New Jersey and California Delegate Splits

It’s the Delegates, Bernie, Not the Win: New Jersey and California Delegates

This article is mainly about how the New Jersey District Delegates will be split on the June 7 Democratic Primary.

Previously, I analyzed the California Democratic primary and its likely delegate split. The California Democratic Primary looks very close in the polls. In California there are 475 pledged delegates, with 317 congressional district delegates, and 158 delegates split proportionately by the state vote. I had shown that if say Clinton led by a smidgen in each district and state-wide, because 6 delegate districts would split evenly at 3-3, and odd 5 or 7 number districts would go 3-2 and 4-3, rewarding the candidate with the slight lead, then Clinton would end up with 251 to 224 for Sanders, or a 27 delegate lead, or 5.7%. Of course, if Sanders led by a smidgen everywhere, he would get the 27 delegate lead.

The wonderful greenpapers.com site has Clinton leading Sanders 1,720 to 1,395 in pledged delegates, or by 325, not counting the 714 Superdelegates. A gain of 27 won’t really help much to close the enormous gap. Yet Sanders is trying hard for the “win”, to boost his standing among commentators, the public, and delegates who only seem to be counting wins, as if it is the basketball playoff series. Many of Sanders’ wins came in caucus states with small turnouts, where good organization and enthusiastic backers could win without a democratic primary to represent the totality of party voters.

Let’s do a similar analysis for the New Jersey primary. Overall, they have 142 delegates, of which 16 are Superdelegates, and 126 are pledged.  Of the pledged, 84 are district, 28 are at large, and 14 are pledged PLEOs.

They don’t have a congressional district basis, but a state legislative district basis. They put together 2 legislative districts to make up each delegate district. They have 20 delegate districts. Of the delegate districts, 12 have 4 delegates, 6 have 5 delegates, and 2 have 3 delegates. If the race is somewhat close, the odd number districts immediately favor the leader, with 5 delegate district splitting 3-2, and 3 delegates districts splitting 2-1. So if there is a uniform statewide leader, they get 6 extra from the 5 delegate district, and 2 from the 3 delegate districts, for a total excess of 8 delegates. The 4 delegate districts split evenly, 2-2, unless the spread is enough to give a 2.501 to 1.499 split, where rounding gives a split of 3-1 delegates. That occurs when the vote lead is 25%, or the vote is greater than 62.5% to 37.5%. This may actually occur in parts of New Jersey, where the polls giving Clinton a lead are all over the place. Clinton would then get a lead of at least 8 from the districts, plus the proportional share lead from the 28+14 = 42 at large delegates.

In the soft delegate count including superdelegates, Clinton needs 2,383 to win. She now has 2,291, and needs 92 more.  On June 4, the Virgin Islands will elect 7 pledged delegates, and on June 5, Puerto Rico will elect 60 pledged delegates.   From New Jersey, Clinton should get at least the 8 from the districts and half of the 42 at large or 29 delegates.   Speculating on at least half of Puerto Rico and Virgin Islands, for 34 more delegates, gives her 63 delegates at least.

Clinton may not get the needed 92 in New Jersey, Puerto Rico, and Virgin Islands, despite the news people saying it will be over when the New Jersey polls close. It still may take California and the other states to complete the selection.  After June 5 we can make a better estimate.  We note that AP and the NY Times gives Clinton 2,312 delegates, meaning she only needs 71 delegates, which is more possible to complete before California than the 92 used above.

About Dennis SILVERMAN

I am a retired Professor of Physics and Astronomy at U C Irvine. For two decades I have been active in learning about energy and the environment, and in reporting on those topics for a decade. For the last four years I have added science policy. Lately, I have been reporting on the Covid-19 pandemic of our times.
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