediction, but there are still some variables in LA County, as well as counties that have not updated results since Election Day that could change that.

[NOVA Green]

What ?

Hillary was at 60-40 or something in CA on election night and could end at only 53-46 ?

There must have been a ton of ballots left to be counted ...

Sure looks to be close to the case...

The really weird thing, while you have been chillin' in Austria, is that it looks like Bernie will end up performing better in LA County, than the entire Bay Area combined.....

[NOVA Green]

Margin narrows to 8.5%.

Clinton - 53.8% - 2,664,312
Sanders - 45.3% - 2,246,936

It's pretty amazing that despite changes in candidate coalitions, the time the primary was held, and the just the passage of 8 years in general, CA basically did the exact same thing it did in 2008. 2008 was Clinton +8.3%, the margin this time does not differ from that by a statistically relevant amount. Talk about inelastic.

Agreed, that is one of the more interesting stories of the '08 and '16 California primaries. Hillary managed to simultaneously pull significant chunks of the Obama '08 state coalition, lost a decent chunk of her '08 base, maintained a solid core of her '08 support, and grabbed some Edwards voters here and there.

Here is a map that uses Hillary's '08 numbers as a baseline (Where there were two candidates other than Obama and Hillary that got a combined 5-10% of the vote in most counties), where obviously Hillary is the only constant between '08 and '16.



So basically, her dramatic improvement in her percentages the Bay Area and Sacramento from '08 to '16, effectively offset a significant drop in her support in Southern California, Central Valley, and much of rural Northern California.

What is quite interesting is the areas where she had some of the biggest collapse in her actual vote % from '08 to '16 include rural and small-town areas in heavily Anglo Northern California, as well as heavily Latino parts of the Central Valley, and effectively erased the rural advantage that she had over Obama who did much better in urban areas in Norcal, and Sac, and Obama effectively got slaughtered in SoCal (Inland Empire and OC), lost San Diego County by only 12 points and LA County by about 13 points.

[NOVA Green]

So here's another map that shows the total margin swing between '08 and '16, again recognizing that there are still some counties that we are awaiting a decent chunk of votes from.

Basically, what this designed to illustrate is the impact of the total Hillary margin performance between '08 and '16, and demonstrate the impact of the Edwards and Kuchinich votes, as well as the impact of Hillary's dramatic improved performance in the Bay Area/Sac on her current California statewide margins.

So for example: 2008 Alameda County (52.2 Obama-43.6% Hillary) for a net -8.6% margin.
                        2016 Alamenda County (48.3 Bernie- 51.7% Hillary) for a net +3.4% margin
                        Map shows Alameda as purple to represent a total 12% margin swing.



So note, basically the only areas where there was improvement in Hillary's relative margins from 2008 was in the Bay Area/Sac, and a few parts of the Central Coast and a couple small rural Sierra Nevada Counties.

So at this point, it appears that Hillary's dramatic improvement in most of the Bay Area, was the key reason for her ~7-8% statewide win.

[NOVA Green]

Bay Area remains the best part of the state.

Hey--- I love the Bay for so many reasons, and would love to be able to afford to live there again....
Still trying to negotiate a relo with my senior management, but with the current COLA to compensate for cost of housing not too likely until FY17.

Back to politics, the fascinating thing about the total margin swings for Hillary between '08 and '16 is that there are only two counties with huge swings (Marin and SF). Marin had a whopping +33% total margin swing from '08 and SF +16%.

Interestingly enough, Santa Clara County was the only county in Bay Area "proper" with a relatively low margin swing towards Hillary (only +3.1% total margin swing). Now this was Hillary's best county in the Bay in '08 when she captured 53.8% in a multi-candidate field, however her dramatic gains from '08 to '16 in heavily Obama parts of the County (Mtn View and up the Peninsula, plus places like Saratoga and Los Gatos, were somewhat offset by a drop in performance in San Jose, Sunnyvale, and Santa Clara city.

[NOVA Green]

After today:

Clinton 53.6% - 2,681,392
Sanders 45.5% - 2,274,540

Looking pretty likely that the Clinton margin will be under 400,000 when everything is in.

Also, officially as of this moment, Bernie has outperformed Obama margins against Hillary in California.

2008 (43.16 Obama- 51.47 Hillary) = +8.3 % Hillary
2016 (45.5 Bernie- 53.6% Hillary)= +8.1% Hillary

[NOVA Green]

Revising my projections based upon new data points- Am now thinking total Dem Primary (Hillary + Bernie votes will be a bit higher than I estimated at the end of last week, more like 5,160,000 and that Hillary will likely finish below 7% over Bernie in Cali.

Late Vote-by-Mails aka VbM (Estimated Dem ballots 72k). My guess (42k-30k Bernie)

These include mostly counties where we have not yet seen any numbers since Election Day (Humboldt, Lake, Mendocino, Placer, and Sonoma). Am estimating VbMs will break (39k-28k) Bernie. Also, ~5k misc Dem late VbMs from a few misc counties (Santa Cruz, Stanislaus, Napa, LA, and some spare change from a few other places).
Conservatively (3k-2k Bernie)


Provisionals--- (Estimated remaining Dem ballots- 113k). My guess (69k-44k Bernie).

Almost 60% of these are from counties in Southern California that I think will break (42k-27k Bernie) based upon patterns we have seen thus far. Remaining (LA County, San Diego, Riverside, and San Bernadino).

Additionally, we likely have about 16k Dem Provisional ballots remaining from the Central Valley (San Joaquin, Kern, Stanislaus, and Tulare) that will likely break about (9.6k-6.4k Bernie).

Coastal counties- ~15k Dem Provisionals (Santa Barbara, Santa Cruz, Sonoma, Humboldt, Mendocino) that should break about (10k-5k Bernie)

Relatively small number from Sac/Placer (~15k Dem Provisionals) that will likely break about (8k-7k Bernie).

Based upon the updated results today and votes outstanding, am starting to think it looks more like a +6.9% Hillary win, and quite possibly lower (~+6.7%), rather than the +7.5% Hillary numbers I was forecasting earlier.

[NOVA Green]

Any chance the margin rounds to 52-47 at the end?

I would be shocked.... key variable would be Late VbMs in Sonoma and Placer (Combined total 75k votes) not only breaking heavily Democratic, but also heavily Bernie. This is a huge chunk of outstanding total ballots, and I estimated 60% of Sonoma would be Dem ballots and 55% in Placer County and would roughly break (53-55% Bernie) and a roughly (53-47% Bernie) off of Dem provisionals in Placer and Sacramento counties.

Even with a fairly conservative model based upon data trends with outstanding provisionals that are both valid Dem and average margins in reporting counties, things would really have to break hard in the closing numbers from the remaining provisionals in SoCal, Central Valley, North Coast, and Central Coast counties to close it a (47-52 Hillary) rounded out margin.

I'll need to play around with the numbers a bit more, but either way by EOD Friday we should have most of the remaining numbers in, with a trickle before next weeks final reporting deadline, so we'll finally have a pretty good idea within a few days!

[NOVA Green]

CA-02 has flipped back to Bernie. It'll go to him comfortably once the lazy ass counties that still haven't updated since election night get off their asses and do their job. CA really should shorten the canvass period to 2 weeks, a month is completely unnecessary just encourages ridiculous laziness like this.

Absolute truth,, bolded for emphasis.

Now in all fairness to the Cali election system in general (and not about the handful of counties that haven't provided updates since ED), it appears that their state election laws do really attempt do make it easy to not only vote and have every vote counted regardless of absentee, versus early voting, versus vote-by-mail versus provisional, and part of the reason for the delay is it is such a complex hybrid system that requires going back checking Vote-by-Mail requests against provisional ballots, follow-ups for a week after election day with individuals that forgot to sign the back of their mail-in-ballot, etc....

So part of the delay in general is probably as a result of that, but still I think their should be a standardized process that requires at least weekly updates, rather than the patchwork quilt that is the current county election reporting process.

[NOVA Green]

Can anyone explain why Some Dude Phil Wyman carried a handful of counties in the Senate race, but neither of the "credible candidates" like Sundheim or Del Beccaro did? Was he at the top of the ballot or something?

Ok.... not a real follower of what passes for Republican politics in California, or what is essentially a virtually non-existent party in much of the state, but thinking the following:

1.) Name Recognition- Although Sundheim and Del Beccaro were well known among Republican party insiders in Cali, for their leading role within the Cali Republican machine, they weren't well known to many Republican voters. Wyman was at least somewhat well known within the Inland Empire and South Central Valley as a result of his long career in the state legislature, where he earned the nickname "carpet-bagger" because he was always hopping CDs... Also, he almost upset an "establishment Republican" for the AG election in 2014.

2.) Tea Party and Libertarian support- Not sure how valid this element is, but a little internet research showed him getting pretty high marks from these segments of the Republican party, that likely played well in the heavily rural and Republican leaning counties that he performed best in. Also high marks from Anti-Abortion activists in a state where many Republicans really don't want to be associated as being anti-choice.

3.) Water Rights- He appears to have done well in non-urban agricultural parts of the state, where the drought and water issues are prominent among many Republicans. He floated a crazy idea of importing water from the Upper Mississippi River to California as a solution for the water issue. Not sure how many other crazy things he said on this topic, but it got him a ton of free local media throughout many parts of the state.

4.) General Insane Statements to get public attention- He called for the death penalty for a major California politician convicted on corruption charges that got him a lot of free statewide media attention, and cemented an image as a "non-conventional"political figure.

Anyways, that's what I could find out, but I'm sure some of resident California gurus probably have a better angle on this guy...