New Hampshire specific discussion of vote share and mathematics behind impact on delegate allocation of its 24 Delegates. This is part of mathematics of delegate allocation notes in the series of Delegate Mathematics diaries. Exploring what the delegation allocations will look like and which numbers are important when it comes to support levels.
Primary Election: Tuesday 11 February 2020: . Primary Secret Ballot.
Participation: Must be at least 18 years of age on the day of primary.
Only registered Democrats, and undeclared (aka No Party Affiliated) residents allowed to request Democratic Primary ballot.
Same day voter registration/enrollment is available (turn up an hour ahead just in case if you plan to register). Bring a valid ID if you plan to register or better register beforehand just in case.
New Hampshire State Democratic Party Site: https://www.nhdp.org/ an infuriatingly slow and hard place with virtually minimal information regarding Presidential primary. Other stuff is good though
Secretary Of State election site: http://sos.nh.gov/ and for registrations http://sos.nh.gov/HowRegVote.aspx
Voter ID Laws: New Hampshire is a voter ID law state (so get your IDs in place well before general election). Photo ID currently not needed as per last ruling although Republican legislature is likely to try stuff again
New Hampshire is a legislature led voter suptression state https://www.nhdp.org/sb3-lawsuit and https://www.lwv.org/local-leagues/lwv-new-hampshire
The Primary Process
Turn Up.
Ask for Democratic Party Preference ballot.
What is up for grabs?
Each congressional district has set number of delegates to be allocated from results of that particular district. The statewide (at-large) delegates are allocated from statewide results.
Basic Data: There are 24 delegates available in total in the state. There are 2 congressional districts (CD). So including the state-wide allocations of at-large delegates and PLEO (party leaders and elected officials) delegates, there are 4 different allocation units.
Number Of Delegates Available
Allocation Unit/District |
|
Delegates
AvAILABLE
|
Vote Share %
delegate Trigger Points
|
Congressional District 1 (CD1) |
|
8 |
15%, 18.3%, 31.3%, 43.8%, 56.3%, 68.8%, 81,3% |
Congressional District 2 (CD2) |
|
8 |
|
Pledged PLEO (at-Large)
|
|
3 |
16.7%, 50%, 83.3% |
Statewide (At-Large) |
|
5 |
15%, 30%, 50%, 70% 85% |
Important result will be the state-wide results as they have odd numbers and will differentiate between candidates.
For 8 Delegates at CD1 and CD2: First two delegates achieved cheaply at 15% and 18.3%. Then it becomes more expensive with third delegate earnt at 31.3%. Subsequent extra delegates acquired at vote share 43.8%, and 56.3% and 68.8%. To earn 7 delegates a candidate will need to pass the very improbable 81.3% vote share. In a two candidate contest anything between 43.8% and 56.3% would result in equal number of delegates.
Statewide results that count for the 3 and 5 delegates While the first delegate is cheap, subsequent requirements will form limiting filter which requires substantially large support to earn extra delegate in each category.
What is needed to make the difference in number of National convention delegates?
In the early contests, it is mostly about making the news and attempting to generate benefitial media coverage. By that I mean something that will increase their donation reciepts, or an increase in volunteers, or galvanize support for the candidate and increase in their vote share percentage in subsequent states. I had expect the contest here to be mainly between Elizabeth Warren and Bernard Sanders but the polling indicates a four way slugfest.
Other Considerations:
Some people have expressed possibility of Republicans crashing the Democratic Party primary due to there really being no Republican contest, thus boosting some random candidate (Tulsi Gabbard has been mentioned by some). These are again mostly unnecessary concerns. The state deadline for changing party registration was October 25th 2019. It is probably safe to assume that slightly higher percentage of independents will participate. However if they do their registration will make a note that they participated in the Democratic Primary.
Projections Based on latest New Hampshire Polling
FiveThirtyEight has the following support levels in their aggregated New Hampshire polling. Biden 18.9, Sanders 19.7, Buttigieg 14.4, Warren 14.8, Rest 32.2
In this foursided all out, Buttigieg and Warren are bother hovering around the crucial 15% triggerr threshhold to be able to grab a delegate. With roughly 250,000 primary votes, I am expecting based on historical turnout, that is just around 1500 extra for Buttigieg and 500 extra for Warren. From a campaign narative and the actual number of fdelegates involved it is not insurmountable for someone to get no delegates here and still do well elsewhere. It woulds be interesting to see how many make the cut here a delegate.
Assuming somehow both manage, then the delegate split is looking like
CD1 Biden 2, Sanders 2, Buttigieg 1, Warren 1,
CD2 Biden 2, Sanders 2, Buttigieg 1, Warren 1
PLEO Biden 1, Sanders 2, Buttigieg 0, Warren 0
At-Large Biden 1, Sanders 2, Buttigieg 1, Warren 1
Even a small difference will result in acquisition of extra delegate. All the game play is at the margins of vote share percentage trigger point of that secinbd delegate inb CD1 and CD2 at 18.3%. Perhaps the iowa results will make enough of a difference to candidates where even a few hundred extra votes end up with disproportionate impact. The data I am looking out for is where those people in Iowa move to after their non-viable first choices. That will probbaly give a better inkling.
Other Bits Everyone Chatters About: If the fourway continues then the big day on Super Tuesday (March 3rd 2020) will be an all out scramble. Are we running to a multi ballot convention? It is too early to say yet. March 3rd primary will give us all the data we need and mathematical boundaries which will set the tone going forwards.
Whoever you are supporting, delegate advantages in New Hampshire appear to be in the margins of less than 1000 votes for everyone. So get cracking.
Winners and Losers? Once again, this is Democratic Party Presidential Primary. Unless one of the candidates seriously does something phenomenally unacceptable, a long haul slugfest is on. With nothing even remotely decided by Super Tuesday, even Bloomberg and Steyer will have an impact.
All the votes and carrying on till the end of primary election is essential when it comes to drafting and voting for National Democratic Party policy platform. Whether the criminals in the nation get tried for their crimes or not will depend on the party policy. All the candidates have everything to play for in their respective policy camps if they wish to be able to influence who gets picked for Vice-President and what the direction of the Party will be. We cannot afford another Joe Lieberman for VP or for any cabinet post.
Analyze where you can get that extra delegate for your favoured candidate and focus your efforts there. Some Democrats have won the nomination and the Presidency without being able to show anything in New Hampshire.
References:
Iowa Democratic Party: https://www.nhdp.org/2020delegateselectionplan
National Democratic Party: https://democrats.org/2020-2/
FiveThirtyEight: https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/president-primary-d/new-hampshire/
Our friends Tony and Richard over at The Green Papers still maintain a fantastic site full of data nuggets. They positively refuse to change the layout since its birth generations ago even though I can no longer read the red and green properly, http://www.thegreenpapers.com/
And some plug for other diaries here is the NutsAndBolt series by Chris Reeves https://www.dailykos.com/news/NutsAndBolts
Here is a link from last election cycle related to New Hampshire: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2016/2/3/1479118/-New-Hampshire-Delegate-Mathematics
Current series for 2020 will be collected at The collection will be built up here in this group https://www.dailykos.com/blogs/DelegateMathematics2020