Tom Rinaldo
Tom Rinaldo's Journal7,145,011 Voters
Seven million, one hundred and forty five, and eleven citizens. That's how many Americans cast their ballots in the 2016 Democratic primaries that were held this year in the following eight states: New Hampshire, Georgia, North Carolina, Vermont, Michigan, Arizona, Illinois, and Massachusetts. Those 7,145,011 citizens in those eight states collectively got to decide how to divide up 716 pledged delegates, between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders, to the Democratic Convention that will be held in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania this summer.
Somewhere between 715 and 719 unpledged delegates (commonly known as superdelegates) will also cast a vote at the 2016 Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia. They get to decide for themselves who they want to elect to be the Democratic Party presidential nominee. Each one of them has roughly as much say in that decision as ten thousand regular voters who went to the trouble of voting in the eight primaries listed above. Ten superdelegates will collectively have more influence choosing the Democratic nominee than everyone who voted in the New Hampshire Democratic Primary. One hundred and twenty of those individuals will collectively have more influence in that decision than everyone who voted in the Michigan Democratic Primary.
Of those 715 to 719 unpledged delegates, 435 are elected members of the Democratic National Committee (including the chairs and vice-chairs of each state's Democratic Party). Those 435 individuals, who did not have to run for any public office in order to earn their upcoming power at Philadelphia, will have more power at the Convention than the delegates selected by all of the primary voters of Illinois, Georgia, Massachusetts, and Tennessee combined.
Here is how the race for the nomination currently stands with delegates pledged to one of the Democratic candidates:
Hillary Clinton 1,243
Bernie Sanders 980
Here is how the race for the nomination currently stands with unpledged superdelegates:
Hillary Clinton 469
Bernie Sanders 31
Aren't you glad that we are talking about the Democratic Party?
About Hillary's boast of being 2.5 million "popular votes" ahead of Bernie
First, the obvious: Clinton is mixing apples and oranges by conflating caucus totals with primary totals. Sanders has been winning most of the caucuses to date and Hillary has won most of the primaries. For many reasons caucus vote totals are always suppressed by that specific format compared to voter participation in a primary, starting with the fact that voters must be present at their caucus site at a specific hour rather than having the entire day to make it to their polling place during a primary. We actually have a good case in point of the difference it makes in turn out: Washington State.
For some reason, Washington actually holds both a Democratic caucus and a primary. The caucus comes first and that's where delegates really are won, the primary comes later and is only a "beauty contest". In 2008 Barack Obama won both of them. But even though the 2008 Washington State Primary was essentially meaningless, Obama still collected ten times as many popular votes in the Washington primary than he did in the Washington caucus. Obviously Clinton got more popular votes in the primary than she did in the caucus there also - but factored in sheer raw numbers Obama defeated her by far higher popular vote numbers in the primary than in the caucus - in the same state. Though his ultimate winning percentage may have differed, either higher or lower, had the states that Bernie won in caucuses held primaries instead, there is no plausible reason to believe that the outcomes would have been different - Sanders has been winning those states in massive blow outs. Had they been primaries instead Sanders raw popular vote victory margins in them would have been much higher.
Second, the actual math. We are about mid way though the nominating contests, and the first half of the schedule strongly favored Clinton with its emphasis on Southern states voting early. In 2008 Hillary Clinton picked up over a million more popular votes than Obama won in the states that will be voting this year on April 19th alone. And no, one can not simply assume she will have an advantage in those states this year also. If one were to predict Clinton's 2016 results based on 2008 outcomes, she would be the one well behind in popular votes now based on Obama's 2008 performance in Southern states. Every election cycle is unique.
And of course the overall popular vote count doesn't include Wisconsin either, or a slew of other upcoming states including, for instance, California and Oregon. In 2008 Hillary won California - our most populous state. This year I believe it will be Bernie piling up the votes there instead.
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