2020 Democratic Delegate Allocation: PUERTO RICO

PUERTO RICO

Election type: primary
Date: July 12
    [March 29 originally and then April 26]
Number of delegates: 58 [11 at-large, 7 PLEOs, 33 congressional district, 7 automatic/superdelegates]
Allocation method: proportional statewide and at the district level
Threshold to qualify for delegates: 15%
2016: proportional primary
Delegate selection plan (post-coronavirus)


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Changes since 2016
If one followed the 2016 series on the Republican process here at FHQ, then you may end up somewhat disappointed. The two national parties manage the presidential nomination process differently. The Republican National Committee is much less hands-on in regulating state and state party activity in the delegate selection process than the Democratic National Committee is. That leads to a lot of variation from state to state and from cycle to cycle on the Republican side. Meanwhile, the DNC is much more top down in its approach. Thresholds stay the same. It is a 15 percent barrier that candidates must cross in order to qualify for delegates. That is standard across all states. The allocation of delegates is roughly proportional. Again, that is applied to every state.

That does not mean there are no changes. The calendar has changed as have other facets of the process such as whether a state has a primary or a caucus.

For years Puerto Rico Democrats have maintained their early June position on the presidential primary calendar. But with a competitive race and multi-candidate field on the horizon for the 2020 cycle the legislature in the island US territory opted in mid-2019 to move the election up more than two months to the end of March.

Although, as with so much else in 2020, the best laid plans for an earlier contest and consequential impact on the race were scuttled by the outbreak of the coronavirus in mid-March. And with that late March contest, Puerto Rico was very much in the crosshairs, more immediately in need of a change to the date of the contest and/or the method by which it would be conducted. The initial legislative response to the coronavirus was to shift the primary to a later date, one month later on the last Sunday in April. And that option wisely provided a fallback option to postpone the Democratic presidential primary and have the party, in consultation with the elections commission, choose a different and later date. The coronavirus's spread forced the issue soon thereafter in early April, and the Puerto Rico Democratic Party indefinitely delayed the primary. The contest was not rescheduled again until late May when the party selected a July 12 date for its presidential primary (a calendar position that had been hinted at during a DNC Rules and Bylaws Committee (DNCRBC) meeting).

As with other states that have technically broken the DNC rules on the timing of delegate selection events after June 9, Puerto Rico Democrats also had to seek a waiver from the DNCRBC in order to move forward with a contest on the new July date. That waiver was granted.

While the date of the primary has changed, little else has. Early and absentee voting remain very limited on the island, and unless the laws are changed before the primary, the contest will be predominantly in-person.

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Overall, the Democratic delegation in Puerto Rico changed by nine delegates from 2016 to 2020. Since the primary in the territory moved from June in 2016 to March in 2020, Democrats in Puerto Rico lost their timing bonus and saw their district delegates decrease by seven and their at-large delegate pool shrink by two delegates. The PLEO and superdelegate totals remained the same in 2020 as they were in 2016.


[Please see below for more on the post-coronavirus changes specific to the delegate selection process.]


Thresholds
The standard 15 percent qualifying threshold applies both statewide and on the congressional district level.


Delegate allocation (at-large and PLEO delegates)
To win any at-large or PLEO (pledged Party Leader and Elected Officials) delegates a candidate must win 15 percent of the statewide vote. Only the votes of those candidates above the threshold will count for the purposes of the separate allocation of these two pools of delegates.

See New Hampshire synopsis for an example of how the delegate allocation math works for all categories of delegates.


Delegate allocation (congressional district delegates)
Puerto Rico's 33 congressional district delegates are split across eight senatorial districts and have a variation of just one delegate across districts. There is no measure of Democratic strength based on past elections because Puerto Ricans are not involved in presidential general elections. The party, then, apportions delegates as follows...
District 1 (San Juan) - 4 delegates
District 2 (Bayamon) - 4 delegates
District 3 (Arecibo) - 5 delegates*
District 4 (Mayaguez) - 4 delegates
District 5 (Ponce) - 4 delegates
District 6 (Guayama) - 4 delegates
District 7 (Humacao) - 4 delegates
District 8 (Carolina) - 4 delegates

*Bear in mind that districts with odd numbers of national convention delegates are potentially important to winners (and those above the qualifying threshold) within those districts. Rounding up for an extra delegate initially requires less in those districts than in districts with even numbers of delegates.


Delegate allocation (automatic delegates/superdelegates)
Superdelegates are free to align with a candidate of their choice at a time of their choosing. While their support may be a signal to voters in their state (if an endorsement is made before voting in that state), superdelegates will only vote on the first ballot at the national convention if half of the total number of delegates -- pledged plus superdelegates -- have been pledged to one candidate. Otherwise, superdelegates are locked out of the voting unless 1) the convention adopts rules that allow them to vote or 2) the voting process extends to a second ballot. But then all delegates, not just superdelegates will be free to vote for any candidate.

[NOTE: All Democratic delegates are pledged and not bound to their candidates. They are to vote in good conscience for the candidate to whom they have been pledged, but technically do not have to. But they tend to because the candidates and their campaigns are involved in vetting and selecting their delegates through the various selection processes on the state level. Well, the good campaigns are anyway.]


Selection
The selection of delegates in Puerto Rico was not fundamentally affected. While the timing was pushed back as with the primary itself, the mechanics of delegate selection have not been changed all that much. District delegates will continue to be directly elected on the July 12 presidential primary ballot just as they would have been on either March 29 or April 26 before.

Both PLEO and then at-large delegates will be chosen at the state convention on July 26. The voting members of the convention who will select PLEO delegates include the central committee and the district delegates (to the national convention) elected on the July 12 ballot. At-large delegates will then be chosen by the same central committee members and district delegates plus the just selected PLEO delegates.

None of that -- other than the timing -- is different from what was planned before the coronavirus.


Importantly, if a candidate drops out of the race before the selection of statewide delegates, then any statewide delegates allocated to that candidate will be reallocated to the remaining candidates. If Candidate X is in the race in mid- to late July when the Puerto Rico statewide delegate selection takes place but Candidate Y is not, then any statewide delegates allocated to Candidate Y in the mid-July primary would be reallocated to Candidate X. [This same feature is not something that applies to district delegates.] This reallocation only applies if a candidate has fully dropped out.  This is less likely to be a factor with just Biden left as the only viable candidate in the race, but Sanders could still gain statewide delegates by finishing with more than 15 percent statewide. Under a new deal struck between the Biden and Sanders camps, Biden will be allocated (or reallocated) all of the statewide delegates in a given state. However, during the selection process, the state party will select Sanders-aligned delegate candidates in proportion to the share of the qualified statewide vote.

Puerto Rico Democratic Primary Shifts to March 29

Among his last acts before officially resigning his post, Puerto Rico Governor Ricardo Rosselló signed into law legislation -- S 1323 -- moving the Democratic primary in the territory up ten weeks from the first Sunday in June to the last Sunday in March.

Rosselló said in a press release:

“This legislative measure provides the opportunity to put Puerto Rico on the radar of potential presidential candidates in the Democratic Party. The candidates will not only pay attention to Puerto Rico but will have to clearly stipulate their positions regarding the issues that affect the island. In changing the date to the month of March, we can engage candidates directly on the political and economic inequality that Puerto Rico goes through."

While the change may increase the odds that more attention is paid to the Puerto Rico primary (and the issues important to island residents), that is not a guarantee on a date that late in March, after Super Tuesday and after more than two-thirds of the Democratic delegates will have been allocated. And any attention gained comes at a cost of the nine bonus delegates the party would have been eligible for in the June position, bonus delegates the party has had over the last several cycles.

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Notes on that NBC report on the primary date change linked above:
1) It states that Puerto Rico joins California and Texas on Super Tuesday. It does not. The Puerto Rico Democratic primary will fall nearly a month later on the calendar.

2) Let's talk briefly about the date of the Republican presidential primary in Puerto Rico for 2020. The NBC article suggests that the primary for Republicans on the island will occur on March 8. It may. But that is not exactly what the Compulsory Presidential Primary Act that S 1323 just altered for the Democratic Party indicates. It explicitly schedules the Republican presidential primary for the last Sunday in February unless that date conflicts with the New Hampshire primary. The last Sunday in February in 2020 is February 23, a date nearly two weeks after the New Hampshire primary. There is no conflict, not with New Hampshire anyway.

Now, there is a conflict between that last Sunday in February date and Republican National Committee rules prohibiting February primaries and caucuses other than in the four carve-out states. But that particular conflict (and any resulting contingency) is not laid out in the Puerto Rico statute and thus the primary would not be shifted back to the first Sunday in March (which technically would be March 1 and still non-compliant).

The catch in this whole discussion is that it is moot. While there are instructions on when to schedule the Republican presidential primary in the aforementioned statute, the Republican Party in Puerto Rico ignores that in favor of another section of the election code and cited it in their Rule 16(f) filing with the RNC in 2015. That section -- Chapter 407, Section 4119 -- reads:

In the case of primaries for candidates who seek nomination in their political party for election to the office of President of the United States of America, the same may be held on any date after the first Tuesday of February of the General Election year, and up to June fifteenth (15th) of that same year, as determined by the local body of the party, as appropriate.

In other words, the statute gives the Republican Party in the territory wide latitude in setting the date of the primary, wide enough to include all of February and the first few days of March that are not compliant under the national party rules. But anything from the first Tuesday in March through June 15 is available to Puerto Rico Republicans. The party may yet settle on March 8 as the article indicates. Alternatively, Republicans on the island could opt to hold their contest on March 29, aligned with the Democratic contest in an effort to cut down on the expenditures for two primary elections. But the point is that it is an open question at this time as to when the Puerto Rico Republican presidential primary will fall in 2020. An answer to that question will become clearer as the October 1 deadline for state parties to submit their delegate selection plans to the RNC.

3) Finally, the California primary was not moved in December of 2018 as mentioned in the NBC piece. The bill moving the primary in the Golden state from the first Tuesday after the first Monday in June to the first Tuesday after the first Monday in March was signed into law in September 2017, well before the end of 2018.


The Puerto Rico Democratic Party primary date change has been added to the 2020 FHQ presidential primary calendar.


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Guam Democratic Delegate Selection Plan Sets Territorial Caucuses for May 2

An August 1 press release from the Democratic Party of Guam announced the party's delegate selection plan for the 2020 presidential nomination cycle.

The document details Guam Democrats plans for May 2 caucuses (coinciding with the party-run primary in Kansas). Timing the contest at that point on the calendar -- the same first Saturday in May date the party used in 2016 -- will qualify the Guam Democratic delegation to the Democratic National Convention for a stage III timing bonus that will increase the delegation by one at-large delegate from six base delegates to a total of seven.

Those seven delegates will be allocated under DNC rules to the candidates who receive 15 percent or more of the vote in the May 2 caucuses.

Rounding out the Guam Democratic delegation are an additional six automatic delegates (superdelegates): the four DNC members from the territory (party chair, party vice chair, national committeeman and national committeewoman), the Guam Democratic delegate to Congress and the Democratic Guam governor.


The Guam Democratic Party caucuses have been added to the 2020 FHQ presidential primary calendar.


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Northern Mariana Island Democrats Will Caucus on March 14

While it has seemingly had no public comment period online -- at least one that FHQ has been able to track down -- the delegate selection plan for the Democratic Party in the Northern Mariana Islands has made its way to the Democratic National Committee. This is something that has changed in the last two weeks because when FHQ spoke with folks  on staff with the Rules and Bylaws Committee then, the national party had yet to receive a submission.

In any event, the plan is in, was reviewed and approved by the DNC Rules and Bylaws Committee on July 30, and calls for a March 14 caucus. That will be the Saturday following contests in Hawaii, Idaho, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, North Dakota and Washington. That second Saturday in March date was the same one the territorial party used in 2016. Although the news of the caucus is new, the date is not. This is only confirmation of that maintenance of the status quo on the calendar.

This leaves only Guam as the remaining Democratic contest with no confirmed date for the 2020 cycle. New York, Puerto Rico and Washington, DC all are in the midst of potential date changes but have preexisting times for their primaries on the books.


The Northern Mariana Island Democratic Party caucuses have been added to the 2020 FHQ presidential primary calendar.


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Puerto Rico Democrats Further Signal a Primary Move to March

The Puerto Rico Democratic Party wrapped up the public comment period for its draft of their 2020 delegate selection plan on April 30.

The draft plan looks a lot like the plan used in 2016. And that is largely a function of the fact that the election is a government-run primary. Any changes come through the legislature on the island territory.  But while this plan looks at first glance like the 2016 plan, there are a number of mentions of possible changes.

One is the date of the contest. In one footnote to the first Sunday in June date called for, the plan adds:

However, the Governor has announced he plans to submit amendments to the Compulsory Presidential Primaries Act that include, among other things, moving the date for the Democratic presidential primary to the second Sunday of March of the year in which the presidential elections are held. This could move forward the primary for March 8, 2020. If the law is amended, the DPPR would accordingly file an amended Delegate Selection Plan.

This is nothing new. News of a potential Puerto Rico presidential primary move broke in February. But the fact that this appears in the delegate selection plan confirms the idea that the primary may align with the Republican primary in early March. The legislation now sets the Republican contest for the first Sunday in March unless it conflicts with national party rules. And a March 1 date would fall before the first Tuesday in March, making any contest -- Democratic or Republican -- non-compliant with those rules.

Another area of potential change via legislation comes based on the changes to Rule 2 in the Democratic Party delegate selection rules. The changes there have shifted an additional responsibility on state parties to demonstrate steps taken to broaden participation. There is reference in the Puerto Rico plan of legislation to potentially extend early voting to all voters for any reason; a no excuse system.

But again, like the date of the presidential primary, those changes would have to be passed by the Legislative Assembly in Puerto Rico. And additionally, that action would ostensibly have to occur prior to the assembly's recess beginning on July 1 and running through August 11. But while that is during the period of DNC Rules and Bylaws Committee review of state delegate selection plans, the acts of legislatures operate outside of the national party's purview.


As of now the Puerto Rico Democratic presidential primary will remain on June 7 on the 2020 FHQ presidential primary calendar.


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Related:
2/28/19: Puerto Rico Democrats Eye March Presidential Primary Shift


Hat tip to Luiso Joy for bringing the Puerto Rico plan to FHQ's attention.


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Race to 1144: Southern Tuesday/Puerto Rico

Source:
Contest Delegates (via contest results and rules, and RNC, Georgia Secretary of State)
Automatic Delegates (Democratic Convention Watch)

Delegate breakdown (post-Southern Tuesday, Puerto Rico):


Notes:
1) The allocation of the delegates in Georgia is based on the most recent vote returns published online by the office of the Georgia Secretary of State. The allocation here differs from the RNC allocation in Georgia. The above grants Gingrich two additional delegates (which have been taken from Romney's total).

2) The Alabama primary results by congressional district have not been released by the Alabama Republican Party. The allocation above is based on the RNC interpretation of the allocation.

3)  Iowa Republican Party Chairman Spiker was a part of the Paul campaign in Iowa and resigned his position upon taking up the post of party chair. While he has expressed his intent to side with whomever the Republican nominee will be, Spiker has not also directly signaled any neutrality in the race. The door is open for his support of Paul at a potential contested convention. While FHQ includes Spiker in Paul's delegate total, it is necessary to make note of the possible future subtraction of one delegate that would bring the Texas congressman's total to 26.


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About that RNC Delegate Count, Part Two

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Race to 1144: Super Tuesday, Kansas/Territories

Source:
Contest Delegates (via contest results and rules, and RNC, Georgia Secretary of State)
Automatic Delegates (Democratic Convention Watch)

Delegate breakdown (post-Super Tuesday, Kansas/Territories):    

Notes:
1) The allocation of the delegates in Georgia is based on the most recent vote returns published online by the office of the Georgia Secretary of State. The allocation here differs from the RNC allocation in Georgia. The above grants Gingrich two additional delegates (which have been taken from Romney's total).

2) The Tennessee primary results by congressional district have not been released by the Tennessee Republican Party. The allocation above is based on the RNC interpretation of the allocation.

3) Take note of the fact that both the percentage of total bound delegates and percentage of delegates needed to clinch the nomination have been added to the table for each candidate.

4) Iowa Republican Party Chairman Spiker was a part of the Paul campaign in Iowa and resigned his position upon taking up the post of party chair. While he has expressed his intent to side with whomever the Republican nominee will be, Spiker has not also directly signaled any neutrality in the race. The door is open for his support of Paul at a potential contested convention. While FHQ includes Spiker in Paul's delegate total, it is necessary to make note of the possible future subtraction of one delegate that would bring the Texas congressman's total to 23.


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2012 Republican Delegate Allocation: Kansas

Romney Sweeps Northern Mariana Islands 9 Delegates

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Romney Sweeps Northern Mariana Islands 9 Delegates

FHQ will not belabor the point here. After all, the story is much the same as the one out of Guam in the early hours of Saturday morning. But Mitt Romney won the caucuses/convention in the Northern Mariana Islands today and with it the nine delegates apportioned it by the Republican National Committee.

One thing that should be noted in all of this -- before the inevitable uproar over why these places have delegates -- is that neither Guam nor the Northern Mariana Islands are winner-take-all contests. It just looks that way now that Romney has claimed the entire 18 delegate cache from both. No, as FHQ mention earlier in the Guam post, the RNC considers these unbound delegates and will likely continue to do so in its delegate count. However, in both cases the newly chosen delegations have opted to endorse the former Massachusetts governor.

I know, I know. But Romney won all of the delegates; that's winner-take-all. He did and it is, but according to the rules these contests (and the caucuses in the Virgin Islands later today and in American Samoa on Tuesday) are producing unbound delegates. From the perspective of the rules, then, these contests are not winner-take-all, but procedurally they have been.

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The delegation in the Northern Marianas breaks down in a similar fashion to Guam. There are three automatic delegates (party chair, national committeeman and national committeewoman) and six additional delegates. The automatic delegates were already in place, but the the caucuses in Saipan on Saturday selected the remaining six delegates in the delegation from a pool of 16 candidates.


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Guam Goes for Romney

...unanimously.

...and by a show of hands.

Not unimportantly, Mitt Romney won the Guam caucuses/convention in Saturday voting in the Pacific territory of the US. With the victory came all nine of the delegates in Guam -- both the 3 automatic delegates and the six other delegates apportioned to the territory. All nine are technically unbound and will likely continue to be consider as such by the RNC in its ongoing delegate count. However, all nine delegates have opted to recognize the will of the caucus and support the winner, Romney.

FHQ says "not unimportantly" because those nine delegates -- in the midst of any delegate fight -- are quite potentially much larger than one would assume a tiny territory to be in a nationwide battle for the Republican nomination. It isn't the nine delegates so much as the nine delegate margin. That margin is larger for Romney than the one delegate margin Santorum enjoyed in Oklahoma on Tuesday. But this also sheds light on the role the three other territories -- also with nine delegates each -- might play in this process. In the context of the coming week, the caucuses in Guam, the Northern Marianas, the Virgin Islands and American Samoa could all (if) with one collective voice offset any/most of the gains that Santorum or Gingrich could make in Alabama, Kansas and Mississippi. All three of have an element of proportionality. The 25 of Kansas' 40 delegates are proportional. Alabama's allocation method resembles Georgia's and could provide a nice margin for any candidate if they have a Gingrich-in-Georgia type win. In Mississippi, all 37 bound delegates are proportionally allocated. Each candidate - if they clear the delegate threshold -- will receive delegates in these three states.

But those gains may be neutralized by the territories coming up. After all, Guam ain't just Guam. It and the other territories count, too.

...especially if they deliver all of their delegates to one candidate. And the Northern Marianas look to be leaning toward Romney too.


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