Maybe it is time to change the name of our political pre-convention contest in our two primary political parties. We refer to it as a voter-based selection process when in reality we should call it "the delegate games.. Depending on the specific party rules for state and national participation, the part the individual voter plays in the process can mean very little. All the shouting about who "won" a state means more to the news media and the effect it has on the candidates' campaign momentum than to actually indicate the impact of the voter's choice.
Hillary Clinton leads Bernie Sanders in the Democratic Party race based on "delegate count,, 2,165 to 1,357 according to Bloomberg Politics website. However, Clinton benefits from 520 "Super Delegates" which are a special category of official votes designed to aid the favorite candidate of the party. They make up 25 percent of the total delegates for the Democratic Party. How the individual delegates are selected does make a difference in the final analysis. As an example in Pennsylvania, Donald Trump was awarded 17 delegates with his "win" at 56.7 percent of the Republican vote. However, the balance of the delegates (54 were un-pledged) were not bound by the voters.
The more I learn about the primary process for both parties the more there is to learn. The total votes in a state's primary that are cast for all candidates of a political party really determines the validity of the report we read in the newspaper or see on television. An example comes from the recent Tuesday, April 26, primary that included Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland, Pennsylvania and Rhode Island.
In Connecticut, the two Democratic candidates received a total of 329,545 votes. Clinton "won" with 51.7 percent . The most significant numbers are not discussed in the news media however. Republican winner Trump received 123,258 votes. Democratic winner Clinton had 170,207 and loser Sanders had 153,537. The Democratic Party had 116,065 more voters than the Republican Party, so even though Trump "won" the party primary and added to his total for convention purposes, the prospects for the Republican Party look pretty grim in November based on this total voter turnout.
In Delaware, Trump "won" the Republican Party Primary and picked up 16 delegates. However, Clinton won the Democratic Primary with 59.8 percent of the vote, picking up 12 delegates. But Sanders' total vote nearly equalled Trumps' total in "losing" because the Democrats outnumbered the Republicans. This pattern continued throughout the majority of the results from the five states involved that day. Democrats outnumbered Republicans by almost one-third in Delaware.
In the Maryland elections, almost twice as many Democrats voted as did Republicans. It produced a result of "loser" Sanders actually having more supporting votes than Trump, the Republican winner, although Sanders only had a percentage of 33.2 percent of the Democratic votes. As a consolation, Trump "won" all 38 Republican delegates but the November prospects don't look good for the eventual Republican candidate in Maryland either.
In Rhode Island, the Democratic vote was almost twice the Republican vote. Sanders won the Democratic Primary and as a "loser," Clinton had only 43.3 percent of the Democratic vote. But she actually had 13,000 more votes than Republican Trump who "won" the Republican side with 63.8 percent of the total Republicans. Another question for November.
If these numbers mean anything, it doesn't look good for the Republican Party in these four states. Only Pennsylvania offered some hope where the Democratic vote exceeded the Republican total by less than 80,000 in a contest where over 3.2 million votes were cast. Trump "won" all counties in the Republican balloting, but Clinton won about 60 percent of the counties versus Sanders. The winning edge -- Clinton versus Trump -- was close with about 26,000 votes favoring Clinton. This would be an argument for Trump to claim a victory for his campaign since he has two opponents where Clinton has only one.
It appears to me from the results of these five states, the Republican Party needs to focus on selecting a candidate who can draw the Sanders supporters into the Republican voter base if they hope to have any success in these states. For all of Trump's claims about people loving him in these states, he might need a lot of cross-over votes to earn his way into the White House.
Ted Cruz's choice of Carly Fiorina for a running mate might make him a better choice but the possibility that the decision is "too little and too late" is more likely. His next big test will be Indiana. If the Republican Party can bring out a larger turnout there, we might see some sign of hope for the Republican convention to be meaningful.
The one issue not noted in the numbers of Democratic voters is the "Sanders effect." As a historical Independent, he has an appeal and a different message than Hillary Clinton as a dyed-in-the-wool Democratic insider. Like Trump, he is a new face with a radically different message, talking to a new age of voters. It could be possible we are seeing his "drawing power" in the five states' Democratic results. As an insider, he knows the good and bad about Washington, as does Cruz. As an Independent, raising money through small donations from devoted believers, he has the maverick label along with Trump and the Texas Republican, Canadian-born Cruz.
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Editor"s note: Leo Lynch is an award-winning columnist. A native of Benton County, he is a retired industrial engineer and former Justice of the Peace. He can be contacted at [email protected].
Editorial on 05/04/2016