Sunday, April 24, 2016

The April 26 primaries


According to the polls, the states in the Northeast that will cast their ballots on Tuesday should not produce any surprises. In all the polls released this month in Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland and Pennsylvania, Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton hold commanding leads. Rhode Island is also voting but there is no fresh data about how the voters feel. In such cases, the best indicator is what is happening in neighboring states, and the neighbors of Rhode Island favor Trump and Clinton as well.

As with all the races on the Democratic side, the delegate selection is proportional, which should mean Clinton will extend her lead. For all the fuss about super-delegates, it should be noted that Clinton has a commanding lead over Sanders in the popular vote count so far. A lot of Sanders fans are very passionate and will consider that shenanigans were the deciding factor in his loss. I sent money to Sanders, but I am not convinced of skulduggery. Hillary has amassed more votes.

On the other side, I am absolutely convinced of shenanigans and skulduggery, and there could easily be more on Tuesday. Of the five races, Delaware and Maryland are winner take all, but the big prize of Pennsylvania has some very arcane rules. Of the 71 delegates that will be apportioned, only 17 are bound to vote for the candidate who gets the most votes Tuesday and the other 54 are up for grabs. There is talk that his organization has finally figured out the game and will do whatever is necessary to nail down the majority of delegates in Pennsylvania, but I will wait to see what happens. Trump always talks a big game, but when all is said and done, his results are often not as yuge as he said they would be.

There are people doing more math than I am, and many of them say he will get to the magic number of1,237 delegates pledged before the convention starts in Cleveland. I am still in wait and see mode. No amount of poll aggregation can tell us what is happening in smoke-filled rooms in places like Pennsylvania.

The next big primary is Indiana a week from Tuesday. On the GOP side, it's winner take all and Trump leads, though only by single digits. I'll report on that next weekend.

3 comments:

  1. Well, obviously I have a rooting interest, so I would love to see Drumpf fall short, and fail in the first ballot, so then ALL HELL BREAKS LOOSE!!!

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    1. That would be interesting. I get the feeling that even if he hits the magic number, some of his opponents might not give up.

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  2. Also worth noting, Marquette recently had Feingold 10 points up on RonJon. The Supreme Court race in Wisconsin kind of indicates that Bernie has no coattails to speak of, so having Clinton head the ticket (and helping the down ballot races) has me mildly hopeful. Of course, the Sick Koch Sick Money Sickness has not really begun pouring in yet, and expect plenty of racist (Feingold=JEWY JEW!) and lying attack ads....

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