Disclaimer: From now on, all editions about The State of the Lead will be partisan.
Last week in our first edition we laid the grounds about #TheLead – what it is, why those numbers about different states, etc. This time we shall focus on the reasons why we have to track #TheLead for you and will discuss the possible impacts of a future contest – NY primary next Tuesday.
To start with, #TheLead is now officially down to 200 after two real pick-ups for Bernie in Colorado State Convention yesterday. I used ‘real’ on purpose, because earlier this week The Denver Post announced that the state Democratic party has made ‘an honest mistake’ (you know what I mean) and misreported results from 10 precincts, costing Bernie a delegate. That means last week there was no pick-up at CO-01 convention in Denver – what happened was the simply the real result from the caucus, not the wrongly announced one. Even before learning about ‘the honest mistake’ I told you in the previous edition how uncooperative CO Dems official at state and county level were. Now we know why – they made their best effort to help one of the candidates. Unfortunately for them, the payback sometimes comes in strange ways – there was a winter storm in CO this Friday and many Hillary’s delegates couldn’t make it to the State convention. Bernie won two more delegates with a comfortable margin (he needed 61.11% to do so and he got 63% instead). Now we are changing the status of CO from ‘projected’ to final and the result form 27-39 to 25-41.
CO was one of the two election events this week. The other one takes place in the state of Washington – today the legislative district caucuses are underway there. We shall follow the results, using official and social media and will appreciate your help doing it!
Let’s see again #TheLead as a table:
Contest
|
Hillary
|
Bernie
|
status
|
Iowa
|
23
|
21
|
projected
|
New Hampshire
|
9
|
15
|
final
|
Nevada
|
16
|
19
|
Projected
|
South Carolina
|
39
|
14
|
Final
|
Alabama
|
44
|
9
|
Final
|
Arkansas
|
22
|
10
|
Final
|
American Samoa
|
4
|
2
|
Final
|
Colorado
|
25
|
41
|
Final
|
Georgia
|
73
|
29
|
Final
|
Massachusetts
|
46
|
45
|
Final
|
Minnesota
|
31
|
46
|
Final
|
Oklahoma
|
17
|
21
|
Final
|
Tennessee
|
44
|
23
|
Final
|
Texas
|
147
|
75
|
Final
|
Virginia
|
62
|
33
|
Final
|
Vermont
|
0
|
16
|
Final
|
Kansas
|
10
|
23
|
Final
|
Louisiana
|
37
|
14
|
Final
|
Nebraska
|
10
|
15
|
Projected
|
Maine
|
9
|
16
|
Projected
|
Michigan
|
63
|
67
|
Final
|
Mississippi
|
31
|
5
|
Final
|
Northern Marianas
|
4
|
2
|
Final
|
Florida
|
141
|
73
|
Final
|
Illinois
|
78
|
78
|
Unofficial
|
Missouri
|
36
|
35
|
Final
|
North Carolina
|
60
|
47
|
Unofficial
|
Ohio
|
81
|
62
|
Final
|
Democrats Abroad
|
4
|
9
|
Final
|
Arizona
|
42
|
33
|
unofficial*
|
Idaho
|
5
|
18
|
Projected
|
Utah
|
6
|
27
|
Final
|
Alaska
|
3
|
13
|
Projected
|
Hawaii
|
8
|
17
|
Final
|
Washington
|
27
|
74
|
Projected
|
Wisconsin
|
38
|
48
|
Unofficial
|
Wyoming
|
7
|
7
|
Projected
|
Total pledged
|
1302
|
1102
|
|
And now this: WHY DO WE HAVE TO TRACK #THELEAD? One of the reasons is that we want to keep you inform and save you the trouble to look for those numbers yourself. Different news sources announce different results, some of them – only partial, others include the supers. There is also the case of 538, who are considered a very reliable source, but they still have not updated their projection for Nevada with more sensible one (they still have 18-17 split in favor of Hillary, while we stick with the more adequate projection of 19-16 in favor of Bernie). And still no one except for us has realized that Bernie got 5 delegates from the state of Mississippi (why so was explained in the first edition). That is why 538 have #TheLead at It is not an easy job to follow all contests, I know, but there should be no excuse for the media to not spent several hours in compiling correct data. Most of the media in question have dozens or hundreds of employees, and yet they don’t their job and instead either cite other sources or use approximate numbers – yesterday I read at one place that #TheLead is about 250 delegates (well, it is not!)
The other reason we track #TheLead is that we still see a very reasonable path for Bernie to win the Democratic nomination and monitoring #Thelead is part of that path. The Denver Post not only discovered ‘the honest mistake’ in Colorado; they also found out that Bernie’s campaign was unaware of what happened. On a previous occasion I noticed that the campaign is really a bit unclear about the real size of #TheLead, so let’s hope we also are helping them a little.
Now about New York. The primary is the day after tomorrow and we all hope that Bernie will at least tie. But what is more important – he must split the state delegates at least 120-127 (net loss of 7 for him) in order to stay on the road to winning the pledged delegates. Can he do that? I hope so! I hope his campaign proves smarter this time than it did in Wisconsin where Hillary won her third delegates in CD6, CD7 and CD8 by a whisker. Each such whisker means +2 or -2 in #TheLead. It is simply not acceptable for the runner-up to miss so many opportunities (the last missed one was Wyoming, but we all hope that at the State convention there things will change).
Finally: What to watch in the coming week? Obviously, New York is the prime time show! Strangely enough, it is also the only election event during the week, so we may very well move our next edition about The State of the Lead on Wednesday, when the dust settles.
Meanwhile, don’t forget – we have Washington and its LD caucuses today to watch! Any new info will be posted in updates.
Sunday, Apr 17, 2016 · 5:28:56 PM +00:00 · Demosten
Minutes before the start of the check-in in WA LD caucuses we have multiple Twitter conformations of some shenanigans going there. For a starter, DNC allowed alternates to cross over precincts, which presumably will help Hillary side to stay viable in the most risky LDs.
Monday, Apr 18, 2016 · 5:55:39 PM +00:00 · Demosten
After the second tier of #WAcaucus, Bernie improved enough to win another delegate in CD2 and one more at-large delegate. #TheLead should now effectively be 196, but we shall update the numbers only after the rest of WA caucuses take place on May 1st!