[EDIT: Please see nieman's two comments below; some of my assumptions on delegate distribution are incorrect. Clinton's winning the popular vote, however, is still, statistically, almost certainly not incorrect. I'll try to modify my remarks as time/understanding allows. Thanks.]
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Saturday night, Jan. 19 was a long and nerve-riddled evening for many Kossacks. Hillary won Nevada, and then she didn't; Obama lost Nevada, and then he didn't. Hopes were raised, then crushed. And the reverse.
I did an enormous amount of research last night, looking into the mathematical formulations of how the county delegates are awarded in Nevada based on the caucusing. I did my best to relay that information to my fellow Kossacks in two different spots: This diary by Alegre (See comment "Hillary won, period. Here's why" near the end of the page, and it's follow-ups) and this front page post by Kos (See comment "Ok, let's try this again: Clinton won pop. vote" about 3/4 of the way down the page and it's follow-ups).
The summary of the research was that it is virtually impossible that Clinton lost the popular vote in Nevada.
Additionally, according to JedReport and RonKSeattle (thank you both very much for helping make this clear for myself and many others), Clinton took the popular vote based on entrance (and, I think, exit) polling results extrapolation. From what JedReport said, the popular vote numbers would be 48% Clinton, 41% Obama. RonKSeattle had the same spread, and said that when viability constraints were factored in, Clinton likely goes from a 7% margin to an 8% margin in the popular vote.
I am not going to re-do all the math here, but there are two crucial things to understand:
- The most important factor in deciding how many county delegates (the delegates awarded yesterday, which Clinton won [with 98% precincts reporting] 5355 to 4773 {the 51% to 45% numbers that many are erroneously reporting as the popular vote result/difference}) a candidate receives from each precinct caucus is how "weighted" the caucus is. That is, how much extra value is given to a caucus based on its being, say, in a rural county versus a county with a large city (like Clark County and Las Vegas). Obama won the rural counties and thus was receiving LARGE multiples to his 'delegates won' totals, and he STILL lost the total delegates awarded yesterday. This is indicative that he lost the popular vote, and lost it very handily, which makes sense given the entrance/exit polling. I cannot over-stress just how remote it is that Obama took the popular vote under these circumstances; it is virtually impossible from everything I learned from researching this. I could be wrong about this, I will qualify, but this is almost a lock.
- The number of national delegates (the whole '13 vs 12' discussion last night) awarded for Nevada is based on two factors:
a) County delegates won (the number discussed in point 1)
b) A weighted system to try to balance out, like in point 1, the rural with the
more populated counties.
In other words, this is another 'hurdle' which is put up so that the rural counties
aren't proportionally under-represented versus the larger counties. After two
'bottlenecks' of math to try to 'equal-out' the raw results, Obama 'won' with 13
national delegates to 12 delegates for Clinton.
What does this mean, in English: It took 2 highly-slanted mathematical formulas to go from Clinton's winning the popular vote to Obama's getting 13 national delegates to Clinton's 12. But based on this final national delegate total (13 to 12), the county delegates won last night (4773 to 5355) and the extrapolated entrance/exit polling data of the popular vote (41% to 48%), it is essentially impossible that Senator Clinton did not win the popular vote. I can tell you with near-certainty that she won it, and she won it very substantially.
Based on the '48% to 41%' figure of the entrance and/or exit polling data and the 115,800 voters number (courtesy of the Las Vegas Sun {with 98% precincts in}), the raw votes would look something like this:
Clinton--------------------Obama
55,584 ------------------- 47,478
or an 8,106 vote victory out of the 115,800 votes cast for Sen. Clinton
Clinton won New Hampshire by approximately 7,500 votes. That state, however, had far more total votes cast for its Democratic election (290,000+).
I hope this helps people better understand last night. :)
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Here's something all of us agreed on after the disastrous 2000 presidential election:
The Electoral College sucks
The Electoral College is like a nationwide caucus, so to speak, in that it takes away the direct democracy entailed in the popular vote.
Gore won the popular vote, and won it substantially.
Bush 'won' the Electoral College.
The intent in caucuses and the Electoral College may be good, but they are flawed systems; they don't work. And they lead to things like last night and the 2000 election. That is, pissed off people who don't understand the math involved (b/c it's not transparent, or at least not easily understood) and who can be up one moment emotionally, then down the next.
There are two critical things which have to happen for our democracy to be a real, full democracy:
*Eliminate the Electoral College
*Have all primaries be proportional primaries (preferably closed ones, IMO, but that's a different fight). That is, no 'winner-take-all' primaries. Such primaries will ensure the minority vote gets 'heard' as well as the majority vote in each election.
We might want to also rethink the idea of 'superdelegates,' but, again, that is a different discussion.
The reason why Kos was upset with what the NV chairperson said last night about the non-binding delegates was because what she was saying, essentially, was that if she and the rest of the Dem Party feel like making popular vote winner Hillary Clinton the national delegate winner as well, they can and they will.
Let's eliminate this angst, for all sides. No more NV chairpersons in bad spots and no more Katherine Harrises, either, who have the ability to tip national presidential elections.
Thanks for reading.