I am concerned as he doesnt show his work, ie the state by state breakdown.
A similar article:
http://usuncut.com/politics/bernie-delegates-accurate-count/
I checked Seth Abramson Twitter feed, full of Bernie propaganda, he’s an English professor. The article is just wishful Bernie Bro math with pixie dust and unicorns.
Not even bothering with Usuncut, it’s a Bernie echo chamber
What’s the content, here? When I read the title of a thread, I expect to have some idea of what it’s about. When I click once to open the thread, I had darned well better know what it’s about. Why should I have to click yet again, or even twice more, to find out?
OK, as i thought.
Anyone got thoughts on the math?
Abramson lost me early in the article with this:
In other words, he’s either disingenuous or dishonest, given that polls concerning ‘head-to-head’ against GOP candidates are useless until the GOP stops cheering Sanders on in his efforts to injure Clinton, and starts attacking him.
It’s the same old fallacious thinking: ‘the GOP isn’t attacking Sanders now, therefore the GOP will never attack Sanders, even if he’s the nominee.’ Just either dim-witted or cynically deceitful.
Regarding the HuffPo article:
Firstly, since as you say, he doesn’t break it down so why should I just assume he’s got the right numbers? Green papers or 538 are just more reliable.
Secondly, he does some silly slight of hand to show media hypocrisy. Trump’s lead over Cruz is not a useful comparison because the selection process is so different. Winning a big state can make a big delegate difference in a WTA State, but Democrats don’t have that. So Sanders needs big wins to catch up not 50%+1 type wins. Also, the media IS NOT talking about Cruz possibly catching up in pledged delegates. The story is that he’s setting up to win a contested convention.
Getting to Abramson’s math , he’s pointing out that Bernie has picked up a few delegates recently because of the bizarre and time consuming ways delegates are chosen, particularly in caucus states which have several rounds of voting. He conveniently neglects that many big states don’t have that. For example , in Illinois , we voted for a slate of delegates when we cast our primary ballot.
It is not really a math problem. It’s a claim that “media” has not kept up with changes in final counts as they have occurred.
Personally I’d trust The Green Papers to keep up best.
Bolding mine.
That’s a most recent Clinton +278.
Now it gets a bit confusing to me as they also list state by state here. And in that list they add up to 1307 Clinton to 1097 Sanders (Last Modified: Sat Apr 16 2016) i.e. Clinton up 210.
If anyone understands that discrepancy please explain it to me.
Let’s go with the 210 number. Where could the author being getting the other 16?
They seem to counting (as linked in the article) a projection based on (according to the Progressive Army source) a few of Hillary’s state delegates not showing at an April 7th meeting in MO, and that then projects that Sanders would have a 37 to 34 delegate win despite losing the popular vote due to failed Clinton ground game … assuming all District-Level delegates show up to the upcoming conventions. Had been projected 36 Clinton, 35 Sanders … a 5 delegate swing based on who was able to show up, despite having lost the popular vote. But hey da rulez iz da rulez, whether they flip your way or against you. And as noted such has happened in a few other caucus states.
It’s possible that those projected swings, that The Green Papers may not count until, and if, formalized, may add up to 16 more pledged delegates in Sanders column. Or not.
I’ll take The Green Papers as The Gold Standard though.
Of course it is a bit amusing to think that 194 at this point in the game is oh so much better than 210. He is either at a bit under 46% of the pledged delegates (45.9 something) or … a bit under 46% of the pledged delegates (45.6 something).
Yup. Dramatic.
Sorry, as explained later, the article is about the idea that Sanders has a lot more delegates than Nate Silver or even Real Clear Politics, will allow, that their numbers are wrong, and the authors numbers are right.
FWIW in terms of the discrepancy on The Green Papers between the “hard delegate” count being Clinton +278 (1223 to 994) and the “pledged delegate” count being Clinton +210 (1307 to 1097).
From this page:
So there apparently are some delegates who are not “pledged” but who are nevertheless counted by The Green Papers as “bound by law and/or Party rules.” Who are they and how does that work?
And why is this so confusing!?!
The other part of this that is amusing is, similar to the fantasy of superdelgates flipping en masse to give him the election if he loses the pledged delegate count (and more so popular vote), how some Sanders’ supporters on the one hand had (and some still do) bemoan the evils of the “undemocratic” rules that could theoretically have given the nomination to Clinton with Sanders having a majority of pledged delegates by way of superdelegates, yet celebrate this application of the rules, which is very undemocratic and disenfranchises even more voters in caucus states because some of their state delegates had access issues in later convention stages, and gives a majority of delegates to the loser of the popular vote.
The author is correct though - the fact that the rules are flipping some not completely insignificant numbers of delegates to him in a very undemocratic fashion, disenfranchising some voters in caucus states, giving him a majority of delegates in states that he lost the caucus vote, is not getting much press. 
Abramson is a Bernie Bro’s Bernie Bro. President of the club, I think.
So?
Let’s play “Name That Fallacy!”
Is that what we are doomed to in fighting ignorance? Some predictable dumbass on Huffington Post says something dumb and then we are supposed to analyze his dumbass argument to post a refutation? Why? We know this guy is a dumbass, has historically written as though he is a dumbass, and is extremely partisan. Can’t that be enough?
There’s still a misconception here. This whole ‘disenfranchisement’ thing is a fallacy in itself. The voters do not choose the nominees, the parties do. And they don’t have to be democratic. The fact that they use voting results in large part to determine who wins /= ‘the will of the people.’
I actually spoonerized that to ‘disenchanfrisement’ the first time I typed it.
The math is just wrong in the case of Missouri. The reports that Bernie won Missouri seem to have relied on this post at Progressive Army that has since added a correction at the top of the post.
Here is the official delegate count from missouridemocrats.org. 36-35 Clinton plus three alternates a piece.
The only misconception here is yours. Neither of the articles brought up disenfranchising anybody. DSeid brought it up out of the blue as it’s one of his pet perceived hypocrisies of the Bernie boosters.
Take Wyoming as an example.
The state-by-state page says that both Clinton and Sanders have 7 pledged delegates.
The Wyoming page, on the other hand, says that both have 7 “soft” pledged delegates and 4 “hard” pledged delegates.
A “hard” delegate is one that has been named. A “soft pledged” delegate is someone who has not been named yet, but who, based on the information TheGreenPapers has (and is subject to change), will be required to vote for that candidate on the first ballot.
No fallacy here. Pointing out it is a biased source on the very thing it’s posting about is 100% legit. Unless, perhaps you’re in High School debating club?
The last statement - that Sanders supporters might stay home because they feel he can’t be elected now - is probably the opposite of what would actually happen if the “misleading media” had any effect. Sanders supporters come out in droves no matter what. On the other hand, if the media makes it sound like Clinton is already the nominee, then her supporters may be the ones who feel it’s not worth bothering to go out and vote.
Meanwhile, I can only imagine the articles that will come out if Clinton doesn’t clinch the nomination with pledged delegates (and she probably won’t) after the final vote (DC, I think):
“Here is a list of the phone numbers of the Democratic members of Congress; call them and tell them that if they don’t vote for Sanders at the convention, they shouldn’t count on your vote at their next election (which, except for a few Senators, is in, or even before, November)”
or even:
“Here is a list of the hotel rooms where the Superdelegates will be staying…”
probably followed by:
“The Hillary-Industrial-Media Complex has struck again, as the Democratic Party will not make a list of how each delegate voted for President public, out of fear that the superdelegates who voted for Clinton will be singled out”
and in the end, what will probably really happen is similar to what happened in 1980: the party platform will include a bone or two from the Sanders “list” (for example, “remove the cap on taxable wages for Social Security taxes” and maybe “tax corporations that have offshore headquarters, similar to what Pfizer tried to do recently”), will be passed by a voice vote with a questionable result, and then pretty much ignored once Clinton takes office.