This is the website of Abulsme Noibatno Itramne (also known as Sam Minter).
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Once again the headline out of a state is Trump winning. In Nevada the delegate count was:
14 Trump, 7 Rubio, 6 Cruz, 2 Carson, 1 Kasich
To be on the glide path for a 1st ballot victory though, Trump needed 15 of the 30 delegates. So he fell slightly short.
Now, don’t misunderstand. This is still an impressive victory, and looking at the upcoming states he has a clearer path to victory than anybody else. His margins were higher in Nevada than many people expected. But if today’s performance was replicated in all of the other states, Trump would come to the convention with more delegates than anybody else, but not the majority needed to win outright. Of course as we continue more people will drop out, and the amount with which states give bonuses to the winners increases, so that still seems like an unlikely final outcome.
Right now Trump continues to do everything he needs to do to win. Lets look at some of the graphs, then we’ll do a quick look at the March 1st “Super Tuesday” states.
The overall delegate count is now:
81 Trump, 17 Cruz, 17 Rubio, 6 Kasich, 5 Carson, and 7 for people who have dropped out
Trump continues to dominate. Lets look at this as percentages:
The “winners” here were actually Cruz, Rubio and Carson. Each of them improved their proportion of delegates with Nevada’s results. Trump actually went down. He doesn’t have to worry too much about that though. He still has a majority of the delegates allocated so far, and he is far far ahead of any of his opponents.
Finally, lets look at the “% of remaining delegates needed to win”, which I argue is the single most important thing to look at to understand where the race really is:
Because Trump got 14 delegates instead of 15 delegates, his line goes up a little bit. (Remember, on this chart down is good, up is bad.) The red line goes from needing 49.39% of the remaining delegates to needing 49.42%. This is a relatively trivial difference though. It is basically flat. Trump’s situation is very close to unchanged.
Meanwhile, the other lines keep going up at a decent pace. Kasich and Carson add about 0.6% to their numbers. Cruz and Rubio add about 0.4%.
This should be obvious, but the more they lose, the harder it is to catch up.
Many people are still talking about how as consolidation happens, the remaining non-Trumps will do better and the picture will change. Maybe, but nobody new announced they were dropping out after the Nevada results (yet anyway). So it looks like we may still go into March 1st with a five person race.
Lets run a hypothetical using current polling on the Super Tuesday states and see where we end up using RCP poll averages for the five remaining candidates. We’ll make delegate estimates based on the specific delegate allocation rules in each state.
Texas (155 delegates)
- Current poll averages: 37.3% Cruz, 28.0% Trump, 11.7% Rubio, 4.7% Carson, 3.0% Kasich
- Delegate estimates: 99 Cruz, 56 Trump
Georgia (76 delegates)
- Current poll averages: 35.0% Trump, 22.7% Cruz, 19.3% Rubio, 7.3% Carson, 6.3% Kasich
- Delegate estimates: 50 Trump, 26 Cruz
Tennessee (58 delegates)
- Last poll from November so using national average: 33.6% Trump, 20.4% Cruz, 16.4% Rubio, 9.8% Kasich, 7.4% Carson
- Delegate estimates: 37 Trump, 21 Cruz
Alabama (50 delegates)
- Last poll from December so using national average: 33.6% Trump, 20.4% Cruz, 16.4% Rubio, 9.8% Kasich, 7.4% Carson
- Delegate estimates: 32 Trump, 18 Cruz
Virginia (49 delegates)
- Using only February poll: 28% Trump, 22% Rubio, 19% Cruz, 7% Kasich, 7% Carson
- Delegate estimates: 17 Trump, 13 Rubio, 11 Cruz, 4 Kasich, 4 Carson
Oklahoma (43 delegates)
- Using only February poll: 32.5% Trump, 25.0% Cruz, 15.5% Rubio, 7.0% Carson, 0.0% Kasich
- Delegate estimates: 17 Trump, 15 Cruz, 11 Rubio
Massachusetts (42 delegates)
- Current poll averages: 41.0% Trump, 17.0% Rubio, 10.0% Cruz, 7.5% Kasich, 3.5% Carson
- Delegate estimates: 23 Trump, 9 Rubio, 6 Cruz, 4 Kasich
Arkansas (40 delegates)
- Using only February poll: 27% Cruz, 23% Trump, 23% Rubio, 11% Carson, 4% Kasich
- Delegate estimates: 18 Cruz, 13 Rubio, 9 Trump (giving Rubio the 2nd place finish breaking 23% tie by alphabetical order)
Minnesota (38 delegates)
- Last poll from January so using national average: 33.6% Trump, 20.4% Cruz, 16.4% Rubio, 9.8% Kasich, 7.4% Carson
- Delegate estimates: 18 Trump, 11 Cruz, 9 Rubio
Wyoming (29 delegates)
- No polls at all, using national average: 33.6% Trump, 20.4% Cruz, 16.4% Rubio, 9.8% Kasich, 7.4% Carson
- Delegate estimates: 12 Trump, 7 Cruz, 5 Rubio, 3 Kasich, 2 Carson
Alaska (28 delegates)
- Last poll from January so using national average: 33.6% Trump, 20.4% Cruz, 16.4% Rubio, 9.8% Kasich, 7.4% Carson
- Delegate estimates: 13 Trump, 8 Cruz, 7 Rubio
Vermont (16 delegates)
- No polls at all, using national average: 33.6% Trump, 20.4% Cruz, 16.4% Rubio, 9.8% Kasich, 7.4% Carson
- Delegate estimates: 10 Trump, 6 Cruz
OK, that’s it. Adding all that up…
Estimated Super Tuesday delegate totals: 294 Trump, 246 Cruz, 67 Rubio, 11 Kasich, 6 Carson
That gives Trump 47.1% of the super Tuesday delegates, Cruz 39.4%, and everyone else much less.
Trump needs 49.4% of the delegates to be on the path to an outright win though! So 47.1% would be in the realm where heading to a contested convention might be possible! Still unlikely, as the additional states in March will add up fast, and more candidates are likely to drop out. Still though, possible!
Adding in the existing delegates, we’d have a post-Super Tuesday race that looks like this:
375 Trump, 263 Cruz, 84 Rubio, 17 Kasich, 11 Carson, 7 for candidates who have already dropped out
Now, these are estimates based on current polling, and very few of these states were well polled as of this post, so much of the above is based on one or two polls, or using the national averages rather than state polls. And I had to make the assumption that all congressional districts would mirror state results (which is unlikely to be true). And Wyoming actually elects individual delegates rather than doing things based on candidate preference, so it may be an oddball in the end. And of course things are likely to change further before people actually vote next Tuesday. But… the general outlines of this aren’t likely to be too far off.
If this is even remotely close to where we are on March 2nd, we end up with Trump very close to the 50% of delegate mark. (The above has him EXACTLY at that mark.) He would need just a LITTLE bit more to actually push him over the edge to a clean win.
The flip side of that though is the combination of all the anti-Trumps would need just a LITTLE bit more in order to have this be on the path to a contested convention. I mentioned earlier that this is still an unlikely outcome. It is. After March 1st, the disproportionality of delegates given to the winner increases, and after March 15th we have pure winner take all states as well. If Trump remains in the overall lead, even with a plurality, then that is all it takes to push him over the edge.
If the anti-Trumps want to have any hope here at all, they need to be in a position by mid-March that they can win not just a few, but many states of the winner-take-most and winner-take-all variety. And frankly, the most likely scenario even then is just forcing a contested convention where Trump still has the most delegates, not someone else winning outright.
The anti-Trumps would have a hard road to get to an outright win. Cruz would need 56.8% of the remaining delegates to catch up and win after March 1st if things played out like my estimates above.
If you had to make a guess based on what we know now, a Trump nomination is far more likely than any other… and with an outright delegate majority on the first ballot, not after a contested convention.
6 days until Super Tuesday. We’ll see how close my estimates above turn out to be.
Update 2016-02-26 07:17 UTC – On February 22nd New Hampshire certified the results of their primary. In the final tally Trump had one more delegate than previous estimates, and Rubio one less. This did not seem worthy of a separate post, but a note here seemed appropriate. The totals on ElectionGraphs.com have been updates appropriately. This does not substantively change any of the analysis above.
Note: This post is an update based on the data on ElectionGraphs.com. Election Graphs tracks both a poll based estimate of the Electoral College and a numbers based look at the Delegate Races. All of the charts and graphs seen in this post are from that site. Additional graphs, charts and raw data can be found there. All charts above are clickable to go to the current version of the detail page the chart is from, which may contain more up to date information than the snapshots on this page, which were current as of the time of this post. Follow @ElectionGraphs on Twitter or like Election Graphs on Facebook to see announcements of updates or to join the conversation. For those interested in individual general election poll updates, follow @ElecCollPolls on Twitter for all the polls as they are added.
[Edit 16:28 UTC to correct math on % of remaining Cruz would need after Super Tuesday, I’d originally shown a higher number around 61%.]
[Edit 2016-02-27 17:06 UTC to fix place where Kasich had been autocorrected to Quash.]
[Edit 2016-02-28 22:03 UTC to add dropped out candidates to the after Super Tuesday estimate.]
To be on a pace to win, Trump needed 26 of the 50 delegates in South Carolina. Instead, he got all 50 of them. Just as this site pointed out was very likely on the 10th and again on the 11th. I’ve seen some surprise at this result in some of the commentary, but absent the polls being way off, this was predictable weeks ago.
Delegate rules matter. The popular vote is only relevant in terms of how it determines the delegates.
So Trump jumps way up in the delegate race:
So… 67 Trump, 11 Cruz, 10 Rubio, 5 Kasich, 3 Carson, and 7 for people who have dropped out.
Lets look at this in percentage terms:
Trump now has more than 50% of the delegates allocated so far. About 65% of them. That is just under 2/3 of the delegates.
Now, we’re only 4.2% of the way through the delegates, but at this point Trump is dominating.
How about “% of remaining delegates needed to win”?
Now that he has a majority, Trump’s line dives down. (Down is good on this graph.) He now only needs 49.39% of the remaining delegates to win.
More importantly though, because of how the delegates split between his opponents, they are all just racing upward. Cruz is second right now, and he now needs 51.75% of the remaining delegates in order to win. Now, this still isn’t a crazy number, although obviously Cruz hasn’t come close to it in any contest yet. But… time is running out.
We are down to five candidates after South Carolina. It is possible we will lose more after Nevada in a couple days. But most polling and modeling I have seen says Trump wins in a five way race, in a four way race, and even in a three way race. It takes bringing it down to a two person race before the non-Trump starts winning. The question is if that happens fast enough to “Stop Trump”.
With the number of delegates determined between March 1st and March 15th, if such a move is going to happen, it has to happen very quickly. Still having 3+ candidates when the March 1st votes happen puts Trump in a very strong position. If we’re not down to 3 before March 15th, Trump may just be wrapping things up.
Or something dramatic could happen that changes everything. You never know.
For now though, polls in Nevada and the March 1st states look good for Trump, and we still have five people in the race.
Trump is on a path to victory.
Nevada is up next on Tuesday.
Note: This post is an update based on the data on ElectionGraphs.com. Election Graphs tracks both a poll based estimate of the Electoral College and a numbers based look at the Delegate Races. All of the charts and graphs seen in this post are from that site. Additional graphs, charts and raw data can be found there. All charts above are clickable to go to the current version of the detail page the chart is from, which may contain more up to date information than the snapshots on this page, which were current as of the time of this post. Follow @ElectionGraphs on Twitter or like Election Graphs on Facebook to see announcements of updates or to join the conversation. For those interested in individual general election poll updates, follow @ElecCollPolls on Twitter for all the polls as they are added.
General Election state polls have been few and far between since we are in the heart of the primary battles, but we did get a new PPP North Carolina poll and when it gets factored into my poll averages, it resulted in a couple of category changes worth noting:
Clinton vs Trump
As you can see, North Carolina has been bouncing between “Weak Clinton” and “Weak Trump” ever since there was substantial polling here for Clinton vs Trump in the fall. With this latest update to the average, North Carolina flips back into Trump’s column.
The reality here is that regardless, North Carolina looks close, and could easily go either way, but it moves the center “expected” line in our chart showing the range of plausible electoral results:
Trump’s “Expected” case, where he wins every state where he leads the poll average, and loses those where he doesn’t, is to lose to Clinton by 50 electoral votes. Trump remains well within reach though. If he were to take the lead in only Iowa, Ohio, and Michigan he would take an electoral college lead. If he were to take all the close states, he would end up winning by 102 electoral votes.
Clinton vs Rubio
Rubio has been doing substantially better in North Carolina than Trump. Rather than bouncing around near the zero line, this has been hovering near the 5% line that I use to separate “Weak Rubio” from “Strong Rubio”. This update pushes the average to a lead just barely over 5%, so I remove North Carolina from the list of possible Clinton pick up states. This does not change the “expected” results, but diminishes Clinton’s “best case” scenario where she wins not only the states she currently leads, but also those where she is behind by less than 5%.
So Clinton’s best case goes from winning by 156 electoral votes, to only winning by 126 electoral votes. The “expected” result remains a 48 electoral vote win by Clinton given the states where she leads in the poll averages.
Once we get clear winners in the primary races, I expect we will stop seeing polling for any candidate combination other than those winners, and general election polling should speed up again. In the mean time, most of the action is going on in the delegate races. Before long though, attention will move back to the general election, and there will be plenty to watch on this side of things too.
262.3 days until the first general election polls start to close.
Note: This post is an update based on the data on ElectionGraphs.com. Election Graphs tracks both a poll based estimate of the Electoral College and a numbers based look at the Delegate Races. All of the charts and graphs seen in this post are from that site. Additional graphs, charts and raw data can be found there. All charts above are clickable to go to the current version of the detail page the chart is from, which may contain more up to date information than the snapshots on this page, which were current as of the time of this post. Follow @ElectionGraphs on Twitter or like Election Graphs on Facebook to see announcements of updates or to join the conversation. For those interested in individual general election poll updates, follow @ElecCollPolls on Twitter for all the polls as they are added.
On this week’s Curmudgeon’s Corner podcast Sam and Ivan do indeed talk a lot about Election 2016 and all of the developments there, but there is other news this week too! So first off is a discussion of Apple vs the FBI, then an analysis of the battle following Justice Scalia’s death. Oh, and you get the story of Sam’s drive from Seattle to San Francisco, and a bit about the limitations of video streaming too!
Click below to listen or subscribe… then let us know your own thoughts!
Recorded 2016-02-19
Length this week – 2:16:56
 1-Click Subscribe in iTunes
 View Podcast in iTunes
 View Raw Podcast Feed
 Download MP3 File
 Follow the podcast on Facebook
Show Details:
- (0:00:10-0:31:57) But First
- Sam in a Hotel
- Agenda
- New Microphone
- Internet Quality
- Sam’s Drive
- (0:32:37-0:54:55) Apple vs FBI
- The Order
- Why Apple Refused
- Why is FBI pushing this case?
- What if Apple loses?
- What if Apple wins?
- Industry Implications
- Slippery Slope
- Politicians and Encryption
- (0:55:58-1:21:14) Death of Justice Scalia
- Ivan’s doppelgГ¤nger
- The news breaks, people go nuts
- Republican Senate says don’t even nominate
- Higher stakes that previous vacancies?
- Recess Appointment?
- Does this damage Senate Republicans?
- Who does Obama pick?
- Hypocrisy?
- Will the wall hold until January?
- Impact of 4-4 Court
- (1:22:34-1:40:01) Election 2016 – Democrats
- Upcoming Contest Schedule
- Nevada Polls
- Election Graphs Comment
- Superdelegates
- Possible paths for Sanders
- (1:40:50-2:08:09) Election 2016 – Republicans
- The Latest Debate
- Polling Update
- Gaming out the next states
- Trump trying to lose?
- Trump lawsuit threats
- Trump’s RNC Deal
- Trump and the Pope
- (2:09:18-2:16:36) Lightning Round
- Obama going to Cuba
- Steaming Video
This week on Curmudgeon’s Corner Sam and Ivan talk about chickens! Just kidding. Of course they talk about Election 2016. New Hampshire. Sanders beating Clinton. Trump walking all over the other Republicans. The log jam at second place on the Republican side. What this means for the delegate race and the next couple of states on both sides. Everything you would expect! Then they wrap it up with a lightning round for some thoughts on the Zika virus, changes on Twitter, the Oregon standoff, and more!
Click below to listen or subscribe… then let us know your own thoughts!
Recorded 2016-02-11
Length this week – 1:39:01
1-Click Subscribe in iTunes
View Podcast in iTunes
View Raw Podcast Feed
Download MP3 File
Follow the podcast on Facebook
Show Details:
- (0:00:10-0:16:41) Intro
- Pi Again
- Agenda
- Ivan’s Rough Day
- Sam’s Upcoming Trip
- (0:17:26-0:55:16) Election 2016: Republicans
- New Hampshire Results
- Upcoming contests
- Rubio’s debate crash
- Kasichmentum?
- Who drops out and when?
- Gaming out South Carolina
- anti-Trumps running out of time
- Trump moving to center?
- Trump/Sanders Swing Voters
- Fighting each other instead of Trump
- Carson in South Carolina!
- (0:56:25-1:19:52) Election 2016: Democrats
- No Surprise
- Delegate Story
- South Carolina and Nevada
- What is the path for Sanders?
- Clinton indictment?
- Sanders/Clinton demographics
- Independents
- Sam’s Choices
- Santorum iSideWith
- (1:20:41-1:38:40) Lightning Round
- Book: Prince Caspian
- Zika Virus
- Twitter Changes
- Ivan iSideWith
- Oregon Standoff
I mentioned yesterday that the delegate totals were provisional and the counting wasn’t done yet. The counting is complete now, and in addition there have been some clarifications to the delegate allocation rules.
First on the rules, the way in which rounding is done was clarified. Instead of just rounding at the end, the percentages are rounded to a whole number first, and then the delegates are rounded to whole numbers at the end. This is a bit of a silly way to do it, because you are introducing the rounding distortion twice instead of just once, but that’s how New Hampshire chose to do it.
Then a rule change that affects not just New Hampshire, but all subsequent states too. Frontloading HQ has the scoop. The bottom line is that national RNC party rules changes are overriding rules at the state level about what happens to the three “automatic delegates” in each state. These are the National Committeeman, the National Committeewoman, and the chairman of the state Republican Party who all get to be delegates “automatically” based on their positions. In some states they were bound by primary or caucus results. In some states they were required by the rules to stay neutral. But in others, they were free agents. In the past the ones that were free agents had been the Republican party’s equivalent of the Democratic superdelegates. But the RNC national rule change is requiring these three automatic delegates to always be “bound” by the same rules that cover at-large delegates in each state.
So, essentially, no more superdelegates on the Republican side. All delegates will be bound by primary or caucus results. (There is still an exception for delegates who are directly elected by their own name apparently, but that is rare.)
For New Hampshire, when you consider final vote totals, and both rule clarifications, this changes the results from the primary from:
11 Trump, 3 Kasich, 2 Bush, 2 Cruz, 2 Rubio, 3 TBD
to:
10 Trump, 4 Kasich, 3 Bush, 3 Cruz, 3 Rubio, 0 TBD
The updated raw delegate chart showing this change is here:
The net result here is Trump loses one delegate, Cruz, Rubio, Kasich and Bush all gain one.
Trump is still clearly in the lead, but it does change his New Hampshire results in an important way. 11 out of 20 delegates was a majority, and above the threshold he needed to improve his “% of remaining delegates needed to win” number. 10 out of 23 is not a majority, and was not enough to improve his position on that metric:
If you look at full movement from before New Hampshire to these updated results, you can see that ALL of the candidates now got worse, as none of them got the level of delegate support needed to be on track for an outright win. Trump specifically went from needing 50.37% of the remaining delegates, to now needing 50.43% of the remaining delegates. This is much less of a change than the others of course, but it still went up.
So the statement I made in yesterdays update that “if Trump continues to match New Hampshire, he wins” is no longer true. If Trump (and the rest) continue to match New Hampshire, we are in for a contested convention.
Of course, we won’t see New Hampshire cloned in the subsequent states. We will see continued developments in the campaigns, more candidates drop out, and a very dynamic race continue to play out.
And fundamentally, the one delegate difference in Trump’s total doesn’t change the over all picture all that much.
I won’t repeat the details of yesterday’s post walking through scenarios for South Carolina and Nevada. If you haven’t already, go read it.
The bottom line is that unless there is a major change before South Carolina, it is very plausible that Trump walks out of it with a significant delegate lead. Updating for the New Hampshire changes above, that could look something like:
67 Trump, 11 Cruz, 10 Rubio, 15 Others
Nevada is more proportional, but will still give Trump a further opportunity to increase his delegate lead. Absent a surprise loss in South Carolina, he will almost certainly have a majority of the delegates allocated by then.
At that point, only 5.4% of delegates will have been decided. Lots of delegates left to play with.
But that is when things speed up. If the non-Trumps are going to consolidate support by all but one or two dropping out, it really should happen by the end of February, because 25.8% of the delegates will get decided on March 1st. And then another 30% or so in the two weeks between that and March 15th. When we pass March 15th, 60% or so of the convention delegates will have been decided.
If the anti-Trumps consolidated before then, it is possible that one of them will be leading instead of Trump. If the anti-Trumps are still divided though, then if Trump has managed to get over 50%, he’s almost certainly going to be the nominee. If he is leading, but under 50%, then talk of a contested convention becomes real, not just news junkie fantasy.
Absent the oft-predicted but never realized Trump collapse, for any of the other Republicans to beat Trump, all but one (MAYBE two) need to drop out and drop out quickly, and then they need to focus all of their effort on Trump. But for the moment, all the anti-Trumps are still squabbling with each other, leaving Trump to consolidate a lead while they are for the most part continuing to ignore him.
That is just a formula to anoint Trump. At some point people will drop out, and the race will narrow. The question is does it happen in time for whoever is the surviving anti-Trump to have a real chance.
Note: This post is an update based on the data on ElectionGraphs.com. Election Graphs tracks both a poll based estimate of the Electoral College and a numbers based look at the Delegate Races. All of the charts and graphs seen in this post are from that site. Additional graphs, charts and raw data can be found there. All charts above are clickable to go to the current version of the detail page the chart is from, which may contain more up to date information than the snapshots on this page, which were current as of the time of this post. Follow @ElectionGraphs on Twitter or like Election Graphs on Facebook to see announcements of updates or to join the conversation. For those interested in individual general election poll updates, follow @ElecCollPolls on Twitter for all the polls as they are added.
[Edit 2016-02-14 06:18 UTC to add end note.]
New Hampshire’s delegate rules are such that the winner gets a big bonus. (The details of how this works were discussed here last week.) So Trump’s approximately 36% of the vote turns into 55% of the delegates. Counting isn’t actually done yet, but if current trends hold, the delegate haul out of New Hampshire will be:
Trump 11, Kasich 3, Bush 2, Cruz 2, Rubio 2.
Adding these to the previous results in Iowa, and we have these new totals: Trump 18, Cruz 10, Rubio 9, Kasich 4, Bush 3, Carson 3, Fiorina 1, Huckabee 1, Paul 1.
In the form of a graph of the total delegates, we see this:
Some groupings look apparent on this chart.
Trump is out by himself in the lead.
Cruz and Rubio make up a second tier, at about half of Trump’s level.
Kasich, Bush and Carson are the third tier. Way behind, but at least with multiple delegates.
Then finally Fiorina, Huckabee and Paul bringing up the rear with one delegate each. Two of these three have already dropped out. It will be surprising if the third does not do so soon.
How does this match what we’re hearing in the spin out of New Hampshire? Well, there is wide acknowledgment that Trump did have a nice win. But the majority of the attention still seems to have been on the race for second, and how that positions the anti-Trumps going forward.
Within that, relatively little attention was paid to Cruz, and he is still in 2nd. Rubio is being dismissed because he did badly in New Hampshire, but he is still in 3rd over all. Meanwhile lots of attention given to Kasich and Bush, but they are still stuck in the third tier with Carson with less than a handful of delegates.
Time to flip this and look at this in terms of my favorite metric, the “% of remaining needed to win”:
Trump exceeded the 50.37% of the delegates he needed to get to improve his position. Going forward he needs 50.33% of delegates to be on a pace to win. That is a relatively small change. With almost 98% of delegates still to be determined, there is a huge amount of flexibility available here to all the candidates.
Given that Trump got 55% of the delegates in New Hampshire, that means however that NONE of the other candidates got what they needed, or even close. Essentially, every one of the non-Trump candidates fell further behind today.
Now, Trump still doesn’t have a majority of delegates. To be on a pace to actually win, rather than just to have the most delegates going into the convention, he needs to do better than he has so far. But he is far closer to that mark than any of the other candidates. And if he continues matching his New Hampshire results, he will win.
The story here continues to be that while Trump hasn’t managed a majority in any contest so far, the opposition is so divided that Trump still easily wins (New Hampshire) or at the very least comes very close (Iowa). Does this continue? Does it get worse?
Time to look at the next contest on the Republican side, South Carolina.
There have not been any South Carolina polls since before Iowa, so new polls are eagerly anticipated, but at the moment the RCP average has Trump at 36.0%, Cruz at 19.7%, Rubio at 12.7%, Bush at 10.0% and then everybody else.
Now, that may change. Specifically if either Rubio or Bush drop out that will scramble things a bit. But that may not happen. There is a case to be made for both of them sticking in at least through South Carolina.
Trump probably wins this. But by how much? Time to look at the delegate rules in South Carolina.
From Greenpapers:
- 21 district delegates are to be allocated to presidential contenders based on the primary results in each of the state’s 7 congressional districts: each congressional district is assigned 3 National Convention delegates and the presidential contender receiving the greatest number of votes in that district will receive all 3 of that district’s National Convention delegates. [Rule 11(b)(4)]
- 26 (10 base at-large delegates plus 16 bonus delegates) at-large delegates are to be allocated to the presidential contender receiving the greatest number of votes in the primary statewide. [Rule 11(b)(5)]
- 3 party leaders, the National Committeeman, the National Committeewoman, and the chairman of the South Carolina’s Republican Party are pledged to the presidential contender receiving the greatest number of votes in the primary statewide.
If Trump wins by any margin, no matter how small, he gets 29 of the 50 delegates right up front. That already would give him 47 of the 100 delegates that would have been allocated in Iowa + New Hampshire + South Carolina.
Of course, in order to win the whole state, he would have had to have won some of the congressional districts too. Probably most of them. And so far in Iowa and New Hampshire, it doesn’t seem like there has been a lot of geographic lumpiness to Trump’s support. So he may well win ALL of the congressional districts. In that case Trump would walk out of South Carolina with all 50 of the available delegates. This is very possible.
In that scenario, after South Carolina, the overall delegate count would look like: Trump 68, Cruz 10, Rubio 9, Others 13
Trump would have a huge delegate lead. Even if he doesn’t win all 50, he will still have a very large delegate lead.
Nevada is three days after South Carolina. It is proportional, not semi-winner-take-all like South Carolina, but the latest polls still have Trump with a nice lead in Nevada. Those polls are old and out of date, but does anybody think two straight wins would hurt Trump’s position?
To “stop Trump” things have to move very quickly to a one on one with Trump vs Somebody. Maybe a three way race could do it, but might just be a recipe for a contested convention. But as long as we’re still looking at four or five candidates splitting the non-Trump vote, Trump wins.
But the non-Trumps still seem to be in a locked battle with each other for that anti-Trump one on one slot. And in doing so, they just let Trump win. The race will of course consolidate further. More candidates will drop out. Some may drop out before South Carolina. But it is unclear if that will be enough to let one of the others actually win in South Carolina.
Trump won New Hampshire. Trump looks like he will probably win the next two states. Things get more complicated once we get into March, but Trump would get there with a substantial lead.
Things are by no means settled yet. There is a long way to go. Even after we get past both South Carolina and Nevada 94.6% of delegates will still be up for grabs. There will still be time for the non-Trumps.
But if we only get consolidation down to 2 or three candidates after the March 1st contests, when 25.8% of the total delegates will be decided, the non-Trumps that are left may have a really tough uphill fight to catch up.
If consolidation doesn’t happen until after March 15th, 60% of the delegates will already have been decided, and it may just be too late. (Although if several non-Trumps are still strong at that point and Trump has the lead but not a majority, we’re looking at a contested convention, and that starts getting into completely different scenarios.)
But if the non-Trumps want to actually win, they have to stop fighting each other, some of them have to drop out, and they have to actually act like Trump is the frontrunner, and that their priority has to be bringing him down rather than each other. Otherwise they are done, and Trump ends up walking away with this.
Note: This post is an update based on the data on ElectionGraphs.com. Election Graphs tracks both a poll based estimate of the Electoral College and a numbers based look at the Delegate Races. All of the charts and graphs seen in this post are from that site. Additional graphs, charts and raw data can be found there. All charts above are clickable to go to the current version of the detail page the chart is from, which may contain more up to date information than the snapshots on this page, which were current as of the time of this post. Follow @ElectionGraphs on Twitter or like Election Graphs on Facebook to see announcements of updates or to join the conversation. For those interested in individual general election poll updates, follow @ElecCollPolls on Twitter for all the polls as they are added.
We made it past Iowa! We have Iowa results! We have brand new speculation about New Hampshire and beyond! Yes, of course, the bulk of this week’s Curmudgeon’s Corner podcast is Sam and Ivan discussing where the presidential race sits in this week between Iowa and New Hampshire. We go over all of the results so far, then discuss how candidates, the media and the public are reacting to those results, and what that means for the rest of the contest. Plus, for the first time in a little while, we do a lightning round as well, covering bluetooth audio issues, Iran, the Flint water crisis, tech earnings results, and more!
Click below to listen or subscribe… then let us know your own thoughts!
Recorded 2016-02-04
Length this week – 2:12:09
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Show Details:
- (0:00:10-0:05:11) Intro
- Pi O’Clock Again
- Agenda
- Talking Politics
- (0:06:00-0:29:42) Republicans in Iowa
- Loser.com
- Headlines
- Delegate Totals
- Spin
- Polling Wrong?
- People Dropping Out
- Carson/Cruz blow up
- Speeches
- (0:30:45-0:43:55) Democrats in Iowa
- Close Race
- Not a Surprise
- Delegate Totals
- Spin
- Demographic Split
- (0:44:33-1:24:33) Republicans in New Hampshire and beyond
- Delegate Rules
- Delegate Hypothetical
- Will we get good New Hampshire polls?
- Contest Calendar
- Trump reacts to losing
- How will New Hampshire react to Iowa?
- Divided anti-Trump vote
- Trump Strategy
- Bush done?
- Big last minute moves?
- Gilmore
- post-New Hampshire
- Predictions
- (1:25:53-1:42:08) Democrats in New Hampshire and beyond
- Sanders will win New Hampshire
- post-New Hampshire
- Delegate Allocation
- How will Clinton react to losing?
- No Clinton Backup
- Clinton emails
- Clinton collapse scenarios
- (1:43:24-2:11:49) Lightning Round
- Car Bluetooth Audio
- Movie: Thomas and the Magic Railroad (2000)
- Iran Deal Implementation
- Flint Water Crisis
- Oregon Militia Standoff Ended
- Apple Earnings
- Alphabet Market Cap
- Feedback on Performance Reviews
- Feedback on Sam’s Writing
- Growing Show
Yesterday’s update was preliminary, and I ended up using the delegate estimates provided by the AP which were used at the New York Times, Washington Post, and other places. My favorite source, Green Papers, had a different set of numbers. When I tried to calculate delegate numbers myself, I came up with yet another set of numbers. I ended up going with the AP numbers.
A little more than a day later and Green Papers updated, now matching what I had calculated myself. So I’m updating the estimates accordingly.
This moves us from:
8 Cruz, 7 Trump, 7 Rubio, 3 Carson, 1 Bush, 1 Paul
to
7 Cruz, 7 Trump, 6 Rubio, 3 Carson, 1 Bush, 1 Fiorina, 1 Kasich, 1 Paul.
The main change here is one less delegate each to Cruz and Rubio, with those delegates picked up at the bottom end by Fiorina and Kasich.
But wait! There is more! The Washington Post and Politico both add two additional delegates. The 27 allocated by the caucus results were already accounted for, so these would be two of the three “party leaders” who end up as automatic delegates. No indication of which party leader did what, but they add one additional delegate each to Cruz and Rubio.
The new Iowa totals become:
8 Cruz, 7 Rubio, 7 Trump, 3 Carson, 1 Bush, 1 Fiorina, 1 Kasich, 1 Paul.
Between these two changes, the net is simply adding the delegates for Fiorina and Kasich. This means 29 of the 30 Iowa delegates are now accounted for.
Note that even though Paul has “suspended his campaign”, he keeps his delegate unless he explicitly releases it.
The raw delegate count chart now looks like this:
Just a little uptick at the end for Fiorina and Kasich to join Bush and Paul at the 1 delegate mark.
Flipping this over to look at “% of remaining needed to win”:
On this chart, lower is better. When you get down to 0% you win. If you get to 100% you are eliminated. Everybody is still heading upward, not downward, but it is still very early. The whole field here ranges from needing 50.31% of the remaining delegates, to needing 50.59% of the remaining delegates.
Looking specifically at New Hampshire, there are 20 delegates at stake. We are so early, and the % needed numbers so close, that this is easy. The number needed to be on track to win is 11 delegates. Anything less, and the candidate is actually going to be in a harder position in the next contest rather than an easier one.
Let’s game out New Hampshire based on the current RCP averages. Yes, yes, this is based on polling before New Hampshire. Things will change in the next six days. But this is just to model how it works.
The rules via The Green Papers:
- 20 National Convention delegates are to be bound proportionally to presidential contenders based on the primary vote statewide.
- A 10% threshold is required in order for a presidential contender to be allocated National Convention delegates.
- Allocate delegates based on the 20 Г— candidate’s vote Г· total statewide vote. Round to the nearest whole number.
- Any delegate positions that remain open are awarded to the candidate with the highest statewide vote total.
Assume each candidate gets exactly their poll average today. Only the candidates over 10% matter, so with RCP as of right now that is:
33.4% Trump, 12.2% Cruz, 10.8% Rubio, 10.4% Kasich
Converting this to delegates with the rounding rules above, you get:
7 Trump, 2 Cruz, 2 Kasich, 2 Rubio
This is only 13, so there are 7 delegates left. According to the last rule, these all go to the leader, so we end up with:
14 Trump, 2 Cruz, 2 Kasich, 2 Rubio
And therefore Trump would get 70% of the delegates despite only getting 33.7% of the vote. Trump’s line on the “% needed to win” would go down, while everybody else would go up.
After this hypothetical New Hampshire result, the overall race would be:
21 Trump, 10 Cruz, 9 Rubio, 3 Carson, 3 Kasich, 1 Bush, 1 Paul, 1 Fiorina.
Trump would still only have 42.9% of the delegates, which is not a majority, but Cruz would be way back at 20.4% and you’d have Trump starting to pull away from the pack. Still only 1.98% of delegates allocated at that point though, with lots of room for further changes.
The RCP average on February 3rd is NOT going to look like the actual results on Primary night. This is just an example.
The points to take away:
- The detailed delegate rules matter, you don’t necessarily have to win a popular vote majority to win a delegate majority.
- We’re still so very early, one contest can have a major effect on the delegate totals, and each state is very different, so don’t put much stock in extrapolating Iowa to future contests.
Of course New Hampshire will be here soon enough, and we’ll do this with the real results.
Note: This post is an update based on the data on ElectionGraphs.com. Election Graphs tracks both a poll based estimate of the Electoral College and a numbers based look at the Delegate Races. All of the charts and graphs seen in this post are from that site. Additional graphs, charts and raw data can be found there. All charts above are clickable to go to the current version of the detail page the chart is from, which may contain more up to date information than the snapshots on this page, which were current as of the time of this post. Follow @ElectionGraphs on Twitter or like Election Graphs on Facebook to see announcements of updates or to join the conversation. For those interested in individual general election poll updates, follow @ElecCollPolls on Twitter for all the polls as they are added.
Unlike the Democrats, the Republicans didn’t have years of superdelegates endorsing one candidate or another, so Iowa really was a clean slate. The very first delegates earned in the race for the 2016 Republican nomination. The headlines are of course that Trump underperformed the poll-based expectations letting Cruz slide to a win, while Rubio outperformed his expectations, coming in a close third. This is all true.
But it is also true that only a tiny fraction of the delegates have been allocated so far. None of the candidates got a majority in Iowa either. So nobody is actually yet on a track to overall victory. Cruz may be slightly ahead, but Trump and Rubio are right at his heels. Cruz is not in a dominating position. It really is a three person race.
Looking at the raw delegate graph quickly…
…you immediately notice that we just have a really boring graph with a few straight lines. And Rubio’s line and Trump’s line completely overlap too. As do Bush and Paul’s lines. That’s because this is our first real data point after everyone was just at zero.
All of the graphs are like this. So just this once, lets skip the graphs and look at the summary table instead:
I’ll note here that Green Papers has slightly different numbers. But the New York Times, Washington Post, and CNN all agree with the estimates above, so for the moment that is what we’ll go with here.
It is clear that Cruz/Rubio/Trump are in a separate class here than Carson/Bush/Paul. But even these three would need to nearly double their performance to actually be on a track to win, because, well, you have to be getting more than half of the delegates to win outright. 25% to 30% won’t get you there. So at some point, somebody has to start going over the 50% mark if there is going to be a winner.
There is plenty of time for that of course. Nobody is predicting a contested convention quite yet, as much fun as that would be.
We probably won’t see anyone over 50% after New Hampshire either, but how close we get may depend on the viability thresholds. In New Hampshire on the Republican side you need to get 10% of the popular vote to be eligible for delegates. Although this will definitely change in response to the Iowa results, at the moment RCP has Trump at 33.2%, Cruz at 11.5%, Kasich at 11.5%, Bush at 10.3%, and Rubio at 9.5%. The rest are pretty far from 10%. But that is four candidates all within a couple percent of 10%.
Depending on which of those ends up right above or right below the 10% threshold, you could see very different delegate results coming out of New Hampshire. Most likely, we’ll have three or four candidates over 10% and a mix of delegates, but in the extreme case, if all but Trump drops under 10%, then Trump gets all the delegates. So a wide range of things is possible based on really small movements from the current positions in the polls.
Final points here though to the people saying Iowa proves that Trump is done…
- Trump was pretty close in Iowa. A one delegate difference means almost nothing.
- Although the Iowa results may diminish it, Trump starts with a big lead in New Hampshire.
- Only 1.09% of the Republican delegates have been determined so far.
We have a three way race right now. It is not inconceivable that a 4th candidate could do well enough in New Hampshire to join that group. Things are just as up in the air and chaotic on the Republican side as they were before Iowa. Anything could still happen.
Stay tuned.
Note: This post is an update based on the data on ElectionGraphs.com. Election Graphs tracks both a poll based estimate of the Electoral College and a numbers based look at the Delegate Races. All of the charts and graphs seen in this post are from that site. Additional graphs, charts and raw data can be found there. All charts above are clickable to go to the current version of the detail page the chart is from, which may contain more up to date information than the snapshots on this page, which were current as of the time of this post. Follow @ElectionGraphs on Twitter or like Election Graphs on Facebook to see announcements of updates or to join the conversation. For those interested in individual general election poll updates, follow @ElecCollPolls on Twitter for all the polls as they are added.
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