It's Been Awhile

With only 90 days until the election, August is shaping up to be a busy month.

There will be one more final presidential primary held in the state of Connecticut on Friday, but it’s clear that Joe Biden is the presumptive Democratic nominee with 2,627 delegates to his name. And the heat is on already for a vice presidential candidate pick. He is planning to announce his choice of running mate later this week.

I have an image already to go for my Facebook page of the major party nominees. So far I have the Republican Party ticket, the Libertarian Party ticket, and the Green Party ticket and one the Democratic ticket is announced and the new logo/slogan is updated, then I will copy the image and post it on the board.

Also are the planned Conventions. The Democratic Convention is scheduled for August 17-20 in Winsonsin. I will hopefully try to post my live updates and thoughts regarding that. It’s always shown on TV in front of a packed crowd with speeches over a course span of four days, but it will be done virtually this year. I will try to get my thoughts out there when I can, so bear with me as I’ve also got a school semester vastly approaching.

The week after is the Republican, Usually I watch both party conventions to get both sides, as I’ve been doing it since 2004, but with COVID-19 it’s gotten interesting. If my memory serves me correctly, the RNC was going to be held on the first week of August in Charlotte, North Carolina and it was going to be in front of a packed crowd (as Voldermort for some reason doesn’t like the virtual concept), and things were going fine at first as the venue was all set.

But then Trump’s Greenville rally changed all that. The Charlotte City Council met shortly thereafter and proposed retracting the bid. Even the state’s governor Roy Cooper thought it wasn’t a good idea given the nature of the pandemic, but he would reconsider if the event was scaled down.

The little orange man didn’t like it and took to his favorite social media network (Twitter) to either complain, vent his frustrations, or act like the immature spoiled brat he is.

In the end, the Republican Party caved and a whole new location was chosen days later. Jacksonville, Florida will be where all the speeches and main events will be. However, day one of the four-day event will still be held in Charlotte. Last I heard and read, the number of delegates would be reduced as 300 will be in attendance. The days agenda will be greatly reduced. So it’ll be interesting to say the least to se what happens as to both conventions will take this.

After this, we have the four debates during the next two months (three presidential and one vice-president). As I will be in an online class and depending on homework load, I will listen to the debates in podcast form and offer my own feedback whenever I can. I may take more time with those than with the conventions, so if I post the final debates by either that Friday to Sunday of the weekend, I should be in shape.

If this wasn’t an unusual situation with COVID and with Biden being the presumptive nominee, I would’ve posted the presidential primaries on a regular basis.

So here we are. Let the final 90+ days or so commence. Because if everything goes to plan, I’m so ready to start playing some Christmas music early when this is all said and done.

Georgia & West Virginia (or, Biden Keeps on Rollin')

Joe Biden easily won the races of Georgia and West Virginia on Friday, claiming all 133 delegates with a wide-than-expected lead in Georgia with him winning 85% of the votes, and in West Virginia he won by 65%. (Sanders did not get above the threshold requirement from those two states.

I will talk in a later blog, or maybe video blog, at length regarding Georgia’s voting debacle and what it holds for the November election.

The delegate count:

UP NEXT:  328 delegates are up in two states on June 23 in which Kentucky and New York are up for grabs.

Two Islands and a Nomination

It’s official! On Friday evening, Joe Biden got passed the delegation mark he needed for the nomination as more delegates continued to be collected from Tuesday’s election. Biden achieved victory as his delegate count pushed him over the 1,991 needed for the nomination. As of Friday evening, he was two over the mark that pushed him to 1,993.

But this isn’t the end for my primary blog just because he got the nomination. Heck no, we’ve got eleven more primary elections left starting with this one. There were two islands that participated today: Guam and the Virgin islands.

Yeah, I know. Last time I checked, Guam was listed as TBA, so the fact it moved up to June 6 surprised me.

Anyway, both islands were called to Biden. Let’s break down the results shall we:

Guam - Biden received 69.6% of the vote and picked up five of the eleven pledged delegates, while Sanders received 30.4% of the vote and picked up the final two.

Virgin Islands - The island held a closed caucus in which a candidates must reach a threshold of 15 percent to receive any of the seven pledged delegates. This surprisingly turned out to be a winner-take-all, as Biden led the pack with a WHOPPING, JAW-DROPPING, and MASSIVE lead over his opponent - carrying the island with almost 95 percent of the vote. You know what that means? Biden walked away with all seven.

Here’s where the count now stands:



UP NEXT: A week ago I would’ve told you the next election would’ve been far down the road as June 23 was the next contest, but somehow as of this week a new date emerged….June 9. At last check yesterday there was supposed to be one state voting, but now we have two primaries being held: Georgia and West Virginia. 133 delegates are up for grabs on Tuesday night.

The Edge of Victory

 Joe Biden won all the races this week in eight states, and there have been delegates that have been swaying all week, but he’s inching closer to the nomination. In fact, he has 19 to go at last count.

Let’s start off with the state primary election result recap shall we…in the order of times they were called (also as in when voting polls closed in that particular state)

Indiana - Biden prevailed over Sanders with a whopping 77 percent victory over Sanders’ 13 percent. Biden picks up 78 of the 82 delegates, and Sanders picks up one delegate. There are still four more delegates in contention.

DC - this race was particularly interesting in that the way I thought the votes in terms of placing for candidates that I thought turned out to be a little different. Yes, Biden won as he is the only remaining candidate left in the race, and he picked up a massive 76.9 percent of the votes. Sanders didn’t get above the 15 percent threshold required to achieve delegates. Biden got all 20.

Here’s the interesting thing: I thought Sanders would get a second place finish as he said he would vow to stay in the race and amass as many delegates as possible. Turns out he didn’t finish in second place, but in third with about 10 percent. In second place…ELIZABETH WARREN with 12 percent!!! Turns out she has a little more vitality in the race than I thought, even if she withdrew from the race two months ago.

Maryland - Joe Biden had a whopping 85 percent win and picked up all 96 pledged delegates. Oh, Bernie Sanders had a measly turnout with only 6.3% BTW.

Pennsylvania - Joe Biden is declared the winner, picking up 138 delegates and a whopping 78 percent of the vote. This is a state that was be crucial to November, as it is a key battleground state that he must win in order to achieve a victory against You-Know-Who. The election also saw a surge in the number of mail-in ballots (another factor in November) which could prove beneficial in the upcoming presidential race as the country’s still in pandemic mode. Sanders picked up 31 delegates as he received 19 percent of the vote. As the state’s total pledged delegates total 185, that means there are sixteen more that have yet to be decided at the time of this blog post.

Rhode Island - Biden declared victory in this state with a 61 percent victory over Sanders’ 30 percent. Biden wins 15 pledged delegates, while Sanders picks up six. As the state’s total pledged delegates total 26, that means there are five more yet to be decided at the time of this blog post.

New Mexico - Biden won the state with 73.3% of the vote, while Sanders just hung in there claiming 15.1%. As a result, Biden picked up 28 pledged delegates while Sanders picked up 2. As the state’s total pledged delegates total 34, that means there are four more yet to be decided at the time of this blog post.

South Dakota - there were 16 pledged delegates up for grabs and Biden picked up 13 of them. He won the contest with 77.5 percent of the vote. Sanders picks up the remaining three.

Montana - Joe Biden walked away with 18 pledged delegates and 74.5 percent of the vote. Since Montana had 19 pledged delegates, that means that Bernie Sanders nabbed the final one. He grabbed 14.7 percent of the vote. (It rounds up to fifteen percent so if you look at it in mathematical terms he just barely squeaked by.)


Here's where the delegate count stands as of now;



As of this writing, I've checked with another website from which I based on writing this blog and found that there are 33 delegates that have yet to be assigned from states that have already voted.  Because Sanders was still in the running at that time, he might pick up some delegates from the states that were called in his favor...or it might switch over to Biden as he's the lone dDemocratic candidate left in the race. Whatever happens, he's bound to get the nomination at some point.

UP NEXT: The US Virgin Islands tomorrow, and it won’t net much for either candidate as seven pledged delegates are up for grabs.

Hawai'i

The state of Hawai’i held it’s primary in-mail voting yesterday, and the results come in. Biden wins, but Sanders was not far behind.

The results: Biden came in winning 63.2% of the votes and earning him a total 16 out of the 24 pledged delegates up for grabs, while Bernie Sanders nabbed 36.8% of the votes and nabbed himself the remaining eight.

That brings the delegate total up to:


UP NEXT: The next election or two will probably give Biden the nomination, as June 2 has a total eight states up for grabs (DC, Indiana, Maryland, New Mexico, Montana, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and South Dakota). Those eight states has a total of 476 delegates up for grabs. Remember, it was originally over 500 until New Jersey rescheduled for July 7.

Oregon

The Oregon Democratic Primaries happened on Tuesday evening: Biden won the state with 66.2 percent of the vote.

Forgive me as I wanted to post this on Wednesday, but not all the mail-in ballots were counted and the delegates were handed out, but now they are.

At last check yesterday, Biden picked up 45 of the 61 delegates while Sanders, who amassed 20.4 percent of the vote -- picked up only eight as he went over the 15 percent threshold to acquire more delegates. That didn't match the 61, so that means 8 more delegates were still at play. Today, we know how they were divided, and actually it wasn't Biden but Sanders who won the most in the minority: Sanders picked up 7 more,  which brings him up to 15. Biden picked up the last remaining to bring his delegate count total in Oregon to 46. (I actually think this is neat, but if you look at it fr

I always wanted to include this 'cause it looks so good. I might go back and incorporate the other states in my primary overall review, but I found this in Wikipedia that shows the winner according to different regions of the state. I know it looks like Biden sweeped a 100% victory, but trust me, some Sanders votes were in there!

Here are the delegate counts as it stands before 2pm today, in which the state of Hawai'i will announce their totals (more about that in the "Up Next" section):

Basically, Sanders is almost in the 1,000 delegate vicinity (and if he ends up with MORE than one delegate from Hawai'i that'll put him over the mark), and Biden needs about 447 more delegates to clench the nomination.

UP NEXT: The state of Hawai'i holds their primary on May 22, which I mistakenly thought was today but just realized two days ago was YESTERDAY (well, to be fair, two days ago would put me in the vicinity of "tomorrow"). I thought it would be announced today where I could cram two blogs as one, but the results of the party mail-in primary voting won't be revealed until 2 pm. (Even though she's dropped, I'm pretty sure Tulsi Gabbard will pick up a few votes, as her name is still on the ballot.)

Nebraska primary

The Nebraska Primary was held yesterday, and all the votes have been tallied.

And it appears Joe Biden has done  the unthinkable for the first time in the election cycle. With Bernie Sanders’ name still appearinng on the ballot despite dropping out a few weeks ago, Biden still won —- and he won by a big margin where he was able to pick up ALL 29 DELEGATES in the state: that means he received both the 25 pledged delegates and, for the first time in this election cycle, the unplugged delegates in which Nebraska has four.

Biden picked up 77.4% of the vote count while Sander’s couldn’t make it past the delegate threshold — but almost did; Sanders ended up with 13.6 percent.

Elizabeth Warren and Tulsi Gabbard’s names both appeared on the ballot as well, but they couldn’t get past the 10,000 vote count.

That means the delegate count is:

NEXT UP: Oregon is the next state to hold primaries. It was scheduled along with two other primaries that day (Georgia and Kentucky), but both were delayed due to the pandemic. The Oregon primary is a closed primary, with 61 of the 74 pledged delegates at stake.