Graphing the delegates: The mathematical elimination of Ted Cruz

Daily Kos Staff

Thursday April 21, 2016 · 8:59 AM PDT

2016/04/21 · 08:59

In New York’s primary election, Ted Cruz was the night’s biggest loser, coming in third place (and even fourth place behind Ben Carson in some areas) and earning zero delegates. At the same time, it also became impossible for him to secure the GOP presidential nomination on the first ballot at the convention even if he were to somehow win every single delegate available in all the upcoming contests. In other words, Cruz was mathematically eliminated (though he could still theoretically hit a majority by winning over additional uncommitted delegates from states that have already voted, but good luck).

In the map above, New York’s results are shown in a cartogram, where each county is sized by the number of Republican primary votes, rather than land area. In this way, New York City, so small on traditional maps, is distinctly visible. As you can see, Donald Trump dominated throughout most of the state, winning every county—except Manhattan, where he lives. In most counties, he also won more than half of the vote.

Join us for the full selection of delegate graphs for both Republicans and Democrats.

The Republicans

In the graph below, we see Kasich and now Cruz are unable to win enough delegates in the upcoming states to reach a delegate majority—that magic figure of 1,237. There are as of this writing, however, an additional 93 uncommitted delegates who have yet to weigh in with their preferences, according to Taniel’s excellent spreadsheet, the source for all of these numbers.

Trump, on the other hand, needs about a little more than half of remaining delegates to hit 1,237. The winner-take-all (or winner-take-most) nature of the Republican delegate apportionment process means that a Trump win is still a real possibility, if not likely.

Trump currently has almost half of the delegates allocated to date.

New York gave Trump a big boost in his delegate totals. The goal (which Cruz and Kasich can no longer reach) is the dashed line at the top, which represents the 1,237 mark.

Indeed, Trump’s net delegate lead is now greater than it has ever been.

The Democrats

There were no surprises on the Democratic side in New York. In the cartogram above, you can see that Bernie Sanders won almost all the counties in upstate New York, areas where Hillary Clinton romped in 2008. Unfortunately for Sanders, more than half of New York’s Democratic primary voters live in and around New York City, where Clinton generally improved compared to 2008. (You’ll also note that the Democratic cartogram of New York looks distinctly different than the Republican one above, because of the preponderance of Democratic voters downstate.)

Yet even though Clinton’s coalition of voters this year was remarkably different from what it was in 2008, it still gave her a little more support in New York than she had eight years ago. You can see this illustrated in the graph below (and also the previous discussion here), which compares Clinton's 2008 and 2016 performances on a state-by-state basis.

The share of remaining delegates needed for each candidate to win a pledged delegate majority is shown below. The share Sanders requires is now higher than ever, while Clinton’s is lower than ever. Without the sort of winner-take-all primaries that exist on the GOP side, Clinton is in the driver’s seat.

The graph below shows the share of delegates already won. This graph changes more and more slowly as the pile of delegates already awarded grows larger.

Clinton has consistently maintained a lead since early March.

Thanks to New York, Clinton’s net delegate lead has increased. That lead is likely to grow again following next week’s primaries.

Graphing the delegates: The mathematical elimination of Ted Cruz

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