Jim Ellis is the publisher of Ellis
Insight, a service of Weber Merritt
Public Affairs, and a regular political commentator for NACS Daily and NACS Magazine. Check out his print column
each month.
WASHINGTON – Both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump delivered strong performances last night in their respective Super Tuesday primaries and caucuses, but neither could land the knockout punch for which they hoped.
Clinton continued her dominance in the South, but surprisingly stumbled in Oklahoma. She won seven of the 11 Democratic voting entities last night, with American Samoa still to report. Sen. Bernie Sanders, in addition to his 51%-41% win in Oklahoma, took his home state of Vermont, and the Colorado and Minnesota caucuses.
Clinton was again dominant in the states with large African American populations and it is probable that she once more attracted approximately 90% support within the black community. Sanders, however, is in the superior position among white Democratic voters. Massachusetts was the only northern state that Clinton carried, but it was close. She finished with 50.3% of the Bay State popular vote.
The unofficial projected Democratic delegate count, according to the New York Times, finds Clinton with 1,001 regular and Super Delegates versus Sanders’ 371. Among Super Delegates—remembering that they are not required to vote as their state does, and can change their minds even if publicly announcing support for a particular candidate—Clinton posts 457 such public commitments, while Sanders captures only 22. Among regular delegates, who are committed at least on the first ballot, Clinton has a much smaller 544-349 margin. Democratic National Committee rules require a nominee to secure 2,383 delegate votes.
Trump took seven of the 11 Republican voting states; Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) placed first in three, his home state of Texas, Oklahoma and Alaska, while Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) was victorious in the Minnesota Caucus. Trump’s strongest percentage, 48.9%, came in Massachusetts. Despite placing first in seven voting entities, he broke the 40% threshold in only two places: the aforementioned Massachusetts, and Alabama, with 43.8%.
Projecting the delegate counts and factoring the voting thresholds per state to qualify for delegate apportionment, while taking into account the nuanced individual formulas that each state employs, we can unofficially project Trump to be in the 320 range, with Cruz trailing at 225 and Rubio possessing 113 committed regular delegates. Gov. John Kasich follows with 23, and Dr. Ben Carson has eight. The party officer delegates in most states, as well as several small state delegations cumulatively totaling 247 votes, are not included in these projections since they are unbound, or free agents and similar in stature to Democratic Super Delegates, at the convention.
Though Trump has a healthy early lead, he is far from securing the 1,237 delegate votes required to clinch the party nomination. This suggests that the possibility of forcing a contested selection remains tangible.
The big question is whether Cruz, Rubio and Kasich will consciously develop a strategy to force a brokered convention. More on these ideas will be coming later in the week.