Especially after this Tuesday’s 5 primaries, with around 450 Democratic delegates and 172 Republican delegates at stake*. 6 weeks after that to California, with only Indiana of significance in between.
You see, it’s always been a nice perk living here that we have not had to see crazy national political advertising until after the conventions. This year may well be different, if not for the Dems then maybe for the Reps. Oh joy, as no-one said ever.
So if the worst happens and one or both of the tickets are not decided by then, when might we expect to start seeing these lying liars and their lying TV ads for the June 7 primary?
*note, I did the addition in my head so forgive me if the numbers are off.
Yes for the GOP. Trump will be fighting to get as close to 1237 as possible in order to have the best chance of getting enough uncommitted delegates to switch to him in the first ballot at the convention. The #NeverTrump crowd show no sign of folding, so California will be relevant.
I fully expect Sanders to still be running, but it won’t be relevant in that it won’t determine who will be the nominee, it will just give him a platform to speak.
Concur. If anything, it may give Hilary a chance to take a decisive lead in pledged delegates (she has a several hundred vote lead now, IIRC, but going into the convention 500-600 delegates ahead by actual voting will quall any threat of a Bernie revolution, IMHO).
But the Republicans…Trump may be close enough that a major victory there would put him very near (or even over?) the top, and Cruz and Kasich will be pulling out all the stops to keep that from happening (and California is one state that they are not cooperating on, IIRC).
Yeah, the question on the Republican side is not “Will Trump have a strong plurality?”, or anything like that. It’s now a given that he will. The question is whether he will have an absolute majority on the first ballot or not, and that’s going to come down to the wire. He might get that before California, or he might fall far enough behind that he can’t get it even with California, but neither of those is likely, which means that California will be relevant.
And the Democrats won’t ignore California, either. There’s no chance that California matters for who gets the D nomination (that’s going to be Clinton), but when your main goal is to get attention, a strong finish in the last and largest primary is a good way to get it.
Yes, on both sides – Hillary will possibly go over the outright-majority delegate number needed (and definitely will go over the majority-of-pledged delegates, if not before) with the CA primary. With the Republicans, even more so – Trump will probably have a chance to get to 1237 with a good showing in CA, and the others will be desperate to prevent this.
I am already getting the attack ads masquerading as opinion polls (“In the upcoming State Senate election…here is a list of reasons to vote for (the preferred candidate)…here is a list of reasons not to vote for (the most likely opposition)” - thirty minutes later, the same thing, although probably paid for by another candidate).
Since I am a Republican in a heavily Democratic district, and California is district WTA with only 10 state-level pledged delegates, the Presidential candidates will probably be bombarding me with robocalls any minute now.
Little-known fact: the last time California mattered in a Presidential election (i.e. where the elected President would have lost had California voted for his opponent) was in 1916, unless you’re one of the “Gore won in 2000” types.
On one hand I’m glad we count this year, but on the other hand I hate all the political ads. During 2008, we were bombarded with those stupid Prop 8 anti-gay ads. I think I read that up until that point, it was the most money ever spent ($50 million) on any proposition anywhere in the US.
On the other hand, I might be able to take in a campaign rally or two for Clinton or Sanders, I’ve always been curious but never gone. But if there’s a Trump rally nearby, I may not be able to resist getting a first hand view of the crazy.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but I read that CA divides the state up into tons of districts, and the winner of each gets 3 delegates (with very few state delegates allocated to the overall winner)? So to maximize delegates, candidates really need to criss cross all over right? Why are we last in both Reps and Dems primaries again?
Yep. Since we’ve moved to open primaries in all other races, presidential primaries are the only thing in California where the party registration of the voter matters. And being in a strongly Democratic district means we few remaining Republicans get an outsize effect. Basically why I remain Republican, despite the party driving off the cliff.
Because Gov Jerry Brown wanted to save the state millions of dollars by placing the primaries at the same time we have the normal June elections.
For California residents eligible to vote and not registered yet, please use http://registertovote.ca.gov/ to register before May 23rd for the California primary.
But from what I remember, we’ve always had our primaries in June, before Brown became governor. And doesn’t the national party decide on primary locations and dates? Why hasn’t the DNC and the RNC decided to give the biggest state a bigger voice by moving our primaries closer to the beginning of the primary season? Hell, put us before Iowa and nobody will be talking about momentum
For the most part, yes, but there was a brief period when the Presidential primary was moved to Super Tuesday. I like to joke, “I voted for Reagan four times, and not one mattered” - in the 1980 and 1984 Republican primaries, both in June, by which time he had already clinched the nomination, and in the general elections, both times in which he had already reached 270 electoral votes before the polls closed - in 1980, it was just before 5 PM Pacific. The TV series Fridays joked at the time, “President Carter had actually considered to concede the election at 11:30 in the morning, but decided to wait until 5:30 Pacific time so that only Californians would be screwed out of their votes.”)
According to the California Secretary of State’s Elections website, these California Presidential primaries were not in June:
1996 - March 26
2000 - March 7
2004 - March 2
2008 - February 5; this is the only one where the Presidential primary was separate from the others, which was in June
For the most part, the states decide. Pretty much the only things the national committees do in terms of dates are, (a) set the range of dates in which primaries can take place, (b) for the Democrats at least, give out delegate bonuses for holding them later (10% if in April; 20% if in May or June), and (c) penalize states for going too early (the First Four - Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, and Nevada - have theirs before anybody else, or that state loses delegates).
I got this call also, but it was not to register to vote but rather to register as a Republican so I could vote in the closed primary.
I stopped being a Republican 16 years ago so it is good to know that their data is really up to date. I also got a big heavy “survey” from the RNC more or less requiring a donation to get my answers counted. Unfortunately the return envelope was not postage paid so I couldn’t put lead sinkers in.
My DVR is all warmed up to let me skip the ads I’m sure will be coming.