NEW YORK—NBC/WSJ/Marist–Trump 54, Kasich 21, Cruz 18
NEW YORK—NBC/WSJ/Marist–Clinton 55, Sanders 41
NEW YORK—Monmouth–Clinton 51, Sanders 39
NEW YORK—NY1/Baruch College–Clinton 50, Sanders 37
NEW YORK—NY1/Baruch College–Trump 60, Kasich 17, Cruz 14
I have seen Sanders supporters here and there lately, including State Representative John Kowalko, saying the super delegate system is not fair. This newest round of complaining about the super delegates did not make sense to me, since as of right now, Hillary Clinton is leading Bernie Sanders by over 250 pledged delegates and 2.5 million popular votes. So Super delegates are not even figuring into this equation and are not relevant. It’s not like they are stealing the nomination away from Bernie Sanders. Indeed, only one campaign has made the argument that Super delegates should hand the nomination to someone who is not the pledged delegate leader, and that campaign is Bernie Sanders’. Talk about being undemocratic and hypocritical.
So why complain about the super delegates now? It didn’t make sense. Especially when you consider, no matter how undemocratic and hypocritical it is, winning over the super delegates really is the only way Bernie Sanders can win the Democratic nomination in 2016. Then I came upon this MSNBC graphic being passed around by some Sanders supporters on Twitter:
The graphic is misleading, but at first glance (and after several glances if you low-information independent voter unfamiliar with delegates, super delegates and proportional representation, which happen to be a lot a Bernie supporters), it seems unfair. How does Bernie win 56% of the vote and not win the most delegates??? Well, according to the Wyoming Caucus rules, rules put in place long before Hillary Clinton was a national figure, back in the 1970’s and 1980’s, you have to win a set percentage of the caucus vote in order to get a set number of delegates. Bernie had to win over 56.5% of the vote to win 8 of the 14 pledged delegates that Wyoming has. If Bernie wins below that 56.5 percentage, then the delegates split 7-7. It’s called proportional representation, and it is a progressive reform to the electoral process. If you don’t think that is fair, I don’t know what to tell you. Maybe you think the percentage levels should be 50-50 in order for there to be a 7-7 split, while a 55-45 split should be 8-6. That’s understandable. And we can change that for the next election year. But we will not be changing the rules in the middle of the election to benefit one candidate. That would be unfair.
Now, what MSNBC did to really inflame the sense of unfairness on the part of the Bernie supporters is that they included the 4 Super delegates that Wyoming has in Clinton’s total delegate count. Hence the 11-7 result on the graphic rather than the 7-7 pledged delegate result. It’s stupid and inaccurate and misleading. So Sanders supporters are now against Super delegates and they view the whole primary process as unfair.
Greg Sargent has a proposal, a way that the whole Clinton-Sanders Primary War could end well:
[I]f Sanders can keep Clinton short of a majority of delegates going into the convention, he could still try to use whatever leverage he has — after all, he’ll have the support of voters across the country that Clinton wants in her corner — to prod the Democratic Party to make changes to the way it selects its nominees. Some possibilities:
It’s possible that the party could discuss doing away with super-delegates, or at least scaling down the number of them. […]
It’s also possible that the party could discuss doing away with closed primaries. […]
And, finally: An end to caucuses. Here a nuance intrudes: Sanders, too, arguably benefited from a less-than-democratic element to the process, since he overwhelmingly won caucus states, which require a greater commitment from voters. “One reform should be getting rid of caucuses,” Berman says, adding that their sheer inconvenience ends up excluding lower-income voters, particularly those of color.
I am all for a deal that eliminates super delegates so long as caucuses are banned forever to Hell.
Rick Klein: “Does Donald Trump now want voters’ pity, because he still has to work for the nomination? His Tweet over the weekend, asking ‘isn’t a shame’ that a candidate with the most delegates and votes ‘still must fight,’ betrays either a lack of self-awareness of a lack of understanding of the rules of the game, if not both. Complaining now about delegate selection rules is a little like arguing with the league in the fourth quarter because you didn’t know there were such things as two-point conversions.”
“As Trump is apparently learning quite belatedly, you need to win elections and then also work to make sure the delegates you’re awarded actually support your candidacy. If Trump or anyone else needs lessons on that subject, they can start paying attention to what Ted Cruz is doing, as he sweeps delegate slates in places including North Dakota and Colorado, amid confusion in the Trump ranks. This stretch of time – with Cruz accruing delegates and lining up supporters, and Trump only now bringing in reinforcements to help him navigate the process – could be the one that determines the GOP nomination, even more than the early states, Super Tuesday, or even California.”
Dana Milbank says Republican Party Chairman Reince Priebus is in way over his head:
If the party accepts Trump, it could consign itself to political oblivion by antagonizing women, minority groups and immigrants. If it accepts Ted Cruz instead, it risks a riot by the Trump populists and the loss of all but far-right voters. And if Priebus and his fellow Republicans try to rally around a mainstream figure such as Paul Ryan, they could salvage the party in the long run but would risk alienating the majority of this year’s GOP voters. […]
Priebus failed to act to stop Trump when he could have, or to coordinate Republicans to clear the field for a mainstream alternative. And now he compounds the damage by sticking with the same moral neutrality and happy talk of GOP unity that allowed the situation to develop. […] history is unlikely to remember kindly a Republican chairman who turned the party of Lincoln over to a populist demagogue or to an ideologue loathed even by Republican colleagues. Hopefully those twin menaces will be enough to wig out Priebus — before his Republicans get Whigged out.
Taegan Goddard says Trump is now the underdog. Jason and I were right: Ted Cruz will be the Republican nominee:
Donald Trump leads the Republican presidential race in term of delegates won and he’s led the national polling averages for more than nine months. But after a rough few weeks, it appears Trump is now the underdog to win the GOP nomination.
In multiple states across the country, Trump has shown his campaign doesn’t understand the basic rules governing the Republican delegate process. Well organized campaigns keep track of their supporters and volunteers long after the votes have been cast. That’s because the delegate selection process in most states is a long slog that requires extreme attention to detail.
In this respect, Sen. Ted Cruz is crushing Trump. In fact, it’s not even close.
Harry Enten: “Trump’s 37 percent of the cumulative primary vote and 46 percent of delegates won so far may sound impressive, but his percentages make him the weakest Republican front-runner, at this point in the process, in decades. Of course, a front-runner is still a front-runner, but by historical standards Trump is limping along — hence the increased chances of a contested convention.”
“Past GOP nominees such as George H.W. Bush in 1988, George W. Bush in 2000, Bob Dole in 1996 and Ronald Reagan in 1980 had bigger shares of the vote at this point, even if they started out slowly. You’ll also note, however, that the two most recent Republican nominees, John McCain and Mitt Romney, weren’t doing too much better than Trump is now. McCain and Romney, though, were far ahead of Trump at this point in the delegate race.”
Jonathan Chait says Hillary is abandoning education reform:
New York is a hotbed of anti-testing activism, especially in affluent suburban districts, where parents who equate testing with excessive curriculum pressure have joined forces with teachers unions who see standardized tests as a tool that subjects them to unwanted accountability. Hillary Clinton has already distanced herself from the education-reform movement, which is a predictable course of action for a Democrat facing a contested primary. The looming New York primary has raised the pressure for her to placate the burgeoning “opt-out” movement, which encourages students to boycott standardized tests. Bill Clinton asserted last week that even one national test per year is too many. “The idea of having to give a national test every year for five years in a row for people from the third to the eighth grade doesn’t make as much sense as investing the same amount of money in helping the teachers to be better teachers.”
New York sounds a lot like Delaware in terms of the Opt out movement.
Conservative Review reports that at least two of Donald Trump’s four adult children — Ivanka and Eric — will be unable to vote for their father in New York on April 19th because they are not registered Republicans. LOL.
Politico: “First they spent tens of millions trying to boost their favorite presidential candidates, then they poured cash into ads attacking Donald Trump, and now some of the biggest donors on the right are turning their attention to the delegate fight.”
“Anti-Trump billionaires are funding ground operations in an increasing number of states to try to ensure the selection of national convention delegates who oppose Trump.”
Donald Trump told USA Today that he would consider Sen. Marco Rubio, Gov. Scott Walker and Gov. John Kasich as his potential running mate. Said Trump: “I do like Marco. I do like Kasich. … I like Walker actually in a lot of ways. I hit him very hard, … but I’ve always liked him. There are people I like, but I don’t think they like me because I have hit them hard.”
Washington Post: “The already freewheeling Republican presidential contest is fast turning into a personal persuasion game as the candidates pursue no-holds-barred efforts to lock up delegates — and there are relatively few limits on how far they can go.”
“Under regulations established in the 1980s, delegates cannot take money from corporations, labor unions, federal contractors or foreign nationals. But an individual donor is permitted to give a delegate unlimited sums to support his or her efforts to get selected to go to the convention, including money to defray the costs of travel and lodging.”
“A candidate’s campaign committee can also pay for delegate expenses. Some legal experts believe a campaign could even cover an all-expenses-paid weekend prior to the convention to meet with senior staff at, say, a Trump-owned luxury golf resort in Florida.”