Sunday, March 6, 2016

Super Tuesday and Super Saturday

Two big election days have come in the last week and have mostly improved the standings of Trump and Hillary.

On the Republican side of things, Trump has now won a dozen states and has 382 delegates, 31% of the total needed for the nomination.  However, 35% of the delegates have been allocated.  Trump is behind where he needs to be to win the nomination outright.  He will need to win 53% of the remaining delegates to avoid a convention fight.  Cruz has won 6 states and 300 delegates, 24% of the delegates for the nomination.  He will need 58% of the remaining delegate.  Rubio only has 128 delegates and will need to run the table, winning 68% of the remaining delegates.  Kasich has won no states and has 35 delegates.  His presence can only make a convention fight more likely.  This may sound dire but part of the issue is that so many of these early states have offered proportional delegates (South Carolina being the only exception so far).  18 of the remaining states - constituting 901 delegates - are winner take all.  If the states to this point had been winner take all, Trump would have 526 delegates, Cruz 319, Rubio 38, and everyone else 0.  With that in mind, if Trump continues to win states by at his current rate, he will be the undisputed nominee.  There is a codicil: Cruz performs better in closed - Republican voters only - contests.  When Independents and Democrats don't vote, Cruz has won 5 of 8 contests.  Like the proportional contests, open contests are mostly front-loaded.  If he continues to win 63% of closed contests, he would get 640 additonal delegates.  That would still leave him 300 delegates short so he would need to perform quite well with the remaining contests that have 570 delegates.  As for Rubio, his only hope is to be chosen on a second ballot at a contested convention.  He can no longer accumulate enough delegates.  In short, Trump or Cruz are the likely nominee, Trump being more likely.
 
On the Democrat side, Hillary is leading.  She has won 11 states and 1121 delegates, giving her 47% of the delegates needed to win the nomination.  Bernie has won 8 states and 478 delegates, 20% of what he needs.  Unless he starts winning more often and by larger margins (or Hillary is indicted), he isn't going to win.  Much of the cause for Hillary's tremendous lead despite a relatively equal number of states won is super delegates.  Hillary has 458 to Bernie's 22, a huge margin.  However, even if the super delegates are factored out, she still leads in the delegate chase by 651 to 456.  If that pattern holds, Hillary will be the nominee.
 
The most likely result is still a Trump-Clinton contest in November though it is marginally possible that Cruz overcomes Trump's lead to become the nominee.

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