After the WA, HI and AK caucuses, the delegate deficit has dropped to 226.
Bernie picked up 105 delegates today. That was well ahead of my target of 91, and the 538 estimates for a tied race, which was 81.
Bernie now has 1039 delegates to Hillary’s 1265. These are preliminary figures, better estimates will be available Monday and some change will likely occur as we move through the district/state conventions.
STATE |
DELEGATES |
TYPE |
538 TARGET |
SUBIR TARGET |
Actual Delegate |
Actual Vote |
VOTE TARGET |
VOTE TARGET |
AK |
16 |
Closed Caucus |
9 |
10 |
13 |
82% |
5,550 |
62.5% |
HI |
25 |
Closed Caucus |
13 |
15 |
18 |
71% |
22,537 |
56.3% |
WA |
101 |
Modified Caucus |
59 |
66 |
74 |
73% |
399,880 |
64.3% |
TOTAL |
142 |
|
81 |
91 |
105 |
|
427,967 |
Overall, Bernie had a very, very good night, winning all three states by big margins. Today’s races gave Bernie a net gain of 68 delegates. 538’s demographic model says Bernie would have had 1130 delegates at this point if the race were tied nationally. With 1039, Bernie is now at 92% of their overall target, or 91 delegates short.
I want to credit Demosten forpointing out what the campaigns were signalling in Washington and what that probably meant. That’s the “tail probability” I obliquely referred to in the post. We left it out of the public discussion till after the caucus since it would have seemed too cocky. But full credit to Demosten for identifying the trends (and for all his help with updates tonight). BTW, his target for today was more optimistic, 110-32. I’m very pleased to report that he was much closer than I was :-). As an aside, it’s also likely that there are another 4 delegate pickups from the Colorado district convention (will confirm when we have independent validation).
In Alaska and Hawaii, Bernie matched or beat the targets/estimates that Demosten, Torilahure and I had calculated. Washington also exceeded most level-headed estimates. Fantastic job from everyone on the ground turning out the vote.
Looking forward, Bernie needs 987 delegates out of 1747 (56.5%) remaining to hit the 2,026 majority of 4051 total pledged delegates. That is down from 59% after Super Tuesday. The 538 demographic model suggests he would receive 51.3% (896) of delegates remaining if the race was tied. We need to bump that up by 5%.
I will also note that Bernie did well with minorities today. Bernie won 76% of Yakima county, WA (46% Hispanic), 79% of Grant county, WA (57% Hispanic) and 80% of Franklin county, WA (51% Hispanic). This may bode well for other Western states with large Hispanic populations (OR, CA). Oh and he won Hawaii and Alaska conclusively. Hawaii is a majority minority state, and Alaska is 33% non-white.
|
Alaska |
Hawaii |
Washington |
Oregon |
California |
Asian |
5% |
39% |
7% |
4% |
14% |
Black |
4% |
2% |
4% |
2% |
7% |
Native American |
16% |
10% |
2% |
1% |
2% |
Other/Mixed |
7% |
24% |
10% |
7% |
5% |
White |
67% |
25% |
77% |
84% |
73% |
Since Spanish speaking peoples could belong to multiple categories, we need a separate breakdown:
|
ALASKA |
HAWAII |
WASHINGTON |
OREGON |
CALIFORNIA |
Hispanic |
6% |
9% |
12% |
12% |
38% |
So where do we go from here?
When I started this series after Super Tuesday, we were at the half-way mark and a lot of the game was left to play. I said then that I’m not interested in a moral victory, I want Bernie to win the pledged delegates outright. That is now slightly easier to achieve than it seemed on March 16.
But, let’s not kid ourselves. It is still a tough road ahead, and we have no room for error. We will only win the pledged delegate count if we have a spectacular turnout in WI, NY, PA, NJ, MD and other crucial states. Since many of them are closed primaries, we have to do even better on GOTV. Hawaii should be our standard, turnout there was well above 2008, when Hawaii-native Obama was on the ballot. Washington came close to 2008, and Alaska looks like another beat.
Turnout is also important so Bernie can match Hillary in popular votes (understanding that caucus popular vote totals aren’t perfect). Unless Bernie also wins the popular vote, I expect to hear that as a rationale to have superdelegates pass the nomination to Hillary. That will not go down well.
We need to get back to phonebanking, facebanking, and social media. If you haven’t volunteered yet this cycle, start now. We need an all out effort over the next 10 weeks to win!