The Delegate Fight: 2016

[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.

[#TheShadowyAbyss]

Ted Cruz won 10 of the 13 delegates up for grabs at the Virginia Republican Convention yesterday, with Donald Trump taking the other three after state delegates voted in favor of the slate recommended by the nominations committee.

[The Other Castro]

Looks like some of Cruz's unbound delegates are wavering in North Dakota:

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http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/02/us/politics/ted-cruz-delegate-count.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=first-column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=1

[Bigby]

Looks like some of Cruz's unbound delegates are wavering in North Dakota:

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http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/02/us/politics/ted-cruz-delegate-count.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=first-column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=1

This is why unbound delegates are horrible. Of course, I'd get rid of delegates entirely.

[BCSWowbagger]

As I've said before, that's not going to happen because it would be the Alamo for Trump supporters and would guarantee that they come back in force and potentially become a full fledged political machine that takes over the party by the 2020's.  The GOP establishment would prefer even a 61/37 Trump loss with 2 years of 1960's level Dem majorities in congress to that.  And there is no consensus that Trump will do that badly anyway.

Not saying it's a sure thing; just saying that I think the chances are widely underestimated.

Cruz and Kasich are both wildly ambitious people who will stop at nothing to win if they see a path.  They are both recruiting hundreds and hundreds of delegates loyal either to them, or to #StopTrump in general -- not the Republican establishment itself -- and who are sufficiently fanatic about it to go against the popular will of Republican voters by putting anti-Trump loyalists in Trump delegate slots.  These are precisely the people most likely to assert the power of delegates over the majoritarian will, and the convention is filling up with them fast.

Since it's very likely there will be an anti-Trump majority on the convention floor, the decisive questions are going to be: (1) how large is that majority? (2) how committed are they?  If they're more like the North Dakota delegation (which was always wishy-washy, if you recall the original story), then they'll by-and-large cave in to Trump.  If there are enough who are more like the Minnesota delegation -- Trump delenda est! -- then they could (without much trouble, actually) nuke the primary.  (There would, of course, be trouble afterward.)

By my count, the convention is currently:

458 Cruz
141 Kasich
143 Generic Anti-Trump
(742 total anti-Trump)

vs.

399 Trump

...with 254 unknown/uncommitted (the majority of those are RNC members, who are notoriously hard to pin down) and 1077 left to be elected.

(SOURCE: my spreadsheet, which largely overlaps with erc's and uses the same basic format - docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1EuyzjVHq2Ku_eU-4TLaNP5CyY_PXAykaSgZWZuEPfCg/edit#gid=376632774)

Nuking the primary remains unlikely, but, if you were ever going to see it, this is exactly the kind of convention makeup that would allow it to happen.

[SkyeZee]

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/)

[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!

[SkyeZee]

Alaska delegates selected
(alaskagop.org/gop_delegates_chosen_to_represent_alaska_in_cleveland)

[H.E. VOLODYMYR ZELENKSYY]

What happens to Cruz's delegates now?

[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?

[Ljube]

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?

You want to freeze the moment in time? You want to live in the past? You really took Trump's victory hard.

[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).

[World politics is up Schmitt creek]

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?

[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.

[yankeesfan]

John Yob @strategic
Platform just replaced Rules as the committee for the cool kids in Cleveland.
11h

[Mr. Morden]

Should I keep this thread stickied?

Which threads do people want stickied at this point?  I was thinking of stickying the VP denials thread:

https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=234526.0

after repurposing it as a general purpose thread about VP news.  As with four years ago, I'd prefer to have a separate thread about VP idle speculation, so that the news thread doesn't get swamped by people's dumb speculations.

[Erc]

I'm fine with unstickying it.

[Mr. Morden]

I'm fine with unstickying it.

OK.  Here we go...

[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.

[dax00]

So the Donald's campaign was correct in asserting that he'd break 1400.

[Angel of Death]

Bumping this as a salute to the effort displayed in this thread.

[LLR]

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?

[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.