Who's your money on?Follow

So the plan is to keep losing or barely breaking even in meaningful primaries until June and then assume that Sanders wins the state by 20 points?

So, uh, good luck with that.

Edit: I'm looking at the remaining blue states and trying to figure out where Sanders is going to close this gap. New York? New Jersey? Pennsylvania? Wisconsin? Washington? Maryland? Sanders isn't going to blow out any of those. Clinton has a very real chance to get some big grabs from them (polling +26 in New York based on 3/11 poll). If anything, Sanders might have a better chance in red "labor" states like Kentucky and West Virginia though those aren't going to be delegate rich even if he managed to score big victories there (and I'm skeptical that would be the case but it's a better argument than New York or Pennsylvania).

Sure, Sanders might do well in the remaining small New England states but no one cares if he sweeps Delaware or Connecticut. Where else?

Edited, Mar 17th 2016 11:50am by Jophiel

All our sane and reasonable candidates seem to poll so well up north. Then again, I wouldn't want to live next to a nutjob either.

Which explains why they sent Cruz out of Canada and down to Texas, as far from Canada as they could get him before starting a war with Mexico.

I'm sure Chihuahua can't have anywhere near the same number of problems as Texas, right?

This. The only states that he appears to have a double digit lead are the ones with small delegates. Michigan was just as a moral victory to Sen. Sanders as Missouri was to Sec. Clinton. I understand the paid staffers being in denial on TV, but it's time for the voters to accept reality. The gap wasn't this large in 2008.

Yep, mostly from here on out Sanders people will just be sad that there aren't enough Liberals.

2 Authortarian moderates it is, then.

Boy, there's no easy way to explain it.

Essentially, there's no such thing as political parties in the Constitution and no rules surrounding them. So each party has sort of come up with its own similar, but different, methods of selecting their candidate for the general election. In general terms, they hold primaries to (in some fashion) select delegates who will go to the nominating convention that summer and vote for the candidate in question. So a citizen's vote for Clinton isn't a direct vote for Clinton but rather a vote to send a certain number of Clinton delegates to the convention.

Once at the convention, the delegates are bound by their party rules to initially vote for the candidate they were elected to represent. Whichever candidate gets a real majority (not a plurality) of the votes is the nominee for that party. If no candidate received 50%+ of the vote, there is a second ballot where -- depending on the rules -- delegates can choose to switch candidates. This is where the whole idea of trading and deal-making comes in. Ideally, you'd want someone to just win outright on the first ballot so there's fewer upset voters down the line but you need to get 50% somehow.

Makes all sorts of sense, right? In a sense, it's not TOO different from the general election where you are technically voting on electoral college members who will, in turn, cast a vote for who actually becomes president.

Edit: I could have peppered that with a dozen more "generally"s and caveats and asterisks but I'm trying to keep it simple.

Edited, Mar 17th 2016 6:29pm by Jophiel

Shall we even delve into caucuses?

Edited, Mar 18th 2016 12:14am by Debalic

That's how it works in Canada, essentially as well. It's just that no one bothers to register and vote when parties are selecting candidates to run in each riding.

Sen. Sanders is arguing that one of the reasons why he should stay in is because he is gathering a large number of voters under 30 who represents the future. I find it interesting that a 74 year old candidate for president is arguing that the youth outweighs the elderly.

Don't forget the part about brokered conventions, where the points voter's choice don't matter. That's right, the voters are just like the plot of a porn. They just don't matter.

Edited, Mar 18th 2016 9:51am by lolgaxe

What about superdelegates?!