New York Primary Discussion Thread

Politics & Elections
1

So we finally get a big state primary after a month of small caucus states. New York votes on April 19, with 95 Republican delegates and 277 Democratic delegates at stake. It’s a super closed primary, you had to change existing party affiliation by last October 9. New voters had to register by March 25. This works against Bernie Sanders as he’s relied on independents.

I think Hillary crushes Bernie by at least 10 points and maybe close to 20. Sanders has had a bad couple of weeks, I think the New York Daily News article works against him as well as his increasing nastiness. Corporate whores and Fuck Bibi also shows his campaign as increasingly angry. These won’t have an effect on the die hards, but of course they have to be registered to vote. The past couple weeks will probably have an effect on the fence sitters or the, “We have two good candidates” voters. The Vatican City bizarre trip with the was he or was he not invited and did he meet with the pope or not isn’t going to swing many voters. I’m a Sanders hater, but this whole trip looked like a publicity stunt that badly backfired and took Sanders off the campaign trail for a crucial couple of days.

On the Republican side , Trump wins big. Cruz is still hurt by New York values plus New York isn’t exactly a hotbed of evangelical Christians. Kasich has been invisible lately.

2

I’d argue that the Vatican trip actually damaged Bernie rather than just keeping him from the campaign. He had a fairly good thing going by addressing the conference on his prime issue, even if he didn’t say anything he hasn’t already said a thousand times before. But waylaying the Pope trashed that and pointed up that he is a politician to the core. Francis quickly moved to defuse any possible false impressions of support that Bernie might have netted. That won’t play very well with the undecided.

EDIT: Eh, guess I didn’t read carefully enough. You made the same point. Says Miss Emily Littella: “Nevermind…”

3

It’s been pretty flat since the polling got dense enough to be meaningful.

YouGov, an internet panel poll, was running Clinton +10 two weeks ago and is running Clinton +10 today. They’re the low end. RCP avg is 12.5 with a range of +11 to +14 since 4/3. 538’s polls only puts it at Clinton +14 and “polls plus” at Clinton +16.

It is not impossible to break last minute some one way or the other but given that there are more reporting they could change their minds among those who report a Sanders vote, if there is a break it seems more likely to break Clintonward than to Sanders. But polls have been off sometimes so we’ll see!

4

All the momentum in the world can’t save Sanders in this one. Independent voters might now be aware of the need to declare a party… but they mostly weren’t aware back in October, and they certainly didn’t know back in October how much “momentum” Sanders was going to have in April.

5

I spent much of the afternoon canvassing for Clinton.

I had a long list of people to contact in a particular suburban neighborhood near my small city. The list was pretty clearly created largely from “demographics”–it included a lot of women, a lot of women over 50 in particular, and what must have been just about every person of color in a couple of heavily white subdivisions.

Most of the people I talked to were enthusiastic Clinton supporters. One elderly man who grew up in India shook my hand and said “She will be the first woman president of the United States, and she will win by a large majority.” A woman told me “Thanks for doing this. I want her to win SO BAD…” I got that sort of thing a lot, especially from African Americans and South Asians.

Not everyone was quite so thrilled. One man just shook his head, with a pained expression on his face, and shut the door. Another said, “I’m sorry, but I just don’t trust her.” Some of the folks who didn’t much like her didn’t have much use for Sanders either. “There’s a lot of thing I don’t like about Hillary,” said one woman, “going back to when she was First Lady, so I just don’t know. One thing I do know for sure–I am NOT voting for Bernie Sanders.” I reminded her that they were the only two candidates running. “Well, I just might not vote at all,” she said. “That would be your decision,” I agreed, and gave her the campaign literature anyway, figuring that if she does go the odds are good that she’ll vote for Clinton. Holding her nose, yes, but a vote is a vote.

I did have one conversation with a woman who said she was truly undecided. Her husband had answered the door, though he wasn’t on my list (he was a Democrat too), and took part in the conversation. I gave her a few reasons to vote my way, which she listened to noncommitally. Then she said, “You know, it’s interesting; you’re coming to talk to me, but when the Bernie people call, it’s always for him”–pointing to her husband. “Probably a demographic thing,” I said, “since women vote pretty heavily for Clinton and men tend to support Sanders.” “Probably,” she said, “but I have to tell you, what I like about what you’re doing is, you’re listening to both of us. When they call for him”–pointing again–“and I tell them he’s not home, do they want to talk to me, they always say, no thanks, and they hang up.” She shook her head. “I’m not going to tell you what I think that’s all about,” she said, “but I will say I don’t think much of it, and I imagine you can connect the dots pretty well.” I suspect she’ll vote, and I suspect it’ll be–reluctantly–for Clinton. Guess I’ll never know!

Then there was the man who was unenrolled (he was not on my list, of course; his wife, who was on my list, was staunchly for Clinton) who said, “Whatever happens, don’t let that Trump guy win…between you and me, he’s an asshole…”

The polls in my county are only open from noon to nine pm, not the six am to nine pm they usually are in general elections; that caused some confusion. Hopefully not fatally! We’ll see what happens tomorrow.

6

Of course, all the voters in the world don’t mean a thing if you haven’t got the delgates. Looking at The Green Papers site, there are 84 statewide delegates and 163 district (divided over 27 Congressional districts) delegates, along with 44 “unpledged” or 'super-delegates". The usual proportions apply, so Bernie will pick up some of the votes, but if Clinton takes the state with, say, 55% of the vote, and wins 20 of 27 Congressional districts by the same amount (the other six go to Sanders using the same 55-45 division), she gets 131 delgates to Sanders 116, and since (according to Green Papers) she already has 39 of the superdelegates pledged to her, it’ll be more like 170-116, and it’ll be hard for Sanders to spin it anyway but a whuppin, with even more pain due next Tuesday.

7

And since the Republicans have an election too…they have a lot more delegates at stake in the Congressional Districts (3 each for 27 districts = 81). And unless you get 50% in the District, the winner gets 2 and second place gets one. So Kasich (and maybe even Cruz) could pick up the odd delgate here and there. And while I expect Trump to dominate in the NYC area, I wonder if he’ll do as well upstate.

Only 14 statewide votes, if Trump gets 50% he’ll get them all, otherwise it’s proportional with all those with 20% or more.

If I had to call it, Trump just falls under the 50%, but he sweeps at least seven districts and wins 15 of the remaining 20, with Kasich winning four and Cruz three. Trump gets 67 out of 95, Kasich 17 and Cruz 11.

Predicted with not a single shred of evidence, but hell, the professionals haven’t been having a great year either…

8

Ugh, my Facebook feed this morning was clogged up by Bernie Bros thinking that some emergency lawsuit is going to magically allow independents to vote in New York.

9

Bernie will exceed expectations today, and still lose badly. We’re heading to the end of the primary cycle, and there’s going to be a lot of retrospection on the course of events if Bernie had started sooner. Frankly I think the timing was just right for him and this is the best he could have done. And he accomplished a lot in an effort that appears doomed if the only goal were winning the nomination, instead he’s set the direction of the Democratic party back to it’s core principles, he’s brought new people to the party philosophically, and awakened those who had lost interest in it. He will be a major force in the general election even if he’s not the candidate, and he’ll affect the course of national politics for years to come.

10

You don’t say.

11

Sanders whining about closed primaries. Naturally, his campaign did nothing to educate New York voters about the need to change party affiliation in advance.

12

I think the question of “are closed primaries a good idea?” is actually a pretty interesting one. The Bernie supporters I hear a lot from in social media seem to suggest that it is, solely from a lens of fairness in accordance with little-d democratic principles. But until they start applying those principles to complaining about low-turnout caucuses and respecting the votes of Democrats in southern red states (they seem to already respect the votes of Democrats in mountain-west red states, for some reason), it’s hard to take them too seriously.

I approach the question less from a ‘fairness’ filter, since I’m not convinced that ‘fairness’ is meaningfully defined in the context of a party nominating process. Rather, I approach it from a what’s-good-for-the-party context. And I see a great big negative - the independents who aren’t going to be voting in the NY primary represent a missed opportunity to bring them into the Democratic party. It’s an open question of how successful an open (or opener) primary would be - maybe they’d vote for Bernie and then get turned off after he loses the nomination - but it’s clear that being denied a voice is a big turnoff for them.

On the other hand, however, it seems odd to me to give non-Democrats a voice in determining who the Democratic nominee should be. Democrats weigh a few factors: who is the candidate I most prefer, who is the candidate who will move the party in the direction that I prefer, who will help others in the party, who will be most likely to be able to win? Non-Democrats would seem to focus only on that first question, but it can really damage the party to ignore the questions of who most helps the down-ticket folks and who can win. So in that sense, it makes sense from the party’s perspective to close the primary to outsiders.

I think the way that I would weigh these factors is to keep the primaries closed, but ease the process of joining the party. Having to have done so six months in advance is going too far in the direction of insiders. But day-of party registration swings too far the other direction. Perhaps a 30-60 day advance registration requirement would balance those needs appropriately.

13

It’s a valid complaint, imho. And in case you didn’t realize, the deadline for party registration was last frigging October while Sanders announced his candidacy last May. It’s pretty lame to blame Sanders for not mobilizing a party registration drive in New York when his campaign had barely begun.

eta: Do Not Taunt, how do you feel about tax money paying for closed primaries? If only party members should have the voice, shouldn’t they foot the bill as well?

14

As it happens, I got a request a couple of days ago to sign a MoveOn petition (I’m a member)—it asks the governor and the attorney general to change the current closed primary for an open one.

I’ve got mixed feelings about this. Given the enormous role that the two main parties play in government, it makes some sense to view them as public entities—which allows everyone to vote.

On the other hand, I think there’s a good case to be made that if you want to help select a nominee for a particular party, it’s fair to ask you to make a commitment to that party—and fair to ask you to make that commitment before the actual vote.

MoveOn members endorsed Sanders; I rather doubt that they would be thrilled if lots of moderate and conservative non-members showed up at the last moment to put in votes for less progressive people. MoveOn endorses Jim Webb!

(There’s also the “be careful what you wish for” argument—this time around, it’s left-leaning independents who would’ve picked Sanders who are being excluded from the process. Next time around, it could be a much more conservative not-quite-Democrat bringing a very different kind of independent into the fold…)

Anyway, the purpose of the petition is fine; that’s what governmental debate is all about. What did tick me off a little, though, was the liberal use of the term “voter suppression.” Closing 85% of the polling places in a county—that could be voter suppression. Making people jump through hoops to get the ID they need to get on the rolls—that could be voter suppression. Purging people from the rolls because they have the same names as convicted felons, making people wait in lines for five hours, severely limiting why people may cast absentee ballots…voter suppression.

But “I chose not to enroll in a party so now I can’t vote in a primary OMG” is not voter suppression. The rules are pretty clear. Independents in NYS are not “disenfranchised” “through no fault of their own.” (Quotes from the petition.) They made a decision that would lead to an inability to vote in a meaningful primary, and they don’t like the consequences of that decision. That’s not the same thing, and given what’s going on in some other parts of the country, it’s kind of obnoxious–and not very helpful–to pretend otherwise.

15

If Sanders had run as an independent (as he has most of his career) then all those “disenfranchised” independents could vote for him right now. Instead, he chose to opportunistically use the Democratic party for ease of ballot access and now people are crying because they’re expected to be members of that party in order to vote. This is a problem purely of Sanders’ own making when he chose to “change” to a Democrat for strategic reasons.

16

I think the question of tax- versus private-funding for party nominating contests is completely orthogonal to the open vs. closed discussion. Again, I see pros and cons. On the pro-private funding side, of course these are private parties, not part of the public governing apparatus, and should fund all their own activities, including nominations. On the con side, too much private money in politics is already a problem, so we might be better off if we publicly funded more private political party activities (such as the national conventions) rather than fewer.

I fall more in the latter camp, personally, but I fall there regardless of whether or not the party uses a caucus, open primary, closed primary, or smoke-filled room.

17

I like closed primaries with a 30-60 day cutoff period. And I completely agree with the ‘be carful what you wish for’ approach. What if next time there’s a Democratic version of Ron Paul running on a marijuana legalization platform attracting young people and independents, but is also carrying baggage of loony conspiracy theories and isolationist foreign policy, tinged with a hint of rascism?

18

The problem is that it does nothing about PACs. Fund politicians however you want, you’ll still have private money flowing into the process.

19

Seems to be an odd place to use the phrase “too much private money in politics” when talking about parties funding their own activities. But as it happens, my thinking is in line with Ulf the Unwashed said in the early part of his post, ie these “private parties” are so enmeshed into government function, they should be mostly thought of as public institutions. Thus I think taxes funding the nominations is reasonable but also that they should be as open as possible. Not really orthogonal at all, imho; primaries are the first stage of the American democratic process so they should be publicly funded and easily accessible.

20

I’m not sure why it’s an odd-time to use the phrase ‘too much private money in politics’ when the question being addressed is about public funding of party nominating processes. Can you explain what you mean here?

I think the argument that the big two parties are deeply enmeshed in government function is a good one. What’s the conclusion from this line of thinking, though? Every citizen should be able to vote in each nominating contest? Choose one? Should the nature of the nominating contest be subject to state or federal law? What other party functions, then, becomes the purview of state/federal law? Once the parties are full organs of government, what purpose do they serve at all?