Republican Party Primary Types and the Question of Fixing
Here we contrast the Republican Complexity vs. the Democratic Simplicity in primary types. We also point out that the complaining Donald Trump has been helped out vastly more by the winner-take-something primaries than by the “rigged” ones.
We take the data from that wonderful trove of data, http://thegreenpapers.com .
The two dominant type of Republican primaries are the winner-take-all (WTA) primaries, at 30% of delegates in 13 states, and the winner-take-most (WTM) primaries, where the candidate needs 50% to take all, at 29% of delegates in 13 states. Together they add up to 59.4% of delegates. Trump has won many WTA and some WTM primaries. If you get the top vote in WTA, or over 50% in WTM, you get all the at-large or a district votes, or all the votes, thus giving the losing candidates and their voters no representation at all at the convention. Sounds pretty “rigged” in Trump’s favor. This rigging was set up by the RNC to speed the winner’s choice and get a head start on campaigning against the Democrat’s candidate. I guess, that despite the Tea Party revolt, and the vastly unpopular Congress, they did not anticipate an anti-establishment candidate, or, in fact, two leading ones. The number of delegates in these two categories is 1,468, far greater than the 1,237 needed to win the nomination.
The next largest type of primary is the proportional primary, similar to what the Democrats run. This is somewhat limited by the allowance of only three delegates per district, so it can yield 3-0 or 2-1, but 1-1-1 seems ruled out. Only 12.3% of their primary delegates are of the same type as Democrats have, in 8 states, but covering 303 delegates.
Next in primaries is the wonderful Pennsylvania type primary of WTA Statewide, and unpledged delegates for districts, which was subverted to be mostly pledged and proportional. This has 140 delegates in only 2 states for 5.7% of the total delegates.
Finally in primaries is the WTM district, and statewide proportional. There are 2 of these with 84 delegates or 3.4% of delegates.
We have now covered 80.8% of delegates which seem mainly advantageous to Trump and above board. We now turn to the less democratic ones, called caucuses, where party loyalists or enthusiasts, who can take time out for the hours invested in them, showing up in person, and losing the right of a secret ballot. In some caucuses, this is only an eighth of the voters who voted in the last presidential election. These are also followed by smaller conventions, where the few, carefully maneuvered final delegates, get selected. The largest category of these is the Proportional Caucus/Convention in 6 states with 193 delegates or 7.8% of all delegates. We won’t bore the reader or ourselves typing the other detailed types, but the caucuses or one delegate selection primary make up the other 19.2% with 17 states.
It seems that Trump has or had the potential advantage in 80.8% of the state’s delegates, sometimes clearing more than two-to-one on earned delegates, over the 19% available in caucus states, that required detailed advance workers and a get-out-the-caucus vote campaign. Since caucuses are by their nature the least democratic choice, or caucuses without an indicative state vote (ruled out by the RNC), the caucus winners don’t have a great claim to a really representative victory either.
