Wednesday, March 2, 2016

ELECTORAL UPDATE

More delegate totals have now come in, and it turns out that I am doing quite well, despite the Texas miscalculation.  Thanks to the caucus totals, Trump is now credited with 18 more delegates that I estimated he would have at this time.  I am now quite confident that he will win the 1237 delegates needed for nomination before he gets to the Convention.  In short, Armageddon for Republicans has arrived.

The polls all show Bernie doing much better against Trump than Clinton.  If only the Democratic electorate were rational, but then, if that were so, we would already have socialism!

Here is the updated spreadsheet.

State Delegates Likely Trump Actual Trump Trump Vote % Cumulative Difference
New Hampshire 20 7 11 35 plus 4
South Carolina 50 36 50 32.5 plus 18
Alabama 47 32 36 43 plus 22
Arkansas 37 14 16 33 plus 24
Georgia 76 40 40 39 plus 24
Massachusetts 39 14 22 49 plus 32
Okalahoma 40 20 12 28 plus 24
Tennessee 55 28 33 34 plus 29
Texas 152 86 33 27 minus 24
Vermont 16 6 6 35 minus 24
Virginia 46 17 17 33 minus 24
Louisiana 44 16
Idaho 29 10
Mississippi 37 14
Michigan 56 21
Puero Rico 20 7
Ohio 63 63
Florida 99 99
Illinois 66 25
Missouri 49 34
North Carolina 72 25
Arizona 58 58
Wisconsin 42 30
New York 92 52
Connecticut 25 14
Delaware 16 16
Maryland 38 29
Pennsylvania 68 14
Rhode Island 16 6
Indiana 54 45
West Virginia 31 18
Oregon 25 9
California 169 145
Montana 24 24
New Jersey 48 48
New Mexico 21 8
South Dakota 26 26
Nebraska 33 33
Washington 41 14
1940 1203
Caucus States
Iowa 30 7
Nevada 30 14
Alaska 25 11
Colorado 34
Minnesota 35 10
North Dakota 25
Wyoming 26
Kansas 40
Kentucky 42
Maine 20
Hawaii 16
District of Columbia 19
Northern Mariana Islands 6
Virgin Islands 6
Utah 40
394
Territorial Convention
Guam 6
American Samoa 6
12
Trump Total 318 plus 18
Needed to Win 1237

8 comments:

  1. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  2. On the democratic electorate, one wonders why Sanders can't pull off what Trump is pulling off, since both are tapping into the frustrations of vulnerable voters, or voters who see themselves as vulnerable. The awkward but inescapable question here is this: why can't Sanders get enough African Americans and maybe Latinos to vote for him? Prof. Wolff suggested earlier that African Americans are simply more fiscally conservative than Sanders. I'm not convinced, as a lot of the data I've seen to support that claim is from exit polls (in which voters typically rationalise post-hoc) and the questions were of the form "Would you prefer to continue Obama's economic policies?" -- hardly a cut and dry political economy question, given the racist othering Obama has been subjected to for eight years. So why do non-whites tend to line up behind the Democratic Establishment?

    Wrong question maybe. We need to ask it just about voting non-whites. My guess is that the poorest blacks didn't vote for Clinton either. They are so disaffected and despondent that they aren't even bothering to turn up at the primaries. But then the Clintons know they won't vote in the general either. The neoliberal Establishment of both parties seeks to disenfranchise inconvenient sections of the population by convincing them that there is no hope for them. Both Trump and Bernie have partly broken through this, but sadly Bernie hasn't succeeded enough because of the entrenched identity politics obstacles, and because of the longstanding marginalisation of poor nonwhites. Trump had more of a ready audience because his core constituency of poor (racist, misogynistic) whites hasn't been marginal and alienated from politics for as long as the poorest nonwhites have been. In fact the turnout at the D primaries was much lower than at the R ones in the Southern states, which again suggests that we need to ask which strata of the non-white population are turning out for Clinton, and which ones are completely alienated.

    I realise it's difficult to make this sort of point without dismissing important racial (or gender) concerns, so I'm now thinking we need to distinguish between minorities' egalitarian struggle for recognition on the one hand, and identity politics as the cultural nationalism of an upwardly mobile petite bourgeoisie on the other hand.

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  3. P.S. For clarification: Identity politics as cultural nationalism of formerly privileged groups whose privilege is being eroded (think "war on Christmas") is a further variety of bad identity politics, but a better understood one and one that's easier to discuss without playing into the hands of racists.

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  4. I think what Enzo said is right, with the additional factor that the Democratic Party machinery has been slacking off on registering younger voters this season (i.e., cutting back on funding campus registration efforts) and this has a strong effect across racial lines (think historically black colleges). Those kind of registration efforts are independent of individual candidate funding and it would be hard for Sanders to compensate for it.

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  5. Could people follow up on what Enzo speculates on, why African-Americans don't vote for Sanders in mass?

    I don't live in the U.S., but I'm puzzled and would appreciate more background on this phenomenon.

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  6. S. Wallerstein, there certainly are name recognition issues as well. But I think they can also be explained along the lines I suggest.

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  7. The punditry's explanation of Trumpismo so far has focused solely on Trump's demagoguery. But I think it's more attributable to sneering liberals who bemoan Trump supporters' lack of college degrees - it wouldn't be the first time liberal elites have enabled a proto-fascist.

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  8. Alas, there is much truth in what you write.

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