Super Saturday is behind us! Can we stop calling all major voting days “Super” now? Please?
Here are the winners:
Kansas Republican & Democratic Caucuses
Ted Cruz & Bernie Sanders
Kentucky Republican Caucuses
Donald Trump
Louisiana Republican & Democratic Primaries
Donald Trump & Hillary Clinton
Maine Republican Caucus
Ted Cruz
Nebraska Democratic Caucus
Bernie Sanders
That leaves Clinton & Sanders with the following pledged delegate counts this morning (not including superdelegates):
- Clinton: 651
- Sanders: 456
On the Republican side, the race is starting to look a bit tighter between Trump & Cruz:
- Trump: 380
- Cruz: 297
- Rubio: 123
- Kasich: 35
Yesterday hardly locked up a nomination for any candidate on either side, so we continue trudging forward in this strange game we call Democracy. There’s another string of primaries and caucuses coming up over the next 10 days, with plenty of delegates at stake on both sides of the aisle: 888 Democratic delegates (~1/3 of total delegates needed to win the nomination), and 577 (~1/2 of needed delegates) for the Republicans. This means that by March 15th, there is potentially going to be a much clearer picture of who the nominee will be in November, at least on the Republican side.
On the Democratic side, Sanders supporters will point to the fact that states will still be voting all the way until June 14th. They’re right there – historically, Hillary Clinton didn’t concede the race to Barack Obama until June 7th, 2008 – four days after 2008’s last Democratic primary/caucus. But that may or may not be a good indicator of how 2016 will pan out. In the ’08 race, Clinton held a much slimmer lead in superdelegates than she does this time around. It’s true that she held a strong 2-1 lead over Obama early on, with 169 superdelegates in her pocket; however, this election cycle she claimed 440 of the superdelegates over Sanders almost right out of the gate. Current superdelegate totals point to Clinton having a 458-22 lead over Bernie Sanders – a much larger margin than ’08.
Of course, superdelegates can change their mind all the way up until the convention in July – and they’re in no way held to voting the same way as the state they represent. Sanders will need to show a commanding presence in the upcoming days if he wants to start convincing superdelegates to swing his way. Even if Sanders were to win 100% of the upcoming races (he won’t), he will likely be fighting this until the last Democratic primary on June 14th, much like Clinton did in 2008. Not that it necessarily matters – former Vermont Governor (and superdelegate) Howard Dean has reminded people that he is under no pressure to change his superdelegate vote, even though his state went to Sanders:
https://twitter.com/GovHowardDean/status/706219827535462401
A nomination has never been decided by superdelegates, but we’ve also never seen an election cycle quite like this one before. If Sanders won the popular vote and all superdelegates stuck with Clinton, it could cost the Democrats the White House in November, as disillusioned Sanders supporters may choose to sit out the race entirely.
Isn’t Democracy great?
Regardless, here are the next 10 days in upcoming races, along with their delegate counts (source). If you’ll be voting in an upcoming primary or caucus, make sure you’ve found your polling location ahead of time and checked the necessary voter ID laws in your state.
- Maine Democratic Caucus: March 6th (25 delegates)
- Puerto Rico Republican Primary: March 6th (23 delegates)
- Hawaii Republican Caucus: March 8th (19 delegates)
- Idaho Republican Primary: March 8th (32 delegates)
- Michigan Republican/Democratic Primaries: March 8th (R: 59 delegates; D: 130 delegates)
- Mississippi Republican/Democratic Primaries: March 8th (R: 40 delegates; D: 36 delegates)
- Guam Republican Convention: March 12th (9 delegates)
- District of Columbia Republican Convention: March 12th (19 delegates)
- Florida Republican/Democratic Primaries: March 15th (R: 99 delegates; D: 214 delegates)
- Illinois Republican/Democratic Primaries: March 15th (R: 69 delegates; D: 156 delegates)
- Missouri Republican/Democratic Primaries: March 15th (R: 52 delegates; D: 71 delegates)
- North Carolina Republican/Democratic Primaries: March 15th (R: 72 delegates; D: 107 delegates)
- Northern Marianas Republican/Democratic Caucuses: March 15th (R: 9 delegates; D: 6 delegates)
- Ohio Republican/Democratic Primaries: March 15th (R: 66 delegates; D: 143 delegates)
In a lot of the western states, Sanders has an advantage of his own.
Sanders actually has done a lot for Indians. He co-sponsored VAWA, opposed KXL. Hillary…Okay, it might be better to just lump both Clintons together here and say, um he invited Indians from the US, Canada, and Mexico to the White House to celebrate NAFTA?
We also see Sanders as better for continuing Obama’s legacy; with Clinton, um, do you want a bunch of YouTube links from 2008?
But NDN (Conservadems, please give us back our acronym, err, rebus. We’ve been using it since at least the 90s. You’ve only been using it since DLC acquired the stench of Lieberman.) politics doesn’t just skew left. For instance, a lot of gun control talk makes me think of a winter night in, oh, I’d say 1890?
And their talk about Sanders’ “rape fantasy”…funny thing is, starting in the 80s, Indians started writing a lot of plays. These plays were written mostly by women and LGBT writers. And these plays…featured a lot of rape, to the point that it became trite. I doubt they were expressing sexual fantasies.
Pardon my confusion. Are you responding to something that was written in this post? As someone who writes on these topics, and has followed them closely since my early adulthood, I’m well aware of each candidates positions and what they’ve done in the past (No, I don’t um, want a bunch of YouTube links from 2008).
Sanders did wonderfully in the debate, I loved his no-nonsense position on fracking and its impact on the environment (methane leaks, earthquakes, water infiltration) and how he called for the resignation of the MI governor first. And he got results in MI tonight ;-)