With Biden out and Benghazi behind us (for now), the Democratic primaries come down to a contest between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders.
Where do the candidates stand now in the competition for the delegates needed to win the nomination? Public opinion polls suggest a close race in Iowa and New Hampshire. Polling in a handful of other states and at the national level don't reveal much about the challenges ahead for Clinton and Sanders.
Right now, there's one way to measure and compare support for the two candidates in every part of the US, the individual contribution data collected by the Federal Election Commission. Each donor record has a zip code attached which can be mapped to a matching congressional district. The data for hundreds of thousands of donors provides a realistic measure of support that should translate into votes on election day.
Grouping the donor data by congressional district follows the Democratic Party process for allocating 2,490 delegates proportionately to the primary winners.
Secondly, grouping the donor data by state corresponds to the Democratic Party process for allocating another 820 delegates proportionately to the primary winners.
Added together, the 3,310 district and state-level delegates will represent 75% of all voting delegates at the convention. Party leaders and elected officials, including the Democratic members of Congress, make up the rest.
In this analysis, a "Lean Index" was assigned to each congressional district for Clinton or Sanders by comparing donor support in the district with donor support at the national level. The delegate counts were calculated by the amount of lean, for one candidate or the other, in each district or state.
The FEC donor data revealed distinctly different areas where each candidate's support is stronger than the other.
The map above, shows Clinton's advantage in the Southeast. Her support is anchored in diverse locations: Little Rock, Atlanta, and 18 districts in Texas plus 6 in Florida where Latinos are more than 30% of the population. Support for Clinton could give her 664 of region's 873 delegates, allocated proportionately.
It's hard to see where Sanders would make much of a dent in Clinton's lead in the Southeast. Of the 12 states in the region, his support is stronger than hers in one, Kentucky.
In the Northeast, Sanders has strong individual donor support in all of the New England states except Rhode Island. He also has strong support in upstate New York, Virginia, and West Virginia.
However, Clinton takes 635 of the region's 993 delegates. Her support prevails in all of the big cities of the Northeast, including parts of Boston, Hartford, and Baltimore, and all of Providence, New York, Philadelphia, Washington, DC, Richmond, Norfolk, Buffalo, Cleveland, Columbus and Cincinnati.
These cities lean heavily Democratic and, consequently, they have more delegate representation at the convention than Republican-leaning districts. For example, Ohio CD-11 (Cleveland/Akron) has 18 convention delegates and Ohio CD-05 (Columbus) has 13, while Ohio CD-08, represented by John Boehner has only 4 delegates.
In the competition for delegates, there's an advantage in having support in locations where there are a lot of Democrats and the party is organized.
The delegate count for each candidate, allocated proportionately at the district level, and totaled by state, can deviate from the popular vote, in the larger states where there are unequal districts.
In the West, the balance between Clinton and Sanders is reversed.
Clinton has support in Nevada and Utah. In Washington State, her support exceeds Sanders' in only one district, WA-07, which covers part of the Seattle metro area. Sanders sweeps in Oregon. In Arizona, Clinton has an edge in CD-07, the working class majority Latino district on the west side of Phoenix, represented by freshman Progressive Caucus member, Ruben Gallego. California is almost evenly split. There's competition between Clinton and Sanders for districts in the San Francisco Bay Area, San Jose, Los Angeles, and San Diego. Sanders takes 492 of the region's 815 delegates.
Sanders has an advantage in the Midwest, too, particularly Wisconsin and the prairie states from North Dakota to Kansas. Clinton's support is in the cities of Minneapolis, Milwaukee, Chicago, Detroit, Indianapolis, St. Louis, and Kansas City. Sanders takes 397 of the region's 629 delegates.
The nationwide result of the primary competition for convention delegates is outlined in the table below. Neither candidate would have the 2,244 votes needed to win the nomination, if the primaries played out as described here.
Candidate |
Delegates |
Districts |
District
Lean D |
District
Lean R |
Average PVI |
States
(incl. DC) |
Sanders |
1456 |
188 |
68 |
116 |
R+3 |
27 |
Clinton |
1854 |
248 |
118 |
121 |
D+3 |
24 |
Total |
3310 |
436 |
186 |
237 |
- |
51 |
Clinton would need another 390 votes, and Sanders would need 788.
There are 475 party leaders and elected officials who go to the convention as pledged delegates. There's no reliable data at this time to say which candidate they will choose but it's possible that Clinton will have enough delegates to clinch the nomination before the convention.
There are also 189 Democratic House members, 46 Democratic (or Independent Senators) and 19 Democratic state Governors who go to the convention as unpledged Superdelegates. If they were allocated to the popular vote winner in their jurisdictions, Clinton would add another 150, approximately, to her total.
Unless Sanders is able to shift the balance to gain a significant delegate lead, it appears likely that Hillary Clinton will be the Democratic Party nominee for President.