US President 2016 - the Great Horse Race

[Jimmy Higgins]

Sanders takes two crucial states, Idaho and Utah. Winning with about 80% of the vote in Utah seems to imply, without any doubt, that Sanders can win Utah in November!

Utah stands behind Sanders!

The latest polls have both Clinton and Sanders beating Trump handily in Utah. If there's a situation where the Democrats are competitive in Utah, let alone favoured there, it spells a disaster for the GOP.

Holy WTF?! I was joking. That'd be something. They run Trump and the GOP loses in Mondale fashion.

 

[lpetrich]

Here's the full score.

D
Arizona: Clinton
Idaho, Utah: Sanders

R
Arizona: Trump > Cruz > Kasich
Utah: Cruz > Kasich > Trump

Ted Cruz had a massive victory in Utah, with nearly 70% of the vote. Does anyone have any idea what might have made a difference?

 

[Tom Sawyer]

Here's the full score.

D
Arizona: Clinton
Idaho, Utah: Sanders

R
Arizona: Trump > Cruz > Kasich
Utah: Cruz > Kasich > Trump

Ted Cruz had a massive victory in Utah, with nearly 70% of the vote. Does anyone have any idea what might have made a difference?

I think it was probably Romney. He's their boy. If he tells them to vote for the not-Trump, they're going to go out and vote for the not-Trump. It seems that the GOP establishment has decided that Kasich isn't the GOP establishment candidate and their focus right now is getting him to drop out so that Cruz has a better chance of denying Trump a majority of delegates and then they'll fling a dead cat into the crowd and nominate whomever it hits on the second ballot.

 

[Terrell]

The latest polls have both Clinton and Sanders beating Trump handily in Utah. If there's a situation where the Democrats are competitive in Utah, let alone favoured there, it spells a disaster for the GOP.

Holy WTF?! I was joking. That'd be something. They run Trump and the GOP loses in Mondale fashion.

That's way beyond abnormal. I'd hesitate, at this time, to say that Secretary Clinton or Senator Sanders against Trump would be as big of an ass whipping than the ones received by Mondale & McGovern. It could be that there's something about Trump that the citizens of Utah dislike more than they would dislike Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders and may not apply to the other Red States. If Trump gets the nomination, I'd like to see polling across all the Red States in October. I'd be more confident with a prediction on the results then.

 

[Derec]

Ted Cruz had a massive victory in Utah, with nearly 70% of the vote. Does anyone have any idea what might have made a difference?

- Mitt Romney telling them to vote for Cruz.
- Mormons tend to be religious nuts and Cruz is one also. In addition, Mormonism is very legalistic (not even allowed to drink coffee, tea or soda or watch PG-13 movies!) and Trump's lifestyle surely grates at their moral sensibilities.

 

[funinspace]

To many posts in short order, to not include reference...

Here's the full score.

D
Arizona: Clinton
Idaho, Utah: Sanders

R
Arizona: Trump > Cruz > Kasich
Utah: Cruz > Kasich > Trump

Ted Cruz had a massive victory in Utah, with nearly 70% of the vote. Does anyone have any idea what might have made a difference?

I think it was probably Romney. He's their boy. If he tells them to vote for the not-Trump, they're going to go out and vote for the not-Trump. It seems that the GOP establishment has decided that Kasich isn't the GOP establishment candidate and their focus right now is getting him to drop out so that Cruz has a better chance of denying Trump a majority of delegates and then they'll fling a dead cat into the crowd and nominate whomever it hits on the second ballot.

Also, Utah is a caucus state, and Cruz has typically fared better in such competitions. And Utah is about the opposite of Nevada as one can get... I'm sure the Romney factor helped as well.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Holy WTF?! I was joking. That'd be something. They run Trump and the GOP loses in Mondale fashion.

That's way beyond abnormal. I'd hesitate, at this time, to say that Secretary Clinton or Senator Sanders against Trump would be as big of an ass whipping than the ones received by Mondale & McGovern. It could be that there's something about Trump that the citizens of Utah dislike more than they would dislike Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders and may not apply to the other Red States. If Trump gets the nomination, I'd like to see polling across all the Red States in October. I'd be more confident with a prediction on the results then.

Fully agreed. I wouldn't put any weight in that poll other than, "Holy fuck, there was a poll with Dems beating Trump at all in a deep red state."

Also, Utah is a caucus state, and Cruz has typically fared better in such competitions. And Utah is about the opposite of Nevada as one can get... I'm sure the Romney factor helped as well.

This is about a poll released by a local paper, not the actual state result yesterday.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

So does Trump already have the nomination?

We are left with an odd sort of race now. Kasich isn't taking off... yet. He may be a late bloomer, but in order to definitely stop Trump, a "moderate" Republican needs to win the Northeastern states, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delaware, Wisconsin (technically NE part of nation). These states represent 218 or roughly one quarter of the remaining delegates. More importantly, they are in states where a candidate takes all of the delegates. So far, only Kasich or Rubio has been competitive in these states. No one would expect Cruz to come close to winning. And of course, while Kasich and Rubio were competitive, they were rarely winners.

Which means if Kasich drops out, those 218 delegates are likely Trump's. He needs about 438 delegates for the first ballot nomination. That takes him to 220 needed.

But there is one other thing to talk about. There are roughly 350ish delegates without a Daddy. Rubio, Carson, Bush and the others have won around 350 delegates, if including Kasich. How these get redistributed in an open Representative Democracy is more complicated than answering, "Do these pants make me look fat?" Trump may possibly have a good chunk of those Fatherless Delegates, which would reduce Trump's magic number even more. Of course, the politics behind reassigning delegates can also come into play.

Obviously California is a major player. The only other delegate rich state is NY, but that is Proportional, so the win there is less important unlike most of the other northern states.

So right now, the only possibility it seems, other than dark backroom politics to prevent Trump from getting the nomination is by having all the candidates get back in the race.

 

[Rhea]

Here's the full score.

D
Arizona: Clinton
Idaho, Utah: Sanders

R
Arizona: Trump > Cruz > Kasich
Utah: Cruz > Kasich > Trump

Ted Cruz had a massive victory in Utah, with nearly 70% of the vote. Does anyone have any idea what might have made a difference?

I read an article about interviews with the voters. Their "moral values" are greater than their libertarian ones. So Trump is immoral and therefore shunned. Three wives, but not all at once!

The article went on to say, this is why they prefer SANDERS over the GOP. He is moral, strongly so in their eyes. So the article showed why this was true in Utah and also Wyoming and Idaho. Mormons detest hedonism and mormons live in those three places in large numbers.

 

[Sarpedon]

According to the good people at FiveThirtyEight, Trump is running BELOW his projected target to get the nomination: They took the time to figure out a reasonable path to the nomination for each major candidate, based on their appeal to different groups. Cruz, for example, was supposed to win big through the South, and failed, so he is well below his target, which is currently higher than Trump's. Trump, due to his better than expected performance in the South, was running slightly above his target for a while, but since Ohio, he's fallen slightly below the target. However, not so low as he couldn't fix it with a few small wins. However, the projection is that he misses the goal by a small number (thirty delegates or so).

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

That doesn't take into account the missing Delegates, does it?

Found an Alaska GOP article on the reassignment after Rubio left. Causes an odd outcome.

Here are the primary results:
Cruz: 8,369
Trump: 7,740
Rubio: 3,488
Carson: 2,492
Kasich: 918

With Rubio in the race, Cruz has 12, Trump has 11, Rubio has 5 delegates.

Without Rubio, Cruz has 14 and Trump has 14. So much for 'to victor go the spoils'.

 

[Sarpedon]

Not every state reassigns delegates based on whether they stay in the race. In most cases the delegates become unbound. I had no idea that Alaska retroactively reassigns them.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Not every state reassigns delegates based on whether they stay in the race. In most cases the delegates become unbound. I had no idea that Alaska retroactively reassigns them.

From what I have read, it varies greatly from State to State.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

According to the good people at FiveThirtyEight, Trump is running BELOW his projected target to get the nomination: They took the time to figure out a reasonable path to the nomination for each major candidate, based on their appeal to different groups. Cruz, for example, was supposed to win big through the South, and failed, so he is well below his target, which is currently higher than Trump's. Trump, due to his better than expected performance in the South, was running slightly above his target for a while, but since Ohio, he's fallen slightly below the target. However, not so low as he couldn't fix it with a few small wins. However, the projection is that he misses the goal by a small number (thirty delegates or so).

And that's exactly why the GOP establishment is so anti-Kasich at the moment. While they despise both Trump and Cruz and few of them have been able to work up any more of a positive or negative opinion of Kasich than anyone else, the only thing he can do in the race is split the anti-Trump vote and let him grab some more delegates in a WTA state which could potentially go to Cruz instead if he wasn't there. While they don't actually want Cruz to get delegates, the more he gets, the less Trump gets and if they both finish below 50% in the polls, they can both then be fucked over in the later rounds of voting to give the nomination to whichever sacrificial lamb feels like being stomped in the face by Hillary Clinton for a few months before slinking off into obscurity.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

So if Kasich drops out, are his delegates available then? Is this why some people don't abandon the race, just put it on pause to hold onto the delegates?

 

[Sarpedon]

Yes, there's having the nomination sewn up before the convention, by having a majority of pledged delegates, then there's winning on the first ballot, which one can do if one goes to the convention without the majority of pledged delegates, but can pick up the shortfall from unpledged delegates, and then there's the true contested convention, with multiple ballots and the majority of delegates becoming free agents.

I can see that the big fear for the establishment now is that Trump could be blocked from getting the majority before the election, only to win on the first ballot because a small number of unpledged delegates prefer him to a long day of yelling and possible violence. If he comes 30 delegates short, it is very feasible that 30 unpledged might vote for him because, hey, he is the clear leader and the will of the voters can't be denied. (or Trump could bribe them)

But if the establishment can prevent him from winning on the first ballot, then his own delegates become unpledged (most of them) and might defect.

 

[blastula]

I heard one Republican party official say none of their delegates are really bound to any candidate, that they can vote anyway they want. And they set the convention rules in a meeting the week before the convention, so any prior rules don't necessarily matter.

http://www.hulu.com/watch/919088
http://www.msnbc.com/transcripts/all-in/2016-03-17

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

I heard one Republican party official say none of their delegates are really bound to any candidate, that they can vote anyway they want. And they set the convention rules in a meeting the week before the convention, so any prior rules don't necessarily matter.

http://www.hulu.com/watch/919088
http://www.msnbc.com/transcripts/all-in/2016-03-17

It is even nuttier because some of these delegates are for the state convention where the real Convention delegates are selected. It is an absurd process, that oddly enough has worked okay up to now. Each state seems to have a different process and not too many people really have a great feel for where anything actually stands.

 

[RavenSky]

so can someone explain to me again what is wrong with 1 vote per person - no delegates, no districts, no "winner takes all"... just 1 vote per person nationwide and whoever gets the most total votes wins.

Yes, the Republican primary is quite entertaining this year, but it doesn't seem very democratic in my opinion

 

[Will Wiley]