At the current moment it looks like only two candidates will qualify in New Hampshire. Running the current polling levels through the delegate allocation sieve reveals a tragedy that is about to occur in New Hampshire. Less than 45% of primary voters will count towards achieving national convention delegates. The other 55% will be thrown into the bin. How does this affect delegate distribution? What if tWith that in mind, just revisiting New Hampshire to see how things stand at this time.
A quick recap of the vote shares needed to win delegates. New hampshire has just 3 calculations. You can skip to next section.
{For those interested the DNC formula for fair apportionment, rounded up d=Dxt/T, where d= delegates earned, D=total number of Delegates available to be earned, t = Candidates votes, T = Total valid votes. This is based on maintaining ratios equivalent where d/D = t/T}
Delegates ACquired
Out of available
|
3 DEL
PLEO
|
5 DEL
At-Large |
8 del
CD1 and CD2 |
Delegate Allocation Triggers Percentages
1 del |
16.7 |
15 |
15 |
2 del |
50 |
30 |
18.3 |
3 DEL |
83.4 |
50 |
31.3 |
4 del |
|
70 |
43.8 |
5 del |
|
85 |
56.3 |
6 Del |
|
|
68.8 |
7 Del |
|
|
81.3 |
8 Del |
|
|
85 |
The table above shows how many percentage share of votes are needed to achieve a partcular number of delegates in a given delegate allocation unit. The original diary with more details can be found here — -New-Hampshire-Delegate-Mathematics-Democratic-Presidential-Primary
Current Polling
Unfortunately, Current polling levels a coording to our favourite Nate Silver https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/president-primary-d/new-hampshire/
Polling Levels
Candidate |
Sanders |
Buttigieg |
Biden |
Warren |
Klobuchar |
Gabbard |
Polling |
25.9 |
18.9 |
13.5 |
12.7 |
7.9 |
4.6 |
Candidate |
Steyer |
Bloomberg |
Yang |
Patrick |
Bennet |
Polling |
3.4 |
3.3 |
3.1 |
0.6 |
0.6 |
The 15% threshhold means that at current levels only Sanders and Buttigieg qualify. So for the purposes of delegate distribution, only their share total of 44.8 percent counts. Rest is consigned to the bin. This transforms the shares .
Cabdidate |
Sanders |
Buttigieg |
Share Percentage |
57.8 |
42.2 |
Due to the 15% qualifying cutoff, 55.2% of primary votes get discarded. The contest for delegates becomes just two way contest. The delegates distributed results in, with sanders just scraping an extra delegate in both CDs. Sanders is barely scraping extra delegate at the district levels.
Candidate |
CD1 (8 Dels) |
CD2 (8 Del) |
PLEO (3 Dels) |
At-Large (5 Dels) |
Total |
Sanders |
5 |
5 |
2 |
3 |
15 |
Buttigieg |
3 |
3 |
1 |
2 |
9
|
everyone
else
|
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0
|
Even a just 0.6 percentage improvement in Buttigieg current polling numbers will mean he will be able switch 1 delegate in each district in his favour bringing total to 13-11. So there is all that possibility. Lets see how numbers look over the next two days. For Sanders a full on 15 delegate win will be necessary to build up the delegate advantages in anticipation of and to counter his expected delegate disavantages elsewhere. So far it has been demonstrated that he is not performing at 2016 support levels. Anything lower will just show that his baseline support is nowhere near enough even for plurality.
The Tragedy
The tragedy here is 55.2% of primary voters had zero impact. For multiple candidates sharing the same lane/spectrum of voter in a particular state means that even though collectively they have a substantially larger bank, due to the 15% cutoff, they lose out completely. This should be a lesson on laying out groundwork early and building support enough in all states and all congressional districts . This should be combined with ensuring that you make an effort to ensure all other potential rivals from similar areas of support are really lined up early behind someone or at least no more thanb two people. Overlapping contituencies with multiple candidates even without any negative campaigning falls prey to the brutal qualifying criteria and “fair distribution” calculation.
What if a third person qualifies with 15%?
Lets look at the possibilities of one more candidate hitting that 15% support. For this hypothesis assuming that the getting to 15% does not come at the expense of either Buttigieg or Sanders. Secondly Assuming even distribution between the districts. This works the same way whether Biden or Warren hit target.
Candidate |
Sanders |
Buttigieg |
Third |
Polling |
25.9 |
18.9 |
15 |
With three qualifying candidates commanding 59.8% share of primary votes between them, the shares percentages change significantly as shown below.
Cabdidate |
Sanders |
Buttigieg |
Third |
Share Percentage |
43.3 |
31.6 |
25.1 |
This results in a very different delegate distribution. Sanders falling short of extra delegates by a sliver everywhere excpet PLEO category where he falls by a lot.
Candidate |
CD1 (8 Dels) |
CD2 (8 Del) |
PLEO (3 Dels) |
At-Large (5 Dels) |
Total |
Sanders |
3 |
3 |
1 |
2 |
9 |
Buttigieg |
3 |
3 |
1 |
2 |
9
|
Third |
2 |
2 |
1 |
1 |
6 |
everyone
else
|
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
|
Just by qualifying a third candidate gains a substantial share of delegates. So I expect Warren and Biden camps are probably trying very hard here. Biden needs an improvement of 1.5% and Warren 2.3% on their current polling levels. This also shows that Sanders is gaining disproportionately from a divided field.
What if a fourth person qualifies with 15%?
Just for fun, lets see what happens if fourth person also qualifies. For this hypothesis assuming that the getting to 15% does not come at the expense of either Buttigieg or Sanders. Secondly Assuming even distribution between the districts. For the tables I will use Biden and Warren.
Candidate |
Sanders |
Buttigieg |
Biden |
Warren |
Polling |
25.9 |
18.9 |
15 |
15 |
With four qualifying candidates commanding 74.8% share of primary votes between them, the shares percentages changes as shown below.
Cabdidate |
Sanders |
Buttigieg |
Biden |
Warren |
Share Percentage |
34.6 |
25.3 |
20.1 |
20.1 |
We run into a rounding anomaly here at 20.1 for both, because 0.05 rounds up to 0.1. It only makes a difference in PLEO category distribution. Lets assume Biden got more votes than Warren even if it was just 1 vote. The resulting delegate distribution shown below.
Candidate |
CD1 (8 Dels) |
CD2 (8 Del) |
PLEO (3 Dels) |
At-Large (5 Dels) |
Total |
Sanders |
3 |
3 |
1 |
2 |
9 |
Buttigieg |
2 |
2 |
1 |
1 |
6
|
Biden |
2 |
2 |
1 |
1 |
6 |
Warren |
1 |
1 |
0 |
1 |
3 |
everyone
else
|
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
|
Even in this scenario, still 25.2% of total primary votes were discounted since they did not hit the qualifying criteria. Although due to large number of candidates, even votes without cutoff would not change much since it would take minimum 8.3% votes to get a delegate within fair distribution.
After The Tragedy?
The media (social or mainstream or niche) will spin this into whatever their underlying philosophy is. Why is New Hampshire with its less than 1.4 million population distributed along (According to the most recent ACS):
- White: 93.03%
- Asian: 2.69%
- Two or more races: 2.08%
- Black or African American: 1.53%
- Other race: 0.49%
- Native American: 0.16%
- Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander: 0.03%
Why does this get a disproportionate say? It does so from a vantage point of entitlement. No matter which political spectrum you fall under, here is New Hampshire subtly saying, we will kill your aspirations, we will only permit Democrats who fall within what we deem acceptable. Does this electorate reflect Democratic Party?
Getting zero delegates here is going to make the media all delighted that they can run multiple stories and drive the narrative of campaign deaths. All supporters of candidates who do not manage to eke out a delegate here, do not despair. The revolution is never instaneous, despite any such narrative. Sure there will be defining moments, symbolic moments. But revolutions and reformations need building upto. It needs laying out the groundwork and netwroks and debate and pushing on all fronts. There will be misery on the day. That is something to accept and yet to keep hold of the belief that world should be a just world and we aim to transform it thus. Remind our standard bearers to not lose hope. It might not happen today, but it will happen. I am firmly entrenched in the “shoulders of giant” philosophy as iterated by many, including the one born on 25th Dec (Isaac Newton).