As Kos pointed out in a story this week, if we’re here on DKos we’re likely political junkies. Some of us political junkies are also analytical junkies and I admit to being one of those. If you’re also of this persuasion, this story is for you.
You probably know that for 2020, California has significantly moved up the date of its Democratic primary compared to when it held its primary in 2016. The 2020 California Democratic Primary, with its massive bucket of 416 Pledged Delegates (about one in nine of all Democratic 2020 pledged delegates!), will be held on Super Tuesday, March 3rd, along with 13 other states and territories. (In 2016, California held its primary on June 7th.)
Based on the current numbers of Pledged Delegates, about 37 percent of all pledged delegates will be awarded on Super Tuesday. Then over the following 2 weeks an additional almost 27% of pledged delegates will be awarded.
(Above, I say “current number“ of pledged delegates because as this recent story describes, the final total number of 2020 Democratic pledged delegates will likely change a bit after the DNC finalizes the awarding of potential “Bonus Delegates” to states agreeing to hold their primaries at later dates and/or holding their primary date on the same date as adjacent states.)
This means that over a 15-day period (March 3 through March 17), more than 63 percent, or almost two-thirds, of all pledged delegates will be awarded. For comparison purposes, in 2016, over the same roughly 2-week period from Super Tuesday through the next two Tuesdays, only about 46 percent of pledged delegates were awarded.
To visibly show how quickly pledged delegates will be awarded in 2020, and using current data from The Green Papers, I’ve graphed the cumulative pledged delegates awarded by date. The steep part of the graph corresponding to the March 3 through March 17 time frame is apparent.
Another way of looking at this is that, while the entire Democratic 2020 primary season lasts about 18 weeks, in practical terms:
- About one-third of the delegates will be awarded over about 16 weeks
- About two-thirds of the delegates will be awarded over about 2 weeks
Mark your calendars.