# Wyoming caucus **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [April 9, 2016, 4:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wyoming-caucus/751671 "2016-04-09T16:51:20Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Jophiel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jophiel/32/66_2.png) [@Jophiel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jophiel)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2016, 5:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wyoming-caucus/751671/21 "2016-04-10T17:35:45Z")
> [@TriPolar](#): > > Democrats are a minority in Wyoming, and like other Red states to be a Democrat means a strong tie to the state party itself and the establishment candidate. In those states Hillary has done well, so Bernie’s win in Wyoming shows some progress with the party establishment, at least at the level of it’s committed members. In 2008, Clinton lost the WY caucus to Obama by 25pts so if anything she’s doing better that before. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2016, 5:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wyoming-caucus/751671/22 "2016-04-10T17:38:17Z")
> [@Johnny\_Ace](#): > > Except that a) Wyoming is a caucus and b) college kids are Bernie’s primary support group, very few of whom would have any ties with the establishment. I think you’d find the strong party tie applies to most of the caucus attendees, and the college kids among them made the difference for Bernie. ---
**Author:** ![Frank](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Frank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frank)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2016, 5:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wyoming-caucus/751671/23 "2016-04-10T17:44:14Z")
Purely for information, I offer the results by votes in the Wyoming Democratic Caucus: Sanders - 156 Clinton - 124 ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2016, 5:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wyoming-caucus/751671/24 "2016-04-10T17:47:29Z")
> [@Frank](#): > > Purely for information, I offer the results by votes in the Wyoming Democratic Caucus: > > Sanders - 156 > Clinton - 124 Thanks. I was wondering how low the actual numbers were! ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2016, 5:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wyoming-caucus/751671/25 "2016-04-10T17:49:25Z")
> [@camille](#): > > And the Sanders people will hopefully learn from this experience, and be ready for 2020. Sanders is going to be 78 in 2020. I’d be surprised if he runs. ---
**Author:** ![Richard\_Parker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/35a633/32.png) [@Richard\_Parker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Parker)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2016, 5:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wyoming-caucus/751671/26 "2016-04-10T17:52:08Z")
> [@camille](#): > > It’s not “cheating” if it’s legal. > > But let’s not pretend that having the state party apparatus in the bag before the primary/caucus doesn’t confer an advantage. What is it, exactly, that you think the state party did for Clinton that it would not have done if Bernie controlled it? ---
**Author:** ![Richard\_Parker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/35a633/32.png) [@Richard\_Parker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Parker)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2016, 5:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wyoming-caucus/751671/27 "2016-04-10T17:53:16Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > Thanks. I was wondering how low the actual numbers were! Those aren’t individual voters. Wyoming is not very densely populated, but it’s not some kind of nuclear wasteland. ---
**Author:** ![Raygun99](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/6f9a4e/32.png) [@Raygun99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Raygun99)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2016, 5:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wyoming-caucus/751671/28 "2016-04-10T17:55:40Z")
As noted in the Alaska caucus thread, those are “state delegates”, not the raw voting totals, which we won’t get. ---
**Author:** ![Frank](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Frank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frank)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2016, 5:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wyoming-caucus/751671/29 "2016-04-10T17:59:39Z")
> [@Raygun99](#): > > As noted in the Alaska caucus thread, those are “state delegates”, not the raw voting totals, which we won’t get. Ah, my mistake. Having lived next door, I could have readily believed that there were only 290 Democrats in Wyoming. Looking at a news report from a Laramie paper shows that the caucus there attracted over 800 people. Sorry about that. ---
**Author:** ![Richard\_Parker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/35a633/32.png) [@Richard\_Parker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Parker)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2016, 6:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wyoming-caucus/751671/30 "2016-04-10T18:08:39Z")
It’s a little surprising that Bernie didn’t win Cheyenne or Casper, isn’t it? Looks like he cleaned up with the hippies in Yellowstone though. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2016, 7:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wyoming-caucus/751671/31 "2016-04-10T19:53:04Z")
> [@Richard\_Parker](#): > > Those aren’t individual voters. Wyoming is not very densely populated, but it’s not some kind of nuclear wasteland. OK, but we’re talking Wyoming DEMOCRATS. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Kron](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kron/32/12444_2.png) [@Kron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kron)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2016, 8:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wyoming-caucus/751671/32 "2016-04-10T20:52:44Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > If I had to guess, I’d say: Older, more conservative demographic. That is a big part of it. During the caucus here, the Hillary side had a very vocal older fellow screaming about how Bernie is a communist, because “USSR stood for the Union of Soviet SOCIALIST Republics!” The demographics of the two crowds was pretty interesting- the Hillary side had one college-aged kid, and aside from him I would place the next youngest person at about 50ish. The Bernie side had everything from the obvious first-time voters on up to retirement age. College students, coal miners, teachers, and normal wage-slaves like me. The common view expressed by the Bernie side was that the while system has essentially betrayed the common person and things NEED to change, while the Clinton side was along the lines of Hillary has been part of the system for a long time and knows how to work it. Regarding the early votes/absentee votes, that would explain the nearly even split. As I stated, the Bernie side at my caucus outnumbered the Clinton side substantially, but altogether early ballots would have accounted for about 35% of the totals in the end. ---
**Author:** ![Ulf\_the\_Unwashed](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/b4bc9f/32.png) [@Ulf\_the\_Unwashed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ulf_the_Unwashed)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2016, 9:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wyoming-caucus/751671/33 "2016-04-10T21:14:38Z")
> [@TriPolar](#): > > Democrats are a minority in Wyoming, and like other Red states to be a Democrat means a strong tie to the state party itself and the establishment candidate. **In those states Hillary has done well, so Bernie’s win in Wyoming shows some progress with the party establishment, at least at the level of it’s committed members**. Well, this is an…interesting…argument. Clinton has done very well in the Red states with high Hispanic and especially African American populations. She’s done very poorly in the Red states with low Hispanic and especially African American populations. Wyoming fits very nicely in to the second category. Demographically, it has just about nothing in common with Mississippi or Georgia, but it has a lot in common with Idaho or Nebraska. So in evaluating how Sanders did in Wyoming, you really have to look at the \*similar \*red states, not _all_ the red states. And when you do that, you see that Sanders’s performance in Wyoming, if anything, shows slippage in support with the party establishment. He did much worse there than he did in states like Idaho, Utah, and Kansas, and in this context his performance in the states of the Southeast is immaterial. Which doesn’t mean it’s a real drop. Wyoming is really small, and the number of Democrats is really, really small; could just be that the numbers aren’t big enough to draw a real conclusion. Could be that the rules weren’t in his favor (sounds like people in WY could effectively vote absentee, not sure that was the case in Idaho or Nebraska). I’d guess that it’s something that represents a blip, not a sign that voters in low-Hispanic, low-African American states are beginning to turn away from him. I don’t really believe in momentum in primaries; I think what looks like momentum is mostly favorable demographics mixed with favorable calendar. If momentum \*does \*exist, though, and if Sanders’s support among party insiders in Red states \*is \*changing, the evidence from WY suggests that it’s going the wrong way for him. ---
**Author:** ![Ulf\_the\_Unwashed](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/b4bc9f/32.png) [@Ulf\_the\_Unwashed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ulf_the_Unwashed)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2016, 9:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wyoming-caucus/751671/34 "2016-04-10T21:28:25Z")
> [@camille](#): > > It’s not “cheating” if it’s legal. > > **But let’s not pretend that having the state party apparatus in the bag before the primary/caucus doesn’t confer an advantage**. > > Obama’s team knew that going into 2008. The Clinton campaign learned from their mistakes in 2008. And the Sanders people will hopefully learn from this experience, and be ready for 2020. (bolding mine) Who in this thread is pretending that? Of _course_ having the support of state party apparatus confers an advantage. No question. And that’s quite reasonable. The party, whether at the state, local, or federal level, wants to ensure that it is supporting someone who will advance its policies, endorse its positions, and work with it as part of a team. If “Sanders people” crave that support, they might find it helpful to coalesce next time around a candidate who has a history of belonging to, and working on behalf of, the Democratic Party. As the senator’s enormous deficit in superdelegates and Congressional endorsements shows, party leaders generally aren’t buying him as “one of them.” Can’t say that I blame 'em. ---
**Author:** ![camille](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/22d042/32.png) [@camille](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/camille)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2016, 2:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wyoming-caucus/751671/35 "2016-04-11T02:32:39Z")
> [@Ulf\_the\_Unwashed](#): > > (bolding mine) > > Who in this thread is pretending that? > > Of _course_ having the support of state party apparatus confers an advantage. No question. And that’s quite reasonable. The party, whether at the state, local, or federal level, wants to ensure that it is supporting someone who will advance its policies, endorse its positions, and work with it as part of a team. Maybe the poster I replied to and **Richard Parker** will believe it if it comes from you. > [@Ulf\_the\_Unwashed](#): > > If “Sanders people” crave that support, they might find it helpful to coalesce next time around a candidate who has a history of belonging to, and working on behalf of, the Democratic Party. As the senator’s enormous deficit in superdelegates and Congressional endorsements shows, party leaders generally aren’t buying him as “one of them.” Can’t say that I blame 'em. Not blaming them exactly, but I don’t blame progressives (especially young voters) for opting out when they get replies like this from establishment Dems when they ask what the party anointed candidate has to offer: > [@Feel the #extortion Bernie has planned](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/feel-the-extortion-bernie-has-planned/750443/566): > > I’m not going to waste time and effort begging you to. Go and play in the irrelevant Green Party sandbox, if it makes you feel pure and righteous. I’m all out of fucks to give on that question. > [@Feel the #extortion Bernie has planned](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/feel-the-extortion-bernie-has-planned/750443/565): > > Again, two words: President Trump. Sorry, but the party needs to do better than that. > [@Captain\_Amazing](#): > > Sanders is going to be 78 in 2020. I’d be surprised if he runs. I was referring to his supporters; most are in independent grassroots orgs across the country, and only loosely associated with the official campaign. There are a lot of young people doing this for the first time. Already there is talk of future elections, including a primary challenge for the President in 2020 , but most understand it won’t be Sanders. ---
**Author:** ![Richard\_Parker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/35a633/32.png) [@Richard\_Parker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Parker)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2016, 2:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wyoming-caucus/751671/36 "2016-04-11T02:36:22Z")
Are you going to respond to my question camille? ---
**Author:** ![camille](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/22d042/32.png) [@camille](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/camille)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2016, 2:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wyoming-caucus/751671/37 "2016-04-11T02:43:15Z")
> [@Richard\_Parker](#): > > Are you going to respond to my question camille Do you disagree with what Ulf posted? You really need examples? ---
**Author:** ![Richard\_Parker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/35a633/32.png) [@Richard\_Parker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Parker)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2016, 2:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wyoming-caucus/751671/38 "2016-04-11T02:54:58Z")
> [@camille](#): > > Do you disagree with what Ulf posted? You really need examples? I’m just trying to understand your claim. Keep it vague if you like. Is your claim that the party machinery did Hillary-centric GOTV? Or sold her GOTV lists? Just curious what the particular claim is. ---
**Author:** ![camille](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/22d042/32.png) [@camille](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/camille)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2016, 3:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wyoming-caucus/751671/39 "2016-04-11T03:08:03Z")
> [@Richard\_Parker](#): > > I’m just trying to understand your claim. Keep it vague if you like. > > Is your claim that the party machinery did Hillary-centric GOTV? Or sold her GOTV lists? Just curious what the particular claim is. I just want to be clear that the advantage isn’t specific to Hillary; it just so happens that she is the party backed candidate in this instance. I don’t want to have the handful of rabid HRC partisans descend on me for talking about it. The advantages can run the gamut from having local surrogates and greater access to local party resources and patrons, all the way to more hinky stuff. I can’t make specific claims about Wyoming as I wasn’t there, but I’ve seen incredible things over the years local to me (NYC Dem party/Philly Dem party) and I don’t imagine other places are immune to it. ---
**Author:** ![Richard\_Parker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/35a633/32.png) [@Richard\_Parker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Parker)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2016, 1:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wyoming-caucus/751671/40 "2016-04-12T01:56:19Z")
> [@camille](#): > > The advantages can run the gamut from having local surrogates and greater access to local party resources and patrons, all the way to more hinky stuff. I can’t make specific claims about Wyoming as I wasn’t there, but I’ve seen incredible things over the years local to me (NYC Dem party/Philly Dem party) and I don’t imagine other places are immune to it. If your point is simply that having the backing of establishment…gives you the backing of the establishment, then that’s pretty uncontroversial. It does indeed mean you’ll have establishment surrogates and might mean better access to local party resources. But your first post suggested that the large number of absentee ballots at the caucus meant that it [l]ooks like the Wyoming Dem Party earned the money earmarked for them by the Hillary Victory Fund donors." And here you refer to “hinky stuff.” So while you decline to “make specific claims about Wyoming,” it sure seems like your innuendo-to-fact ratio is a little miscalibrated. FWIW, I have lived in red states and blue machine cities. I would much rather run as an outsider in Wyoming than Philadelphia. I think you’re probably wrong to think the corruption in one-party cities applies to red state democratic establishments. Incidentally, has Kenney endorsed anyone? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wyoming-caucus/751671.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wyoming-caucus/751671.md?page=3)