SocraticGadfly: Sorry Sandernistas; Clinton continues to lead

March 23, 2016

Sorry Sandernistas; Clinton continues to lead

I know the backers of Bernie Sanders don't like to read things like my blog post yesterday about why he's very likely to lose the Democratic nomination. But, it's true.

Yes, Bernie won two primaries yesterday to Hillary's one. However, per the details, Arizona has more delegates than Utah and Idaho combined. And, while Hillary won a lot of Southern states unlikely to go Dem in the general election, and while Arizona's not likely, either, it would take World War III for Utah and Idaho to vote Democratic.

Plus, as noted on that blog post, we're headed to a string of states like New York, Pennsylvania and New Jersey that are closed primaries AND that have strong pro-Clinton Democratic state establishments. Again, per that link, Sanders backers can either start thinking about Plan B, or not.

Correction to the header — a busy day at work and I "assumed" and we know what happens. Per Jaguar in comments, Sanders actually picked up more delegates.

Note: Per this and previous posts, I'm not suddenly "anti-Sanders." I'm just preaching the gospel of realism.

5 comments:

paintedjaguar said...

What are you talking about? Due to Bernie's overwhelming wins in Idaho and Utah, he earned 17 more pledged delegates overall than Hillary did (as of Wed morning). That's assuming that Arizona's results don't get challenged in court because of all the foul-ups in their primary which probably helped Hillary quite a bit. Regardless of the eventual outcome, Bernie won last night.

Yeah, I know most of the major media are including superdelegates in their counts, but those are not actually voted or counted until the convention -- and can change. The media and DNC are still trying their best to proceed with the coronation -- they don't need your help.

Current delegate counts:
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2016/president/democratic_delegate_count.html

paintedjaguar said...

Just goes to show, you have to be careful who you listen to. USAToday is not the only media outlet that's reporting the Arizona/Idaho/Utah vote as if Hillary were the overall winner. Which is a flat lie.

Of course not winning in AZ doesn't help, but whereas Hillary won there by about 18 points, Bernie won both Idaho and Utah by almost 60 points (78/21% & 79/20%). Again, all we're hearing in the media is "Bernie loses Arizona".

Too, Sanders probably would have done better in AZ if not for several electoral shenanigans. Leaving aside the question of blame, here's a good summary of those, as well as some mention of why they benefitted Hillary --

http://russia-insider.com/en/politics/arizona-hillary-clintons-election-fraud-masterpiece/ri13524

Gadfly said...

Couple of counterpoints on the second comment.

First, closed primaries aren't "shenanigans" and Arizona's primaries have been closed in previous elections. We can call that a problem with the two-party system or something, but ... shenanigans it's not.

Second, turnout was actually lower than in 2008: http://www.bustle.com/articles/149565-how-many-people-voted-in-the-arizona-primary-voter-turnout-was-high-but-theres-a-catch

I agree that with a contested Democratic primary, there should have been more polling places.

Third, "calling" the race with only 1 percent? Well, Michigan was a spanner in the spokes, to use the British word, but I assume the media had reasonable exit polling numbers to work with.

Third, on registration issues? Given that such things are in charge of the county recorder, and they're elected officials, and Arizona is strongly Republican (certainly in Maricopa County), this would require the GOP to be in cahoots with Arizona's state-level Democrats.

That said, with finding more links, taking the time to write, etc., I've got something to blog about for tomorrow. It's a two-fer day, as I've already completed a long post excoriating Tulsi Gabbard and her BJP backers in even more detail than Zaid Jilani did.

paintedjaguar said...

Perhaps I should have said there were "irregularities". There seem to have been several voter suppression issues in AZ, whether deliberate or just due to incompetence. It isn't clear to me exactly who was responsible for what.

Yes, closed primaries are common, although reprehensible given the history of Repub/Dem collusion to lock out third party ballot access. Bomb threats that close down polling places, not so much. Registration issues that prevent valid votes from being counted? Hard to separate malice from bungling or indifference.

With thousands standing in line for hours after polls have closed, and with the prevalence of smartphones, it's hard to believe that an early call by the media could fail to have some effect. Not really a new problem, though. I've heard that this practice is illegal in Canada.

Given the demographics of early voters vs poll voters and Bernie's popularity with independents, it's likely that voting issues in AZ gave Hillary an edge. I don't expect to see any remedy for this. Bottom line, the US electoral system works about as well as US healthcare.

Gadfly said...

I certainly agree on the bottom line.

You could be right on smartphones and media calling elections.

And, yes, at least in general elections, with Canada's five time zones, I believe such "calls" are not allowed.