The New American Politics thread

[Vulcan]

Originally Posted by Senator Clay Davis

People seem to be forgetting things about polling numbers this early, and especially how it relates to how much people even know about them. I feel pretty confident in saying Bernie is the cleanest candidate I've ever seen run for President in terms of no one really knows much about him or his history. His background has been examined very little, and the same applies here for Cruz and Kasich. So their numbers now are closer to their ceiling than their floor, and their floor could be pretty far (Cruz and Bernie in particular).

The advantage Trump and especially Hillary have is most people know them so well they long ago made up their mind on them. So their polling numbers are closer to their floor than their ceiling. Bernie and Kasich and Cruz still have go through the billion dollar negative campaign ride, and all will see a lot of drop in their approvals. Hillary and Trump have been there, done that so there's not much worse either can do, and both can probably only go up.

I doubt Bernie has any skeletons in his closet other than his record on gun rights. If Cruz comes out on top for the GOP, I think people will soon realize how unlikable he is and is probably limited to getting the religious right vote. Kasic, I'm not sure about but he won't be getting any pro choice votes either. What it comes down to is the GOP candidates have one arm tied before they start.

[GirlySports]

no results yet, feels like i'm watching a late west coast sporting event

[Senator Clay Davis]

Originally Posted by Vulcan

I doubt Bernie has any skeletons in his closet other than his record on gun rights. If Cruz comes out on top for the GOP, I think people will soon realize how unlikable he is and is probably limited to getting the religious right vote. Kasic, I'm not sure about but he won't be getting any pro choice votes either. What it comes down to is the GOP candidates have one arm tied before they start.

Bernie uses the word socialist in his official title. They swift boated a war hero (Kerry) and in their own primary disgraced another war hero (McCain). I'd almost say it's too easy for them, they'll find enough in his background to give the appearance of anti-Americanism. Short of Hillary getting indicted, they can't do much worse to her, and if they take the wrong approach they could get her sympathy. And if it's Trump his misogyny will obviously ruin him.

[GirlySports]

they might as well declare Arizona for Trump now.

46-21-10

[octothorp]

Man, advance voting is the best thing ever for Trump. More than 51,000 votes cast for Rubio in Arizona.

[GirlySports]

maybe rubio will make another speech

[Senator Clay Davis]

Ultimately those Rubio votes mean nothing as Trump will win by a lot. But in the 538 chat Nate mentioned he'd like it so that if you vote in advance you should get a receipt so you can change your vote before election day if you choose. Trump still can't get past the 50% pole though, which ironically even Rubio did, albeit in Puerto Rico. Same pattern in the Dem primary, closed primaries mean big Bernie losses. Caucuses will go to Bernie but he needs probably 80-20 wins to win the night overall.

[calgarygeologist]

Damnit CNN! Stick with the Bernie speech instead of cutting to commercials.

[calgarygeologist]

Nice numbers for Sanders in Utah and Idaho. 75% and 80% respectively so far.

[2Stonedbirds]

Any chance the super delegates that supported Billery may switch to Sanders camp?

[Itse]

Originally Posted by calgarygeologist

Nice numbers for Sanders in Utah and Idaho. 75% and 80% respectively so far.

That's a whooping.

It's also interesting that the polling numbers were not even in the hemisphere of accurate. Polls had both states as relatively close.

There's also talk of voter suppression in Arizona. Combined with the big wins in Utah and Idaho, I would imagine the Sanders camp is going to be really fired up for a while.

http://usuncut.com/politics/5-exampl...izona-primary/

[Senator Clay Davis]

^^If Bernie can somehow close the gap significantly to inside 50 or so delegates then he can beg and plead at the convention and you never know. But even then almost certainly no. Hillary may be unliked by many but she has been loyal to the Democratic Party and the superdelegates are the party establishment. Bernie will be behind in popular vote (probably by a lot) and delegate count in a convention, so the argument is very easy that choosing Bernie is going against the people's will.

Good news on the brokered convention front, Ted Cruz got over 50% of the vote in Utah, so he gets all the delegates instead of proportional distribution. And American Samao committed no delegates so that's nine more that could go anywhere. And it appears the establishment is actually reluctantly going to back Cruz because he got an endorsement from Jeb Bush, after Mitt robocalled for him in Utah.

[Caged Great]

Hillary getting trounced in the two states resulted in her giving up 5 whole delegates to Sanders.

Committed

Hillary - 1214
Bernie - 901

Supers

Hillary - 467
Bernie - 26

Total

Hillary - 1681 (702 Needed)
Bernie - 927 (1456 Needed)

There are just over 2100 delegates remaining to be awarded.

Of the next 5 states, Hillary is going to likely pick up 90-100 of the 242. After that though, there's 5 consecutive closed primaries that Hillary will likely sweep with only CT possibly going Bernie's way (NY, Delaware, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, and Maryland). Those ones have 607 delegates and she's likely to get 375-400 of them, maybe more depending on how much she wins NY by because polling there has her up by almost 50 points which would net her close to 200 of the 247 delegates.

If she gets 450-500 of the next 850 delegates, which is possible, then it is actually 100% over and done. If she only manages a split of 425 a piece or worse, then it'll be a race to the finish line.

After those states, only Rhode Island, Guam, West Virginia, Kentucky, Oregon, Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico, California, Montana, NJ, New Mexico, the Dakotas, and DC go.

[troutman]

Donald Trump makes wild threat to 'spill the beans' on Ted Cruz's wife

http://www.cnn.com/2016/03/22/politi...d-trump-heidi/

[Senator Clay Davis]

Donald Trump versus Ted Cruz is such a titanic matchup of #######s it's kind of overwhelming.

[calgarygeologist]

Originally Posted by Caged Great

Hillary getting trounced in the two states resulted in her giving up 5 whole delegates to Sanders.

Delegate numbers are so sketchy and hard to find. Real Clear Politics shows that Bernie picked up 16 delegates on Hillary last night.

Clinton:
AZ (41)
UT (5)
ID (5)

Sanders:
AZ (26)
UT (24)
ID (17)

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epo...ate_count.html

[automaton 3]

Originally Posted by Senator Clay Davis

Donald Trump versus Ted Cruz is such a titanic matchup of #######s it's kind of overwhelming.

Two brutal candidates that should deliver the election to the Democrats.

I'm no fan of Hillary either, but she is looking like the only rational one of the group.

[peter12]

The fact that Bernie Sanders is making a run for this long is evidence enough that Clinton is not nearly as strong as candidate as anti-Trump hopefuls think.

[automaton 3]

I agree - she is not a strong candidate. Pretty depressing group all in all.

[Parallex]

Originally Posted by calgarygeologist

Delegate numbers are so sketchy and hard to find. Real Clear Politics shows that Bernie picked up 16 delegates on Hillary last night.

Green Papers has 17 delegates. Regardless, the sum of it is that Sanders cut about 0.5% into her delegate lead.

The fact that Bernie Sanders is making a run for this long is evidence enough that Clinton is not nearly as strong as candidate as anti-Trump hopefuls think.

Not really. It's pretty much just evidence that Bernie Sanders has a lot of money and no incentive to drop out. Much like HRC had a lot of money and no incentive to drop out in 2008 (which was a much closer contest then this one).

I'll give everyone a preview of the next bit of the Democratic race... For the next three weeks the media will muse about whether there is a Sanders Surge happening (he'll win or effectively tie every contest between now and April 19), then NY will happen and she'll blow him out of the water and for a week they'll muse about whether she has it locked up or if it was just a home state thing, then on the 26 he'll fall further behind as a string of closed primaries further pad her lead. Then probably even delegate hauls until June 7 at which point the media will have no choice but to stop pretending that it's been a competitive race since the SEC Super-Tuesday Primaries.