The Electoral College Map (6/13/16)

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And so it begins.

While primary season 2016 is set to close tomorrow, the transition to the general election is already well underway. That was true in early May when Donald Trump became the presumptive Republican nominee and even more so last week when Hillary Clinton went over the top, clinching the distinction on the Democratic side. Knowing the identities of the two nominees tends to bring with it some level of certainty.

Still, that certainty, five months out from election day in November, is counterbalanced by a pre-convention environment in which both parties continue in the process of consolidating partisans behind their newly minted standard bearers. In other words, it is early.

Early though it may be, there is enough polling data out there both nationally and at the state level to get a sense of where a Clinton-Trump race is even in its infancy. The answer is -- and again there are plenty of caveats -- that the 2016 race for the White House at this point in mid-June looks similar to 2008. Add together the 2012 Obama states plus North Carolina and replace Indiana (2008) with Arizona and that is basically where things stand.

The problem is that there just is not a whole lot of polling data at the moment (at the state level).¹ There is enough to get a picture of the state of the race, but not a sufficient enough amount to inspire a high level of confidence, statistical or otherwise. However, the silver lining is that the bulk of the polling that has been conducted in 2016 has been clustered in the states that have in recent cycles been more competitive. Where data is missing is in the least historically competitive states; particularly those that have been reliably red over time.

This is less true in traditionally Democratic states. A number of those blue states like California and New York had later primaries (or primaries during the back half of the primary calendar) that saw not only survey questions about the increasingly clear nomination races, but increasing queries about hypothetical general election match ups. By comparison, there have been more 2016 polls conducted in Maryland (three) than in Alabama (zero) or Texas (zero), for instance.

Colorado and Nevada stand as two notable exceptions to this rule. Both have voted with the winner of the last four presidential elections, yet neither has been polled during 2016. Each holds a caucus rather than a primary, and Colorado Republicans did not even hold a presidential preference vote that would have drawn pollsters into the state to survey the state of the Republican nomination race much less the general election. Meanwhile, Nevada is just plain tough to poll regardless of the phase of the presidential election.

Again, it is early. As election day draws near, the release of new polling data will intensify. That will either reinforce the general outlook here or fundamentally shift it. The one factor that was unique to the general election phase of the 2012 presidential election was that it -- the election itself -- was a constant. The same 332-206 electoral vote tally that was there in July was there on election day in November.² And it never changed. In the FHQ projections, the Obama and Romney coalitions of states never lost nor gained states.

That is atypical. Bush led Gore early in the general election phase in 2000 but saw that lead shrink over time. Obama was behind McCain in 2008 as primary season came to a close, but won a fairly sweeping victory in November. Unlike those two cycles, 2004 was not an open seat election. But even though there was an incumbent involved, as in 2012, there was some volatility in a close race. In other words, occasionally a state would change sides and alter the outlook of the race in the process. 2012, by comparison was never really that (2004) close. It offered a much more consistent picture.

One of the biggest questions as this 2016 cycle heads into the general election is whether it fits the mold of a typical open seat election (more volatile in the polls) or if an increasingly polarized environment serves as a set of moorings to which most states are anchored (regardless of whether an election involves an incumbent). If it is the former, then the expectation is that the above map will change and perhaps drastically so. However, if it is the latter, then there may be very little change except at the margins. There are now only two states that are close to crossing the partisan line over into the opposite candidate's camp (see Watch List below).



NOTE: A description of the methodology behind the graduated weighted average of 2016 state-level polling that FHQ uses for these projections can be found here.

The Electoral College Spectrum1
HI-42 (7)	WA-12 (158)	PA-20 (259)	MS-6 (154)	ND-3 (56)
VT-3 (10)	MN-10 (168)	VA-133 (272/279)	UT-6 (148)	KS-6 (53)
MD-10 (20)	WI-10 (178)	OR-7 (279/266)	AK-3 (142)	NE-5 (47)
RI-4 (24)	NJ-14 (192)	FL-29 (308/259)	IN-11 (139)	AL-9 (42)
MA-11 (35)	NV-6 (198)	OH-18 (326/230)	SC-9 (128)	KY-8 (33)
IL-20 (55)	MI-16 (214)	AZ-11 (337/212)	TN-11 (119)	AR-6 (25)
NY-29 (84)	NM-5 (219)	NC-15 (352/201)	MT-3 (108)	WV-5 (19)
DE-3 (87)	CT-7 (226)	IA-6 (358/186)	TX-38 (105)	ID-4 (14)
CA-55 (142)	CO-9 (235)	MO-10 (180)	LA-8 (67)	OK-7 (10)
ME-4 (146)	NH-4 (239)	GA-16 (170)	SD-3 (59)	WY-3 (3)
1 Follow the link for a detailed explanation on how to read the Electoral College Spectrum. 2 The numbers in the parentheses refer to the number of electoral votes a candidate would have if he or she won all the states ranked prior to that state. If, for example, Trump won all the states up to and including Virginia (all Clinton's toss up states plus Virginia), he would have 279 electoral votes. Trump's numbers are only totaled through the states he would need in order to get to 270. In those cases, Clinton's number is on the left and Trumps's is on the right in bold italics. To keep the figure to 50 cells, Washington, DC and its three electoral votes are included in the beginning total on the Democratic side of the spectrum. The District has historically been the most Democratic state in the Electoral College. 3 Virginia is the state where Clinton crosses the 270 electoral vote threshold to win the presidential election. That line is referred to as the victory line.

Though there is a link above to a description of the methodology behind the FHQ graduated weighted average, and in addition, a tutorial on how to read the Electoral College Spectrum immediately above (see footnote #1 in the Spectrum table), there is one other operational caveat that warrants explanation. The basic premise of the Spectrum is as a simple, graphical depiction of the rank ordering of states from most Democratic on one end to most Republican on the other.

In years past, FHQ has substituted an average of past election results for states in which there was no polling. [As was mentioned above, these tend to be the least competitive states.] That was not an issue in 2008. There was a great deal of polling that cycle, and it hit virtually every state. 2012 was different and 2016 is shaping up in a similar fashion. Both had or have a lack of across the board polling coverage.

Rather than using past results to fill in those blanks, FHQ will take a uniform swing approach. That is, the ordering of states will remain mostly constant and the electorate will shift in a mostly uniform pattern across most states from one election cycle to the next. If one makes that assumption, that does augur against using past results. Such a method may misplace states on the Spectrum; in the rank ordering.

FHQ instead has established an average swing from 2012 to 2016 using the available state-level polling data. The polling-based averages in states where polling data is publicly available are subtracted from the 2012 results to compute a state-specific swing. An average of those swings is then added to/subtracted from the 2012 results to arrive at a tentative, temporary projection.

Utah has thus far seen an over 40 point swing away from the Republican candidate 2012 to 2016. It is a significant outlier that nearly doubles the average swing. FHQ has made the decision to drop the Utah swing from the swing average equation. That leaves an average swing toward the Democrats and away from the Republicans of about 1.75 points.

None of this -- the change in methodology for dealing with states with no polling or the inclusiveness of the swing average -- may end up being all that consequential in the end. Again, the states most often affected are states that routinely fall in one party's column or the other's. However, Colorado and Nevada are still worth watching. Both may or may not be overly tilted in Clinton's direction at the moment. The best remedy will be polling which will presumably come at some point in those states.



NOTE: Distinctions are made between states based on how much they favor one candidate or another. States with a margin greater than 10 percent between Clinton and Trump are "Strong" states. Those with a margin of 5 to 10 percent "Lean" toward one of the two (presumptive) nominees. Finally, states with a spread in the graduated weighted averages of both the candidates' shares of polling support less than 5 percent are "Toss Up" states. The darker a state is shaded in any of the figures here, the more strongly it is aligned with one of the candidates. Not all states along or near the boundaries between categories are close to pushing over into a neighboring group. Those most likely to switch -- those within a percentage point of the various lines of demarcation -- are included on the Watch List below.

The Watch List1
State	Switch
Alaska	from Lean Trump	to Toss Up Trump
Iowa	from Toss Up Clinton	to Toss Up Trump
Missouri	from Toss Up Trump	to Toss Up Clinton
New Hampshire	from Lean Clinton	to Toss Up Clinton
New Jersey	from Strong Clinton	to Lean Clinton
Pennsylvania	from Toss Up Clinton	to Lean Clinton
Tennessee	from Lean Trump	to Strong Trump
Virginia	from Toss Up Clinton	to Lean Clinton
1 Graduated weighted average margin within a fraction of a point of changing categories.

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¹ The data is more robust at the national level.

² Though the initial FHQ projection was released in mid-July, we have subsequently backdated the projections to the end of primary season in June. The same (lack of a) trend held then as well. The picture through the lens of the electoral college was the same.


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2016 Republican Delegate Allocation: SOUTH DAKOTA

This is part fifty-three of a series of posts that will examine the Republican delegate allocation rules by state. The main goal of this exercise is to assess the rules for 2016 -- especially relative to 2012 -- in order to gauge the potential impact the changes to the rules along the winner-take-all/proportionality spectrum may have on the race for the Republican nomination. For this cycle the RNC recalibrated its rules, cutting the proportionality window in half (March 1-14), but tightening its definition of proportionality as well. While those alterations will trigger subtle changes in reaction at the state level, other rules changes -- particularly the new binding requirement placed on state parties -- will be more noticeable. 

SOUTH DAKOTA

Election type: primary
Date: June 7
Number of delegates: 29 [23 at-large, 3 congressional district, 3 automatic]
Allocation method: winner-take-all
Threshold to qualify for delegates: n/a
2012: proportional primary

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Changes since 2012
Much like New Mexico, South Dakota Republicans have traditionally had a late-calendar primary with proportional allocation of delegates. Also like New Mexico, a high qualifying threshold has tended to translate into a presumptive nominee and primary winner taking all of the delegates from the Mount Rushmore state. However, unlike New Mexico, South Dakota Republicans have made a change for 2016. The primary date is the same (first Tuesday after the first Monday in June), but the party has discarded the proportional method of allocation for a winner-take-all scheme.

Why quadrennially be backdoor winner-take-all when the national party rules allow for a straight winner-take-all allocation? Why indeed. Both the motivation and rationale for a change were clear enough. And the South Dakota Republican Party followed through.


Thresholds
In the proportional era, the threshold to qualify for delegates was 20 percent. Now however, there is no threshold for candidates to meet to qualify for delegates under a winner-take-all method.


Delegate allocation (at-large, congressional district and automatic delegates)
The allocation of South Dakota's 29 delegates are clear enough: the statewide plurality winner of the primary takes all of the state's delegates. As a one congressional district state, there is little need to split the delegates. The result is a pool delegation either proportionally allocated or all awarded to the winner. South Dakota now fits into the latter category.


Binding
The South Dakota delegates selected in March are bound to the winner of the primary for the first vote at the national convention. That is true in all cases except scenarios in which the South Dakota primary winner withdraws from the race, suspends campaign activities or does not have his or her name placed in nomination at the national convention. If someone other than the South Dakota primary winner is the only candidate placed in nomination (and the South Dakota primary winner is not), then all 29 delegates are bound to that candidate if that candidate received votes in the South Dakota primary.¹ Otherwise, the delegates are unbound on the first ballot. It is much more likely, given the late date of the primary and a likely winnowed field that the presumptive nominee will win the South Dakota primary, be the only name placed in nomination, and have the delegates from the Mount Rushmore state cast their votes for him or her.


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State allocation rules are archived here.


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¹ This is one method of avoiding a white knight candidate -- or someone who did not compete during the primaries -- at the national convention. Of course, such a method would have to be employed in more states than just one. The language of this rule is unique to South Dakota Republicans.


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2016 Republican Delegate Allocation: NEW MEXICO

This is part fifty-two of a series of posts that will examine the Republican delegate allocation rules by state. The main goal of this exercise is to assess the rules for 2016 -- especially relative to 2012 -- in order to gauge the potential impact the changes to the rules along the winner-take-all/proportionality spectrum may have on the race for the Republican nomination. For this cycle the RNC recalibrated its rules, cutting the proportionality window in half (March 1-14), but tightening its definition of proportionality as well. While those alterations will trigger subtle changes in reaction at the state level, other rules changes -- particularly the new binding requirement placed on state parties -- will be more noticeable. 

NEW MEXICO

Election type: primary
Date: June 7
Number of delegates: 24 [12 at-large, 9 congressional district, 3 automatic]
Allocation method: proportional
Threshold to qualify for delegates: 15%
2012: proportional primary

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Changes since 2012
New Mexico Republicans are about to do in 2016 what they have done every four years since 1980: hold one of the final presidential primary elections of the season. Though Democrats during Bill Richardson's time as New Mexico governor created and opted into a February firehouse primary that was allowed at the time by state law, Republicans in the Land of Enchantment never followed suit. Likewise, the 2015 push by Republican legislators to move the consolidated primary -- presidential and those for other offices -- into March stalled in committee.

All that means is the New Mexico will once again have a primary on the first Tuesday after the first Monday in June. Furthermore, the Republican Party of New Mexico is like its neighbor to the west, Arizona. In both cases, the procedure for the primary and delegate allocation (and all that goes along with that) are laid out in state law rather than state party rules. The latter are dedicated to describing the delegate selection through a caucus/convention process. But since the presidential primary law has not been altered since 2011, there are no changes to the method by which Republicans in New Mexico will allocate delegates in 2016.

The only difference is based on the guidance provided by the RNC on the binding of automatic delegates. Now, those three, formerly unbound delegates are allocated and bound like the at-large and congressional district delegates.


Thresholds
The aforementioned state law sets the threshold for candidates to qualify for delegates at "at least 15 percent". Like most other states, fractional delegates are rounded in New Mexico, not fractional percentages. A failure to get at or above 15 percent in the statewide vote would leave a candidate excluded from the delegate allocation.


Delegate allocation (at-large, congressional district and automatic delegates)
New Mexico Republicans do not separate the delegate allocation across congressional districts and the state. All 24 delegates are in one pool that is proportionally allocated to qualifying candidates at 15 percent or more of the statewide vote in the primary.

The rounding rules are not laid out in either state law or the state party rules. In a competitive environment that would be consequential, but given the position of the New Mexico primary on the calendar and the fact that the field has typically winnowed down to a presumptive nominee, the lack of clear rounding rules carries less weight.

The tendency, then, is for the presumptive nominee to be the only one to clear the 15% threshold. And since the allocation equation divides by only the qualifying vote, the winner ends up being allocated all of the New Mexico delegates. That has been the case over the last two cycles in any event. Mitt Romney was the only candidate to earn more than 15 percent of the vote in the 2012 primary, and though Ron Paul just barely missed out on qualifying in 2008, John McCain took all of the delegates in 2008.

UPDATE:
After touching base with the Republican Party of New Mexico, the rounding scheme the party uses works as follows:

• Fractional delegates are rounded to the nearest whole number.
• If that leads to an overallocation of delegates, then the surplus delegate is subtracted from the candidate with the remainder least proximate to the rounding threshold.
• The allocation is done sequentially from the top votegetter down, but should any delegates remain unallocated, then the delegate would be allocated to the qualifying candidate with the highest remainder (closest to the rounding threshold). 

Binding
Again, this is a matter that is covered by state law. Delegates are proportionally allocated to all qualifiers (or just to the winner/presumptive nominee if he or she is the only qualifier) and bound by statute to vote for that candidate on the first ballot at the national convention. The law essentially provides the delegation chair at the convention with enforcement power. Said chair is instructed by the law to cast the votes in proportion to the vote in the primary (rather than the delegates themselves).

Delegates are released after the first ballot, but can be released before that if the candidate to whom they are bound dies or by written release.


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State allocation rules are archived here.


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More Past Primary Calendar Revisionism

Under normal circumstances, FHQ would greet early morning NPR references to the 1981 Hunt Commission -- the Democrats' 1984 cycle commission to reexamine presidential nomination rules -- with great excitement. Right or wrong, such references are few and far between. However, these are the waning days of primary season 2016, and with that comes the continued distortion of the evolution of Democratic nomination rules, post-reform.

Previously, FHQ has dug into this, initially pushing back against the notion that the 1988 Southern Super Tuesday was a concept designed to keep Jesse Jackson from being successful in his second run for the Democratic nomination. In the time since then, that line of attack has morphed into a broader criticism on the alignment of the primary calendar in 2016. Bernie Sanders, the Sanders campaign, his surrogates and supporters have at various points over the last several months latched onto the idea that southern, conservative contests were frontloaded on the calendar at the expense of states with more progressive voters.¹

That conclusion ignores a couple of important points relative to the calendar.

The first is procedural. While it is true of the 2016 calendar that all of the southern states had voted by March 15, the blame for that cannot be attributed to the Democratic National Committee. Instead, it was Republican-controlled state governments that positioned those states' contests where they were on the calendar. Those Republican legislators were not making those moves -- and really, it was only Arkansas and North Carolina that moved into March² -- to help Hillary Clinton. Sure, her name came up in state legislative committee hearings discussing bills to move primaries around, but it was always in the context of how an earlier date for the primary in [fill in the blank state] would help quickly produce a Republican nominee who could beat the former Secretary of State in November.

Motivation aside, however, the fact remains that the national parties are not making the schedules of contests. The states -- either the state parties or state governments -- retain the ability to maneuver how they see fit within the guidelines handed down from the national parties. And parameters of those guidelines are not overly cumbersome. Outside of the carve-out states, those rules are not detailed to the level of persuading/dissuading certain states to hold primaries at certain points on the calendar. It amounts to the definition of a window in which states -- all states other than the carve-outs -- can conduct primaries and caucuses. Basically any time between the first Tuesday in March and early to mid-June (depending on the party). That's it. There is nothing at the national level that says, for instance, Texas here and California there.

The second neglected aspect is historical. Detractors of the regional configuration of the 2016 calendar often trace the origins of so-called SEC primary to the early to mid-1980s. That, again, southern conservative and/or establishment Democrats manufactured a southern-heavy beginning of the 1988 calendar and that that has survived. The problem is that ignores a quarter century of calendar movement.

First, the DNC widened its window from the second Tuesday in March for 1988 to the first Tuesday in March in the 1992 cycle. That tugged Georgia out of the 1988 regional cluster not to mention that several states -- Alabama, Arkansas and North Carolina -- abandoned the conglomeration for later, pre-1988 calendar spots in 1992.

Then, over the next several cycles, both national parties allowed the calendar of contests to creep into February, widening the window even further. Yes, some southern states moved up, but that pattern was not unique to the South. Many states, regardless of region, shifted into February for 2004 and to a much greater degree for 2008. Importantly, Texas and Mississippi remained in March. The May North Carolina primary was even competitive late in the 2008 Democratic race.

Thereafter, the national party efforts to scale back the beginning of the calendar created partisan motivations at the state level but regional implications. February 2008 states moved their contests to later dates to comply with the new, informally-coordinated national party guidelines. Republican-controlled states sought to position their primaries and caucuses for a competitive 2012 cycle. As a result, those states were motivated to go as early as possible; usually March. Democratic-controlled states, on the other hand, were differently motivated. With an incumbent president seeking renomination unopposed, those states faced little urgency to settle into early dates. Instead, most shifted to April (Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island) or later (California and New Jersey) dates.

That created a calendar with a southern and interior western flavor early and coastal (west and mid-Atlantic/northeastern) presence later. The regional aspect was a byproduct of partisan moves at the state level, not some push from above by the national parties.

Despite the fact that the Democratic nomination was open for 2016, the same basic alignment carried over from 2012 to 2016. That had little to do with the DNC. In fact, the party barely altered the 2012 rules for 2016. But states made decisions on 2016 primary positions in 2015 based on what 2016 looked like at the time: a likely Clinton nomination. Like 2012, Democratic-controlled states did not have the motivation to budge from those later positions on the calendar. There was no perceived urgency to shift to an earlier position to impact or maximize state-level influence on a competitive nomination race. At the time, it did not look like there would be one.

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All of that is nuance completely glossed over in the misguided foundation to the comments Sanders supporter, Nomiki Konst, made in the Morning Edition segment on NPR mentioned above. The more egregious shortcomings were in Ms. Konst's comments with respect to California ahead of the primary in the Golden state on June 7:

KONST: Yes, I have. I just got back from California. I spent five days visiting 12 cities with other surrogates from the campaign, just campaigning, trying to reach different communities that hadn't been reached.

You know, California, by design, in the '80s, if many listeners may recall, there was a Hunt Commission, which was sort of the counterreform effort after a few reform commissions. And at this Hunt Commission, the establishment spoke up and said, you know, we want to have our say in the party as well, not just the voters. And that's when they created - they came up with the idea of superdelegates.

And they also put some of these primaries, the more conservative states at the beginning of the process and more liberal states, like California, all the way at the end. So even though California is the largest state, by far the most progressive state, it was put at the end to prevent a more progressive grassroots candidate - and that was actually spoken of at the commission - from taking the nomination.

And that worked, I think, it the '80s because it was a much more conservative country. The Democratic Party today is 70 percent more progressive than it was 10 years ago. You have more independents. Forty-three percent of this country are made up of independents now. The Democratic Party's hemorrhaging membership every single year. And in the past 10 years alone, we have lost over 1,000 seats.

That whole passage is misleading on a number of levels. It draws from the foundation of the regionalism argument above, but also attempts to cherrypick an out-of-context situation with California and ram it into some party elites-gone-wild narrative tethered to the creation of superdelegates. The result is this twisted version of what supposedly happened in 1981-82 with the Hunt Commission.

The reality looked a bit more like the following:

First, the Hunt Commission is often viewed as a backlash to the reforms of the 1970s. While the pendulum did swing back toward more of an institutionalized party voice in the process, it was evidence of the continued experimentation on the part of the DNC to find the right balance between an open process and winning White House. Yes, it brought superdelegates, but it also brought back a relaxation on the prohibition of loophole primaries (directly elected delegates) and retained not only the "window rule" but the exemption of Iowa and New Hampshire from that rule. It also should be noted that the recommendations that came out of the commission were the hammered out mainly by surrogates for latent Mondale and Kennedy candidacies and a bloc of labor supporters on the commission.

Second, counter to Konst's contention, California was not "put at the end" of the calendar. That is simply false. The members of the commission from California raised something of a stink over the fact that Iowa and New Hampshire were exempt from the window rule. There were rumblings if not a state-level effort to move California to an earlier date, but that never materialized. That was due to a number of factors, but none of them were the DNC "putting" California at the end. Again, as described above, it was within the power of the state government to move the date of the primary. That never happened. And that may have had more to do with that fact that there were some in the Golden state who pushed for California to take New Hampshire's first in the nation spot. The aim was too high in other words and California kept its early June consolidated primary.

Relatedly, one other item that was conveniently left out of the commentary on NPR was that for four cycles -- 1996-2008 -- California occupied a range of non-June primary positions; all the way from late March 1996 to, yes, (not-so-southern) Super Tuesday in early February 2008. And if the national parties' calendar limitations were not already obvious, neither the DNC nor the RNC had much luck "putting" Florida and Michigan in compliant positions on the 2008 calendar.

The one coda FHQ would add to this is that the Hunt Commission came after an election. Its recommendations are not the direct function of a primary battle, bitter or otherwise. They certainly were not made in the immediate aftermath of primary season or even the 1980 national convention. Rather, those recommendations for rules changes for the 1984 cycle were a byproduct of two prospective campaigns -- Mondale and Kennedy -- trying to push rules that would benefit themselves. That is an important, parallel lens through which to view this as well. It was not all Establishment Strikes Back.

...and neither was 2016 either. At least it wasn't in terms of California's position on the calendar.


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¹ Never mind the fact that as older, conservative Democrats in the South have aged out of the electorate and been replaced by younger, conservative Republicans, the Democratic electorate across the South has become much more minority-based and more liberal/progressive.

² Yes, Texas "moved" but the Lone Star state having a late May primary in 2012 was a function of redistricting issues, not a conscious effort to "backload". The Texas statutes have had the primary there scheduled for a Tuesday during one of the first two weeks of March since 1988. Texas' shift then was a reversion rather anything engineered (by the DNC, Republican legislators or otherwise).


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2016 Republican Delegate Allocation: NEW JERSEY

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Follow FHQ on Twitter, Google+ and Facebook or subscribe by Email.

2016 Republican Delegate Allocation: NEW JERSEY

This is part fifty-one of a series of posts that will examine the Republican delegate allocation rules by state. The main goal of this exercise is to assess the rules for 2016 -- especially relative to 2012 -- in order to gauge the potential impact the changes to the rules along the winner-take-all/proportionality spectrum may have on the race for the Republican nomination. For this cycle the RNC recalibrated its rules, cutting the proportionality window in half (March 1-14), but tightening its definition of proportionality as well. While those alterations will trigger subtle changes in reaction at the state level, other rules changes -- particularly the new binding requirement placed on state parties -- will be more noticeable. 

NEW JERSEY

Election type: primary
Date: June 7
Number of delegates: 51 [12 at-large, 36 congressional district, 3 automatic]
Allocation method: winner-take-all
Threshold to qualify for delegates: n/a
2012: winner-take-all primary

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Changes since 2012
Like California, New Jersey abandoned its February primary in 2012 for a cheaper, consolidated primary in early June. And like California, New Jersey will carry over the same rules from 2012 to 2016. The primary will fall on the Tuesday after the first Monday in June, the delegates will be directly elected on the primary ballot and the allocation will be winner-take-all based on the statewide results in the primary.


Thresholds
The winner-take-all method New Jersey Republicans utilize means there are no thresholds to qualify for delegates. The winner must have just one more vote than the runner-up to claim all 51 delegates.


Delegate allocation (at-large, congressional district and automatic delegates)
Not to belabor the point, but the plurality winner of the statewide vote is awarded all of the delegates in the Garden state according to New Jersey Republican Party rule 5(B)(3):

Note also, that the three automatic/party delegates are included in that allocation. Contrary to the majority of states, New Jersey Republicans did not have to make any adjustments to their previous formula in the aftermath of the RNC general counsels' office guidance on how automatic are to be allocated in instances where their allocation is/was not clear in state party rules.


Binding
As opposed to the ballots in some other states where delegates are directly elected -- Pennsylvania and West Virginia come to mind -- voters have a much easier time voting for their preferred candidate and the delegates on the ballot aligned with them. In fact, the candidates' names appear at the top of the ballot and their respective slates (of delegates) are listed immediately below. That ballot proximity -- delegates to candidates -- makes it much less likely that any ballot roll-off will occur and/or that delegates/delegate slates of another candidate would win.

Rule 6 of the New Jersey Republican Party rules for delegate selection and allocation bind all 51 delegates to the statewide primary winner for the first ballot. That is always true unless the winner declines to participate in the national convention or "makes known publicly" that he or she is no longer in the running for the nomination, then the delegates are unbound and free to choose whomever in the voting at the convention.

That is a more expansive view of the method by which delegates are released. There is no language about suspension or withdrawal. If not for the fact that New Jersey has such a late primary and that a presumptive nominee has already emerged, then the Garden state would appear to have a low bar for the release of delegates similar to those in Louisiana and Michigan.


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State allocation rules are archived here.


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2016 Republican Delegate Allocation: MONTANA

This is part fifty of a series of posts that will examine the Republican delegate allocation rules by state. The main goal of this exercise is to assess the rules for 2016 -- especially relative to 2012 -- in order to gauge the potential impact the changes to the rules along the winner-take-all/proportionality spectrum may have on the race for the Republican nomination. For this cycle the RNC recalibrated its rules, cutting the proportionality window in half (March 1-14), but tightening its definition of proportionality as well. While those alterations will trigger subtle changes in reaction at the state level, other rules changes -- particularly the new binding requirement placed on state parties -- will be more noticeable. 

MONTANA

Election type: primary
Date: June 7
Number of delegates: 27 [21 at-large, 3 congressional district, 3 automatic]
Allocation method: winner-take-all
Threshold to qualify for delegates: n/a
2012: non-binding primary/convention

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Changes since 2012
Little is different on the surface in Montana in 2016 as compared to the 2012 cycle. The primary in the Treasure state will still bring up the rear of the primary calendar on the first Tuesday after the first Monday in June as usual. However, unlike past cycles, the primary will carry more weight. As was the case in Nebraska, the state party in Montana dropped its formerly non-binding/advisory primary in order to comply with the new binding requirements added to the RNC rules during and after 2012.

Montana Republicans traditionally have sent an unbound delegation to the Republican National Convention, but to continue doing that while essentially ignoring the results of the primary would have run afoul of changes made to Rule 16(a)(1). Under the new rule for 2016, any statewide preference vote -- whether via primary or caucuses -- binds the delegates to the national convention in a manner to be chosen by the state party.

And in this case, Montana Republicans chose a route similar to the one in Nebraska: all delegates will be bound to the statewide primary winner. That is made all the simpler by the fact that with only one congressional district, Montana Republicans had no options at their disposal in terms of splitting the allocation between statewide and congressional district results. They are one in the same.


Thresholds
Since the Montana Republican Party has opted to hold a winner-take-all primary for their 27 delegates, there is no threshold of voter support a candidate must meet in order to qualify for delegates.


Delegate allocation (at-large, congressional district and automatic delegates)
All 27 delegates, regardless of distinction, are allocated to the winner of the June 7 primary under Montana Republican Party bylaws (Section III.F.3). While only a plurality is required to claim all of the delegates, the late date of the Montana primary and the fact that the field has winnowed (and a presumptive nominee has emerged) likely means that the winner will take more than a majority of the vote.


Binding
Delegates selected at the May 14 State Delegate Convention are bound to the winner of the June 7 primary through the first ballot at the national convention. That binding is contingent upon the Montana primary winner having his or her name placed in nomination. If that does not occur, then the  27 delegates are unbound on the first ballot. However, and again, given the late primary date and a field narrowed down to the presumptive nominee, it is likely that the Montana primary winner will have his or her name put in nomination. Stated differently, the presumptive nominee is likely to win the Montana primary. That presumptive nominee will have his or her name on the roll call ballot at the national convention.


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State allocation rules are archived here.


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Recent Posts:
About those bound delegates

2016 Republican Delegate Allocation: CALIFORNIA

2016 Republican Delegate Allocation: WASHINGTON

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About those bound delegates

The Associated Press delegate count inched above the 1237 delegate barrier for Donald Trump last week, making the New York businessman the presumptive Republican presidential nominee. What put Trump over the top were not delegates bound to him through the Washington primary two days prior. Rather, it was a handful of unbound delegates pledging to Trump that did the trick.

That is all well and good. FHQ has no issue with the call. Given the suspensions of the Cruz and Kasich campaigns in the wake of the Indiana primary in early May, Trump was going to cross over the majority threshold at some point anyway.

What gives FHQ some pause, though, is that the AP number of bound delegates keeps changing. Trump's total shrunk from 1150 on May 26 to 1144 as of June 1. Both are north of where Trump likely is in the bound count in reality. By comparison, FHQ has Trump at 1138 bound delegates.  Here is where the two counts differ:

Where the AP has fewer delegates than FHQ bound to Trump
Washington
AP: 40
FHQ: 41
Notes: When the Washington secretary of state certifies the results of the May 24 primary -- importantly with the write-in votes not currently included -- Trump's total will likely settle on 40 delegates. The remaining four will be unbound. That will be true so long as the Washington total of write-ins hovers around the percentage of similar votes in the Oregon primary (around 3 percent).

That means that Trump is likely only at 1137 bound delegates and that there is a difference of seven delegates to be reconciled.

Where the AP has more delegates than FHQ bound to Trump
New Hampshire
AP: 12
FHQ: 11
Notes: There is nothing new from NHGOP that has been made public with respect to the certified delegate count in the Granite state. There were some discrepancies that were pointed out about how the count in New Hampshire ended up where it did, but if that correction was made, Trump would have fewer not more delegates. The twelfth delegate did come from Rubio's total. FHQ still has the Florida senator at two delegates to the AP's one. If Rubio had released a delegate (if only one could be released), then that delegate would be unbound and free to pledge to whomever. Yet, that would still be an unbound (and not re-bound) delegate.

Nevada
AP: 16
FHQ : 14
Notes: The difference here is the two Carson delegates. The Carson campaign released those delegates -- making them unbound -- rather than choosing to have them reallocated as is allowed under Nevada Republican Party rules. Those are unbound but pledged delegates; released by Carson and pledged to Trump.

American Samoa
AP: 9
FHQ: 0
Notes: All nine American Samoa delegates are unbound by rule.

Colorado
AP: 1
FHQ: 0
Notes: Ted Cruz claimed 30 of the 34 possible bound delegates in Colorado. The remainder elected at congressional district and state conventions were unbound/uncommitted but aligned with Cruz. That one delegate the AP has in the Trump column is either one of those four uncommitted delegates or one of the three unbound automatic/party delegates. Regardless, like Nevada and American Samoa above, that delegate is unbound but pledged to Trump.

Oklahoma
AP 14
FHQ: 13
Notes: Due to the allocation equation used by the Oklahoma Republican Party -- the denominator was total rather than qualified -- votes, there were three uncommitted delegates that came out of the March 1 primary. Since the delegates allocated to Cruz and Rubio cannot be released until those candidates do not appear on the first ballot at the convention, one of those three uncommitted delegates has likely pledged to Trump. But again, that delegate, too, is unbound and thus does not contribute to the difference between the two counts.

Louisiana
AP: 25
FHQ: 18
Notes: First, Louisiana had a similar allocation equation to Oklahoma. That meant that there were five uncommitted delegates from the March 5 primary in the Pelican state. Additionally, under LAGOP rules, delegates are automatically released from any candidate who has suspended their campaign. That is a low bar compared to most states that require a more formal withdrawal from the race to release delegates. Since the AP still has Cruz at 18 delegates from Louisiana, that means that the additional seven delegates they have in Trump's column are from some combination of the five uncommitted delegates and the five released (and unbound) Rubio delegates. So again, all of those are unbound.

Virgin Islands
AP: 8
FHQ: 1
Notes: This one is still tricky given the dispute over which delegation will be seated at the Republican National Convention. The uncommitted slate of six delegates that was elected was discarded and replaced by the six elected alternates; one of which was a committed (and thus bound) Trump delegate. Seven others -- some of whom are automatic/party delegates -- have since pledged to support Trump as well. But again, those delegates were either already unbound or were made so upon the suspension of the campaigns with which they were aligned (and thus bound). This, then, is another group of delegates that are unbound but pledged to Trump. Only the original one delegate -- an elected, Trump-aligned delegate -- is bound to Trump.

Guam
AP: 9
FHQ: 0
Notes: As with American Samoa, the nine delegates from Guam are unbound by rule.

North Dakota:
AP: 16
FHQ: 0
Notes: All 28 of North Dakota's delegates are unbound by rule since the state party skipped any direct preference vote. The 16 from the AP count are all unbound but pledged delegates.

Pennsylvania
AP: 64
FHQ: 17
Notes: The 47 delegate difference here is based on unbound delegates elected at the congressional district level in the Keystone state. None of them are bound to Trump. They are only pledged to him.

Looking at the differences, only the New Hampshire one stands out as one that might be bound. But even that is not clear. The rest are clearly unbound whether by election, rule or release. The FHQ picture is also largely corroborated by the overall count at The Green Papers. The FHQ (1138) and Green Papers (1139) counts are within one delegate of each other and that is based on outdated results the latter is using for Oregon. Once those numbers are brought in line with the totals the Oregon secretary of state has, then the overall total matches completely.

Again, FHQ is not disputing that Trump is over 1237 or the AP's estimation of that. Unbound delegates put the now presumptive nominee over the top. However, the AP is currently overestimating the bound delegate total Trump has. Hopefully that number continues to decrease as it has since last week and converges with the more accurate counts.


Recent Posts:
2016 Republican Delegate Allocation: CALIFORNIA

2016 Republican Delegate Allocation: WASHINGTON

Dayton Signs Minnesota Presidential Primary Bill

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2016 Republican Delegate Allocation: CALIFORNIA

This is part forty-nine of a series of posts that will examine the Republican delegate allocation rules by state. The main goal of this exercise is to assess the rules for 2016 -- especially relative to 2012 -- in order to gauge the potential impact the changes to the rules along the winner-take-all/proportionality spectrum may have on the race for the Republican nomination. For this cycle the RNC recalibrated its rules, cutting the proportionality window in half (March 1-14), but tightening its definition of proportionality as well. While those alterations will trigger subtle changes in reaction at the state level, other rules changes -- particularly the new binding requirement placed on state parties -- will be more noticeable. 

CALIFORNIA

Election type: primary
Date: June 7
Number of delegates: 172 [10 at-large, 159 congressional district, 3 automatic]
Allocation method: winner-take-most/winner-take-all by congressional district
Threshold to qualify for delegates: n/a
2012: winner-take-most primary

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Changes since 2012
The opening of the Section 3 summary of the California Republican Party delegate selection rules in the party's 16F filing with the Republican National Committee says it all:

California rules have not changed from those applicable to the 2012 convention.

And that is true. The primary still falls on the first Tuesday after the first Monday in June as it did four years ago. The delegates are allocated by a winner-take-most formula. Additionally, those delegates are chosen by the candidates and their campaigns rather than in caucuses/conventions that give the candidates less control over who is bound to them.


Thresholds
Since California Republicans use a winner-take-all by congressional district method of awarding delegates, there are no thresholds candidates must meet in order to qualify for delegates. The plurality winner(s) is/are allocated all of the delegates either statewide or within the congressional districts.


Delegate allocation (at-large and automatic delegates)
The 13 at-large and automatic delegates are allocated to the winner of the statewide contest. Relative to other winner-take-most states like South Carolina or Wisconsin, California's is a rather modest winner's bonus. Winning South Carolina meant winning just over half of the total number of delegates to be allocated. In Wisconsin, the at-large delegates comprised more than a third of the total number of delegates. That much more closely resembles a true winner's bonus.

Another way to look at it is that a challenger to the statewide winner would find it difficult overcome the deficit created by a loss statewide in the congressional districts. That is not necessarily the case in California, where the at-large (and automatic delegates) only make up a little less than 8% of the delegates the state has to offer. Theoretically, a challenging candidate could overcome the winner's bonus deficit by winning five more congressional districts (in a pool of 53) than the statewide winner. That is a scenario where the statewide winner's support would be concentrated in a smaller number of districts with a greater number of votes/voters.

There is, then, a path by which a candidate other than the statewide winner could win the delegate race in California. However, while that path looks good on paper, the allocation rules have not tended to work that way in practice in the Golden state.

Take 2008. The California primary was in early February, concurrent with a number of other states and at a much more competitive point on the primary calendar. Furthermore, John McCain's victory statewide was by about 7.5 percent over Mitt Romney. That is not necessarily close, but not a landslide either. McCain got the 10 at-large delegates, and that statewide win was nearly uniformly distributed across the 53 districts. Romney took just four of them for 12 delegates.

The takeaway, as has been the case with other winner-take-most states, is that the statewide results would have to be really close for the winner to be imperiled in any way in the delegate count coming out of the state. That is less true in smaller (and/or more Republican states using the allocation method) than in California where there are more opportunities/districts. Yet, even in California, that has not tended to occur.

Some of that has to do with how late the primary is; typically after the a presumptive nominee has emerged.


Delegate allocation (congressional district delegates)
The allocation in the 53 congressional districts is simple enough: win the district, win its three delegates. The difference for California is that its congressional districts alone account for more delegates than are available in any other state.


Binding
As mentioned above, the candidates and their campaigns form a slate of delegates ahead of the June primary. The results of the primary determine which delegates -- from which campaign -- will head to the national convention. At the convention, those delegates "shall use his or her best efforts at the convention for the party’s presidential nominee candidate from California to whom the delegate has pledged support until the person is nominated for the office of President of the United States by the convention, receives less than 10 percent of the votes for nomination by the convention, releases the delegate from his or her obligation, or until two convention nominating ballots have been taken." Unless any of the other conditions are met, then, the California delegation is bound through the first two ballots at the national convention.


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State allocation rules are archived here.


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Recent Posts:

2016 Republican Delegate Allocation: WASHINGTON

Dayton Signs Minnesota Presidential Primary Bill

Colorado Presidential Primary Bill Dies in Committee

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Tradition is a powerful force to overcome

That's Jeremy Peters from the New York Times in one of the opening salvos in what is a quadrennial rite after every primary season: the look ahead to delegate rules for the next cycle. Nomination largely settled, Republicans are already batting around a range of ideas to again reform the party's presidential nomination process for 2020. But rather than focus on the specifics of some of the ideas  -- and there are no doubt some intriguing ones included in Peters' story -- FHQ will instead hone in on the negative inertia that "tradition" tends to bring to the table around which rules changes are negotiated every four years.

First, tradition is an imperfect term. It is not inaccurate, but it is a catch-all that glosses over a complicated, political process. No one has ever been satisfied with "tradition" as the answer to questions like...

Why are presidential nominees selected in this way? 

Why are Iowa and New Hampshire always first?  

Why aren't all primaries opened/closed? 

Why do we still have caucuses?

The list goes on.

Again, no one is ever satisfied with that answer -- tradition -- because it borders on the tautological: the rules are the way they are because those are the rules. Additionally, it always leads to the very obvious follow up question, "Well, why?"

The answer ultimately lies in the fact that rarely is an alternative put forth that can garner widespread enough support among convention delegates or national party committees or state parties or the state themselves as separate groups or collectively to be implemented. It is not that there are not alternatives. There are plenty of them, but what they lack is consensus. To the national parties what they lack is certainty. To the states/state parties what they lack is flexibility.

The trouble with presidential nomination reform is not tradition. Instead the problem is that reform is a complex effort at coordinating widely ranging interests within and sometimes across diverse political parties. If that were not enough, add to the mix that state governments, often in partisan conflict with at least one party, control important aspects of the process (eg: when primaries are, who can participate in them, etc.).

Those competing interests often make bringing about fundamental, sweeping changes (or even incremental ones where there is enough overlapping interest) to the system impossible. Such a set up does not tend to produce directives from the national party to close all primaries, for example.¹ To the contrary, with so many interests involved, the likely outcome is more incremental and smaller in scope; like the RNC decreasing the proportionality window from a whole month in 2012 to just two weeks in 2016. Incremental changes -- goals -- are more achievable, but are the very types of tweaks that are most likely to maintain large parts of the status quo.

...or tradition, if one will.

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¹ Closing or opening primaries cuts to the very heart of what political parties are. They are private organizations that can, under the first amendment, freely associate with whomever they choose. But who gets to choose who gets to associate; to participate in a primary election? Under the above idea, it would be the Republican National Committee (or the delegates at the national convention) making that determination. But what about Republican state parties that would prefer a more open system that allows the party to potentially draw more voters into its ranks? That was the basis of the Tashjian case. Or what about the open primary states that are controlled by Democrats in states that Democrats in control of at least one part of the decision-making apparatus within the state? Does a national party push those state parties toward closed caucuses? Do they offer some sort of incentive/penalty structure to gain compliance? What? The more one digs, the more complicated it gets. The more questions arise.


Recent Posts:
2016 Republican Delegate Allocation: WASHINGTON

Dayton Signs Minnesota Presidential Primary Bill

Colorado Presidential Primary Bill Dies in Committee

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