I began looking at delegate targets for Bernie after the March 15 contests (it was roughly the half-way mark). Since then, 1017 delegates have been awarded. Bernie has won 51% of them, or 520 delegates. We are now 75% of the way through this primary season.
All my data on delegate allocation is from GreenPapers. Here’s where we stood on March 15 compared to today (pledged delegates only).
|
March 15 |
April 28 |
July |
Hillary |
1167 |
1664 |
? |
Bernie |
851 |
1371 |
? |
total |
2018 |
3035 |
4051 |
Bernie’s delegate deficit has gone down from 316 to 293 over the past six weeks. But that is not nearly fast enough to close the gap by July. The state by state detail on what has happened is below. States where Bernie exceeded the delegate target are in bold.
STATE |
DELEGATES
Available
|
TYPE |
538 TARGET |
SUBIR TARGET |
VOTE TARGET |
Delegates WON |
Actual Votes |
AZ |
75 |
Closed Primary |
41 |
46 |
279,456 |
33 |
192,962 |
ID |
23 |
Open Caucus |
14 |
16 |
14,764 |
18 |
18,640 |
UT |
33 |
Open Caucus |
19 |
21 |
83,620 |
27 |
62,992 |
Abroad |
13 |
Open Caucus |
6.5 |
7 |
12,441 |
9 |
23,779 |
AK |
16 |
Closed Caucus |
9 |
10 |
5,550 |
13 |
8,447 |
HI |
25 |
Closed Caucus |
13 |
15 |
22,537 |
17 |
25,530 |
WA |
101 |
Modified Caucus |
59 |
66 |
399,880 |
74 |
19,159 |
WI |
86 |
Open Primary |
50 |
53 |
699,333 |
48 |
567,943 |
WY |
14 |
Closed Caucus |
11 |
10 |
6,252 |
7 |
156 |
NY |
247 |
Closed Primary |
128 |
138 |
1,071,903 |
108 |
766,023 |
CT |
55 |
Closed Primary |
31 |
31 |
199,831 |
27 |
152,413 |
DE |
21 |
Closed Primary |
10 |
11 |
50,482 |
9 |
36,664 |
MD |
95 |
Closed Primary |
43 |
46 |
434,465 |
34 |
281,280 |
PA |
189 |
Closed Primary |
101 |
106 |
1,322,769 |
83 |
719,916 |
RI |
24 |
Modified Primary |
16 |
14 |
116,661 |
13 |
66,725 |
TOTAL |
1017 |
|
551.5 |
590 |
|
520 |
|
Though Bernie has won a majority of delegates awarded since March 15, we needed to win by far larger margins. To stay on track, he needed 590 of the 1017 delegates awarded since March 15. We’ve won 520. To catch up, Bernie would have to win even larger majorities going forward. To have a majority of pledged delegates at the convention, Bernie would need to win 655 or 64.47% of the 1016 delegates that remain available.
This is certainly possible (64.47% is less than 100%), but it is very, very implausible in the absence of dramatic news that alters the nature of the race.
The best I can “reasonably” hope for now is to reduce the delegate deficit to 200. That would be a difference of about 5% of all pledged delegates. To get there, we need to continue to support Bernie by volunteering, contributing and phone-banking.
We have 14 states and roughly 10 million votes to go. Voters in these states deserve to hear Bernie’s ideas as serious policy proposals in a real campaign, not as pie-in-the-sky caricatures.
Progressive candidates in future years will be looking at Bernie’s campaign, and specifically where it succeeded or fell short. We owe it to them to compete fiercely in the remaining 14 states so they have good data on voters’ policy preferences in these states. Progressive candidates in races up and down the ballot this year, and in years to come, will be relying on these reservoirs of support to help propel them to positions of power.
That said, here are the very lofty, and implausible targets Bernie would have to hit to have a majority of pledged delegates in Philadelphia:
STATE |
DELEGATES |
TYPE |
538 New |
SUBIR TARGET |
VOTE TARGET |
TURNOUT ‘O8 |
IN |
83 |
Open Primary |
48 |
53 |
816,273 |
1,278,314 |
GU |
7 |
Modified Caucus |
4 |
4 |
2,583 |
4,521 |
WV |
29 |
Modified Primary |
19 |
21 |
260,624 |
359,910 |
KY |
55 |
Closed Primary |
33 |
36 |
459,339 |
701,768 |
OR |
61 |
Closed Primary |
45 |
49 |
525,107 |
640,630 |
VI |
7 |
Closed Caucus |
4 |
4 |
1,126 |
1,970 |
PR |
60 |
Open Caucus |
33 |
36 |
230,747 |
384,578 |
CA |
475 |
Modified Primary |
274 |
301 |
3,210,873 |
5,066,993 |
MT |
21 |
Open Primary |
16 |
18 |
156,361 |
182,421 |
NJ |
126 |
Modified Primary |
67 |
74 |
670,181 |
1,141,119 |
NM |
34 |
Closed Primary |
18 |
20 |
87,870 |
149,379 |
SD |
20 |
Modified Primary |
14 |
15 |
73,348 |
97,797 |
ND |
18 |
Open Caucus |
14 |
15 |
15,843 |
19,012 |
DC |
20 |
Modified Primary |
9 |
9 |
61,997 |
123,994 |
Total |
1016 |
|
598 |
655 |
6,572,272 |
10,152,406 |