There’s some other diaries about the county conventions in Nevada that took place last Saturday, including one from veegirl77 about her experience at the Clark County Convention, and one from Angela Marx about why Sanders’s win at the county conventions doesn’t constitute delegate theft.
But I wanted to write one about the revised delegates estimate, since I haven’t seen a diary or even a piece of news about it.
Fast Facts:
- Nevada Democrats voted February 20 in precinct caucuses. Some were chosen as delegates to represent their precincts at the county level.
- Precinct delegates voted April 2 in county conventions. Some were chosen as delegates to represent their counties at the state level.
- County delegates will vote May 14 at the state convention. 35 will be chosen as delegates to represent Nevada at the Democratic National Convention.
- Only the 35 state-level delegates are pledged, and only after they are confirmed at the state convention.
- Any reporting of pledged delegate totals for Nevada prior to May 14 are estimates only.
- Nevada also gets 8 unpledged delegates (a.k.a. super delegates) to send to the Democratic National Convention.
Delegates estimate based on February precinct caucuses:
Hillary: 20
Bernie: 15
Delegates estimate based on April county conventions:
Bernie: 19 (+4)
Hillary: 16 (-4)
Net shift: Bernie +8
This looks good for Bernie, but I can’t stress this enough: it’s just an estimate.
It’s no more or less valid than the original 20/15 split Google still reports.
The real results are determined at the Nevada state convention on May 14.
Methodology:
Precinct caucus results
County convention results
Delegate selection rules
Nevada will choose 23 pledged delegates from its congressional districts...
Congressional District 1: 5 delegates
Congressional District 2: 6 delegates
Congressional District 3: 6 delegates
Congressional District 4: 6 delegates
Total: 23 delegates
...plus 7 pledged “At-Large” delegates from across the state, and 5 so-called “PLEO” delegates (Party Leaders/Elected Officials)…
Congressional Districts: 23 delegates
At-Large: 7 delegates
PLEO: 5 delegates
Total: 35 delegates
The At-Large and PLEO delegates “shall be allocated among presidential preferences according to division of preferences among convention participants.” In other words, we estimate the At-Large and PLEO delegates based on statewide totals.
Delegates estimate based on February precinct caucuses:
In the above table, notice the column showing Clinton’s percentage of precinct delegates. Multiply those percentages by the total number of state-level delegates per Congressional District...
...and the result is Clinton’s share of the state-level delegates. Remember, this is just an estimate based on February precinct caucuses. Now let’s combine these two tables to see all the data together...
...and now we just need to add in the data for At-Large delegates and PLEOs…
...and there you can see how we’ve arrived at the original, widely-reported Nevada delegate count: 20 for Hillary and 15 for Bernie. If you want a breakdown of each Congressional District, scroll down to the bottom of this diary.
Delegates estimate based on April County Conventions:
After precinct delegates participated in the county conventions, county-level delegates were chosen. These numbers are reported in the County Delegates column cluster. Counties are organized on the chart by Congressional District. Clark and Lyon counties are split across multiple Congressional Districts.
Clark County’s totals (Hillary 1298, Bernie 1613) are split across Congressional Districts 1, 3, and 4: 34.58%, 33.26%, and 32.16% respectively. These percentages were determined by the proportion of precinct delegates awarded within each section of Clark County, divided along Congressional District lines.
Lyon County’s totals (Hillary 21, Bernie 34) are split across Congressional Districts 2 and 4: 83.33% and 16.67% respectively. These percentages were determined by the proportion of precinct delegates awarded within each section of Lyon County, divided along Congressional District lines.
The difference per Congressional district is:
Congressional District 1: Clinton -1, Bernie +1
Congressional District 4: Clinton -1, Bernie +1
At-Large: Clinton -1, Bernie +1
PLEO: Clinton -1, Bernie +1
Total: Clinton -4, Bernie +4
Net Shift: Bernie +8
Appendix
Congressional District 1, Congressional District 2, Congressional District 3, Congressional District 4, Clark County, and Lyon County breakdowns