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.

Kansas Primary

Kansas held it’s primary election on Saturday May 2 and the victor came out to be Joseph Biden, who is still the sole candidate remaining in the race despite Bernie Sanders’ name appearing on a handful of ballots. Biden walked away with 77 percent of the votes and picked up 29 of the 41 pledged delegates. Sanders ended up with 23 percent and picked up 10 delegates. The remaining two are still up for grabs and all probably won’t be tallied until the Democratic convention.

NEXT UP: It is onto Nebraska in which 24 of the 29 pledged delegates will be awarded.

Ohio Primary

Ohio closed it’s polls at 7:30 p.m. yesterday, and presumptive nominee Joe Biden has now widened his lead even further, winning the state with 72.4% to Bernie Sanders’ 16.6% The early votes had Biden edging his opponent, but as votes continues Sanders scrapped enough to make the delegate threshold: he ended with 16.6%, just enough to win him a small portion of the delegates.

Here’s how the delegates were divided (136 pledged delegates were up for grabs):
Biden - 123
Sanders - 13

Here’s how the delegate count stands as of now;


P.S.: It doesn’t include it on the image I screen-grabbed, but if you add the 274 pledged delegates from the cancelled new York Primary to Joe Biden, then that gives you a grand total of 1,702.
SUBSTANTIAL lead for him. Wow!

NEXT: If they don’t end up cancelled, there will be two primary elections happening on May 2: Guam and Kansas. They will total 45 delegates. With or without the cancelled New York contest factored, it won’t be enough to secure Biden the nomination —- neither will the remaining three contests after this that are scheduled for the month of May. The first week of June will probably do it for him, cause it’s the big one with 500 delegates up for grabs.

One primary down (but technically not out yet)

The Democratic Primary isn’t going to be held in one key state - New York

On Monday, New York’s Board of Elections held a vote to cancel the planned closed primary, which was originally scheduled to vote April 28 but got postponed to June 23 because of the Coronavirus pandemic is effectively becoming the first state to cancel its primary. No word on whether it will be rescheduled in time before August’s Democratic Convention.

Apparently that has made Bernie Sanders supported a little infuriated by the move, despite the obvious fact that Sanders withdrew from the race three weeks ago. Adding salt to the wound is the fact that New York has removed his name from the ballot. The only name now appearing is Joseph Biden.

Jeff Weaver, a senior advisor to Bernie’s 2020 campaign,  disapproves of the move and is calling on the DNC to reverse it’s decision, suggesting that the move is “a blog to American democracy”, adding that:
               "No one asked New York to cancel the election, The DNC didn’t request it.
                The Biden campaign didn’t request it. And our campaign communicated that
                we wanted to remain on the ballot…Given that the primary is months away,
                the proper response must be to make the election safe – such as going to all
               vote by mail – rather than to eliminating people’s right to vote completely."[1]

He wasn’t the only one.

An organizing group known as Our Revolution issued a series of tweets after the fact, some of which I screen grabbed and will add now. Basically these series of tweets suggest that because there will be no primary, there will be a challenge to New York’s delegates at the convention in August.

The first one was done seven hours ago[2], expressing shock and disdain over the fact that:

The next tweet came an hour later, stating that “New Yorkers should be pissed. They may not get credentialed at the convention,” read a tweet by the group, and going on to add that: “Suppressing the Sanders vote [in New York] will again lead attacks on the Party across the nation and harm the volunteer effort that our group and others are building for Joe Biden.”
 

(in tweet form, btw!)[3]

The third tweet was almost like a follow-up/add on to the second tweet (which was broken up by other tweets revolving around corporate interests) three hours later in which they quoted the group’s chairperson, Larry Cohen. Cohen’s quote is also seen as a continuation of what he said earlier, so I’m assuming this is either said before the word "Supression" or after "Joe Biden"[4].

On the other end of the spectrum, you get a different response. Democratic Commissioner Douglas Kellner, who voted Monday in favor of cancelling the race, said it was ”a very difficult decision." but it ultimately boiled down to an "unnecessary and frivolous" in the age of a COVID-19 environment.[1]

One of the things Sanders said was that he would continue to amass delegates, a move widely viewed as a way to have increased leverage in crafting the party platform. He ended up endorsing Biden a few days later.

So the question now becomes: is the whole thing non-chalant at this point?

Don’t get me wrong, I do like both candidates and their respected positions, but this to me is a different story than four years ago when Sanders stayed in the race all the way until the end with the last presidential contest. He ended up not winning the ticket, but he certainly did a hell of a lot better than I thought he would. This time, he dropped out after a handful of contests (and a strong start).

With New York's contest being downright cancelled, it would seem that Biden basically won by default and that he would pick up the state’s 274 pledged delegates (out of a total 320). If that’s the case, then the delegate count increases Biden’s lead from 1,305 to a whopping 1,579.

I guess there may be some good news however, and we’ll see if it holds true, in that primary polls will continue to take place in 20 counties that have no other contests scheduled on June 23. We’ll see what happens.

As Rachel Maddow says on her nightly show, watch this space.

Wyoming

And what this post will be the introduction of two image banners:
         1) the "Election 2020" banner
         2) the banner of the state that held their primary/caucus and their results.

This short post is Wyoming.

Wyoming began their elections on April 4. Due to the pandemic sweeping the nation that is the COVID-19 outbreak, the primaries were switched from being in-person to mail-in voting and the voting period was extended to April 17. That was for primaries, but the caucus met yesterday (April 18) to decide on their candidate which is why the results were delayed until today.

The result: Joe Biden was declared the winner (which is a no-brainer, since he is the ONLY candidate left in the Democratic field)

It was the candidate's widest margin, as he won with 72.2 percent (10,912 votes) over Bernie Sanders' 27.8 percent (4,206 votes). Biden picks up 12 of the 14 delegates, while Sanders picks up the remaining two delegates. The four superdelegates will be saved for sometime during the conveention in summer, which I'm pretty sure they will be handed to Biden.

Biden got some pretty big endorsements this week that helped him along towards victory:Sanders endored him on April 13, the following day he recieved an endorsement from his former boss (and 44th U.S. President) Barack Obama, and the day after an endorsement from Sen. Elizabeth Warren on Thursday. Those are the big endorsements,  and he did get a riveting 18 more from big-named Wyoming senator and congresspeople big-shots that the news wasn't able to tell you.

Here is the current delegate count as it stands as of today:

NEXT (Now I can do Ohio, lol): Ohio has cancelled their in-person voting and will instead send their official ballots by mail. They have until April 28 to send in their votes. 136 pledged delegates will be awarded. Whether all of them will go to Biden or if they will be divided amongst the two candidates will be up to the state’s constituents to decide.

Originally, the scheduled primary elections were supposed to be held on April 28 in Deleware, New York, Pennsylvania, and Rhode Island -- making up the biggest delegate count of that day. Because of the COVID-19 outbreak, their dates are changed to June 2 and apparently, if the date does not change, Maryland will be included as well). All of them are currently in-person voting, but that could all change between now and June 2.

Alaska, Wisconsin, and Sanders. Oh, my!

It’s been a crazy half-week in the presidential race. Let’s start with the obvious.

On April 7, the state of Wisconsin held their primaries. The governor of the state wanted to extend with the help of mail-by-voting, but Republicans intervened in that state and made sure some polling sites remained open, forcing g some citizens to brave the ‘new normal’ of the outside world (see las blog). Early polling showed a 19 percent drop. I’ll get back to the results later.

One day after, the unexpected happened (well, at least to me): Bernie Sanders, the Vermont Independent senator and one of two remaining Democratic candidates remaining in the presidential race, dropped out.

The other candidate still remaining in the race is Joe Biden. He is now the presumptive presidential candidate in the Democratic field.

I will post his commencement speech. Even though he is out of the race, Sanders is going to remain on the ballots and try to acquire more delegates and hope for a runoff in the Democratic Convention. He sees himself as winning the “ideological path” as they go forward.

Here is the full speech below:


It was expected at some point, but I was still surprised as he stayed in the fight all the way until the end when he ran in the 2016 primary, knowing full well that Hillary Clinton was going to be the presumptive nominee. I almost thought there would’ve been a repeat here as well.

Which bring us to Alaska and Wisconsin, which were also the final two states that started their primary voting before Sanders. The results however would have to wait until the absentee votes that were received over the weekend.

Joe Biden won both contests as expected. Biden won 11 of the 15 delegates, and it’s not clear how many he’ll pick up in Wisconsin but as of last count ihe’s won 54 of the 84 delegates (Sanders has won 15 so far).

A total delegate count meter hasn’t been updated yet for me to copy and paste on this blog, but this inches Biden towards the 1300 mark while sander is nearing 930. My guess is that the remaining polls will either be a split over delegates, or Biden being the presumptive will get all the candidates. Sanders’ name will still be on the official ballots of the remaining states, so he’s going to try and get the necessary 15 percent threshold to acquire as many delegates as he can to enforce a runoff. He has endorsed Biden today, so now we have the backing of the next presidential candidate from a full count of those candidates who dropped.

I will update this when I can get an official total count meter when all the votes are tallied up from the Wisconsin primary. If not from the main page that I pull the image from, then from another site.

UPDATE @ 4/14/20: Here is the official delegate count - I tried to get the count from Politico but it hasn't updated their count with Alaska & Wisconsin's results. So I went ahead with the delete count from the The New York Times website. I might use them from here on out.

 NEXT: Wyoming is the next state that will proceed ahead with their primaries on Friday via voting-by-mail, where 14 delegates will be awarded to the candidate(s) who maintain a threshold of 15 percent or above.

Update on NEXT: When I wrote this, I didn't realize until after when I wrote about Ohio as the next primary state that I COMPLETELY skipped over Wyoming, which will have its vote Friday, and then Ohio will be next. As a result, I decided to delete Ohio's write-in and will re-post it under this category in the course of my next blog and wrote a quick blurb about Wyoming instead. The Wyoming blog will be this weekend.

Coronavirus and the road ahead to 2020, or where do we go from here?

This is an unusual blog post. I am doing a special one about where the election stands as of now. Several states have issued a mandatory stay-at-home lockdown in the past three weeks, and with the pandemic looking like its not going away soon and as the death toll count rises, the state of the presidential race is on hold at the moment with the remaining states either rescheduling or cancelling the in-person voting. The below is a pic taken from the Wikipedia age on the 2020 election and the states whose primaries are called into question:

Since the last primary took place on March 17, not much has been going on in terms of the race itself. We were supposed to have four more states voting between March 29-April 4. All of hem have been rescheduled with the majority of in-ballot voting cancelled due to fears of the Pandemic. The DNC has adopted an initiative where instead of showing up to cast their votes in a polling station, the constituents can mail-in their ballots and have their voting that way. Wisconsin will be the second state to do this when it begins its primary on April 7 (this Tuesday), but the deadline has been extended until April 13. The April 13th counts as their official Primary Day, and that also means that none of the official results shall be issued until then. So we will be in the dark for the next six days as people cast their votes.

ffor the next six days, we won’t know who will win the 84 of the 97 pledged delegates, but sources indicate that Joe Biden is leading the way against Bernie Sanders. Bernie single-handedly won that state in the runoff to the 2016 election.

While Alaska, Hawaii, and Wyoming did start their primary on April 4, 2020, they have now changed their formats to having the mail-in ballot system. Alaska becomes the first state under this new system, as long as their ballots must be received by the 10th. Fifteen of the 19 pledged delegates will be awarded then.

And also, the Democratic National Convention has also been postponed from July to August. (Talk about a great way to start what appears to be my HECTIC fall semester at DVC.)

There is another problem, however, as of late yesterday and that concern He-Shall-Not-Be-Named who is occupying the Oval Office (and must be guaranteed off to be disinfected once he leaves).

Trump doesn’t want mail-in voting to take place. when asked, his response was that “people cheat with mail-in voting” believing that they “should vote with ID - voter ID. I think voter ID is very important. And the reason they don't want voter ID is because they intend to cheat.” He also wants to try and do away with the election given the fact that, in his mind, he views that he is a wartime president and that we do not need an election during a time of crisis.

Mr. Trump is wrong on all accounts.

Fist of all, the voting ID thing is inadmissible. It is the same as voting in-person and fraud cannot be committed. He will say anything to help his re-election chances, just like he got out of the Vietnam War by claiming bone spurs.

And second, there have been presidential elections during the conflict of the Civil War, the two World Wars, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, and the ongoing War on Terror. Below is the analysis of the presidential election year taken place during a war and the result. The following is a short guide of presidential elections during wartime. This doesn't count the American Revolutionary War, in which there was no president until 1788-89 where George Washington was the first president of the United States, winning with ununanimous support from the thirteen colonies.

1864: Abraham Lincoln (R) won with 22 states and an electoral count of 212 to George B. McClellan’s (D) 21. (You needed to have an electoral count of 118 to win)
1916: Woodrow Wilson (D) easily won against his challenger Charles Evans Hughes (R) in a tight race: 277-254 (out of the 266 electoral votes needed to win)
1940: Franklin Delano Roosevelt (D) easily defeated his opponent Wendell Wallace with an electoral vote count of 449-82 (out of the 266 electoral votes needed to win). His unprecedented third term was looming on the heels of World War II as the U.S. was getting itself ou under the heels of thee Great Depression.)
1944: Franklin Delano Roosevelt (D) easily defeated his opponent Thomas Dewey (R) with an electoral vote count of 432-99 (out of the 266 electoral votes needed to win). Yes it’s THAT Thomas Dewey whose newspaper debacle was the humor of the 1948 election.
1968: Richard Nixon (R) defeated Hubert Humphrey (D) and third-party American Independent candidate George Wallace with a electoral vote count of 301-191-46. 270 electoral cvotes were needed in order to secure a victory (and one that would be the norm for future elections)
1972: Richard Nixon (R) won in a landslide victory against George McGovern (D), who ran on a platform to end the Vietnam War. Nixon won 60.7% of the popular vote and carried 49 states, with the final result being 520-17.
2004: George Bush (R) won against his distant cousin John Kerry (D). His popularity soared after the 9/11 attacks and the hunt for Osama Bin Laden was the primary focus of the election. It was a tight campaign, but in the end it was Bush who claimed victory with the result being 286-251.

The years of 1990-1991 saw the Persian Gulf war and George Bush’s father, George H.W.. Bush, as our nations 41st president. However, the war only lasted for six months, five weeks, and three days. Since it was only one of the shortest wars fought, and since it occured during a presidential term rather than an election season, it didn’t count. (If it was fought any time 1992, it might've been the source for a debate topic and therefore would've qualified as such.)

So that’s that. It has happened before, and American rose up to meet the challenge.

It’s only a matter of time before the next steps will be determined and which road we take as American citizens.

So when the Alaskan vote count comes in, I will still update you on where everything stands as the nation strives toward November.

Democrats Abroad

For anyone who is following the presidential primaries really closely----like really closely----to see whose the best candidate to go toe to toe with Trump in November, you already know that we are down to two candidates: former Vice President Joe Biden and Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders. Biden has sustained a wider lead, both in delegate count and number of states won.

The results of another primary election was revealed, and provides a little cushion for Benie Sanders: he has won the  Democrats Abroad primary.




The week-long primary occurred from March 3 through 10 in various cities all across the world in which Americans live abroad, with provisional results showing that Sanders won down the line in the five provisional locations.

That means Sanders picked up nine of the thirteen pledged delegates and Biden picked up the remaining four, as he was placed in second.


The most interesting, however, when viewing the results of how well Elizabeth Warren did with the different precincts. Let me try to explain.

There were five remaining candidates in the race as of the start of the DA primary, and only two of them (Elizabeth Warren and Michael Bloomberg) dropped out of the race, and Tulsi remained until last week. Yet, Warren managed to get enough votes to settle for a third-place finish. I could’ve written it off, but look at the results. What was surprising to me was the fact she ALMOST added to her delegate count.



She had a surprising 14.3% of the votes—-only seven-tenths of a percentage shy from reaching the delegate threshhold. That’s an amazing feat considering she withdrew from the race AFTER the fact.

What was even more amazing and surprising——Warren had a twelve percentage points over the fourth-place finisher Bloomberg. He finished with a measly TWO percent.

Even if Bernie had dropped out before the race was over, this would still qualify as a victory for him. The only question remains is: will he keep going at this point.

On another note, no primary elections until April 7 now it seems. Puerto Rico has decided to postpone their elections until April 26.

So here is the updated delegate count on where everything stands (delegate count courtesy of Politico.com)


NEXT: With Puerto Rico now rescheduled, April 4 is the next round of primaries in Alaska, Hawaii, and Wyoming. Here’s hoping none of those states reschedule  as the DNC is looking to initiate a voting-by-mail procedure in the coming days that could hopefully move this along.

Tulsi Gabbard (or down to the final two)

Judging by the newest pick as the header on my blog post, we have another candidate who dropped out of the race. Tulsi Gabbard, the representative from Hawaii and the last female candidate in the race, has officially dropped out as of today. She also endorsed Biden as candidate. It was widely speculated she would drop at some point, as she only won a count of two delegates from American Samoa and hasn’t been polling that well. Read more about it here

It is widely speculated she might run as a third-party candidate, therefor becoming a spoiler for either the Trump or Biden campaign come November. Pretty much hope for the former than the later, I can’t really stand that guy.

And I also have an updated pic on where everything stands in the delegate count with Biden still leading by a large margin. Although it hasn’t been confirmed yet, it looks as though Sandes may win the Democrats Abroad race if he doesn’t decide to drop. If he does, then he still wins the delegate count which will inch him up on his delete count, ‘cuz right now he is getting pummeled hard like Ivan Drago pummeled Apollo Creed in “Rocky IV”.

Election Night - March 17, 2020

It’s election night in 3 of the 4 states as we have a lot to get to…and the night is overshadowed by the Coronavirus outbreak which has seen much of the cities pretty much or either lockdown or self-isolation mode.

FOhio was supposed to hold it’s primary tonight, but the governor there wanted to essentially postpone it. He got his wish as he essentially DEFIED a federal judge order saying it would’ve gone ahead scheduled. The rescheduling puts it in flux. Other states followed suit as well, as you can see by the picture (courtesy of MSNBC). Below are the new scheduled dates.


Here is where everything stands as of tonight in terms with rescheduling:
The Ohio primary was rescheduled from March 17, 2020, to a date to be determined.
The Georgia primary was rescheduled from March 24, 2020, to May 19, 2020.
The Puerto Rico primary will be rescheduled from March 29, 2020, to April 26, 2020, pending approval from the Puerto Rican House of Representatives and the governor of the territory.
The Louisiana primary was rescheduled from April 4, 2020, to June 20, 2020.
The Maryland primary was rescheduled from April 28, 2020, to June 2, 2020.
The Kentucky primary was rescheduled from May 19, 2020, to June 23, 2020.

I also heard rumblings that the DNC might consider voting-by-mail ballots proceeding forward, with an option for people to go to the polling places should they remain open. So we'll see what happens.

The other three states —- Florida, Illinois, and Arizona —- are going ahead with their primaries as planned.

Florida was the first up in the night, and it was the main one of the night as a total of 216 delegates will be awarded. As of 5:00, the Associated Press announced that Joe Biden is the winner. MSNBC was tracking some of the results as early as thirty minutes before as early poll tracking came in. As of the hour, Biden held a substantial 61 percent lead over Sanders’ 23 percent, with roughly 70% of the results coming in.

Illinois came next, and it was too early to call in that state. (Will add when I check in two hours, by which time the Arizona results should come)

6:30 - Illinois got called for Biden

And in the final state of the night, which was revealed at about 8:00 at night, the results of Arizona were revealed: and it went to —- Joseph Biden. 3-3.

And in my opinion, this was reminiscent of a feat made by Bernie Sanders four years ago when he won all seven of the seven states in a contest between him and Hilary Clinton.

As of the March 17 the delegate count are as follows (although it might change once voting in the remaining races are counted):

 

Biden is now over the 1,000 delegate mark, and has taken a substantial lead over Sanders. As of yesterday, Sanders was going to take time off the campaign trail in order to "assess his path moving forward", which is never a good sign.

NEXT: If the primary schedule holds (and assuming it doesn't get approval), Puerto Rico will be the next to hold a vote on March 29 now that Georgia has been recheduled. As stated above, Georgia was supposed to hold a vote next Tuesday. That will now take place on May 19, and there's no telling what the Coronavirus situation will be like by then.

Northern Marianas

Bernie Sanders bounced back with a much needed win in the Northern Marianas Trench where caucuses were held today. He won 4 of the 6 delegates. The other two were won by Joe Biden. Five superdelegates remain open.

He easily won this with 63.6 percent of the votes to Joseph Biden’s 36.3 percent. However, that was enough to give Biden the two remaining delegates up for grabs.

As of now the delegate count are as follows (although it might change once voting in the remaining races are counted):

 
 





NEXT:
Sunday is the first of two debates with only two sole remaining candidates after Tulsi Gabbard failed to qualify based on the new level of requirements that you needed to win 20 percent of the delegates Tulsi has won two so far, but even if she did a clean sweep last week’s second Super Tuesday round and today’s race it still wouldn’t be enough. The debate airs on CNN tomorrow.

March 17 - four more states are scheduled to hold primaries: Arizona, Illinois, Florida, and Ohio. Three of the four states are in the 100+ delegate range, and Florida will be the biggest prize of the night with a total of 219 pledged delegates awarded. Both candidates are almost halfway to the 1,991 delegate threshold they need to secure their party’s nomination (Biden’s the closest with 890!), and whoever wins might put themselves over the halfway mark. The Coronavirus outbreak has seen Louisiana canceling its planned April, and so far the states haven’t budged.

And the winner of the California Primary is…

The California Primary finally emerged with a victor after coming in on Super Tuesday last week being too early to call. Bernie Sanders has been declared the winner with 38% of the votes tallied to Biden’s 25% (as you can tell from the graphic that opens that blog post.).

However, it was an interesting climb for Joe Biden as he wasn’t expected to grab any delegates. Let me explain.

California was one off the states that kicked off with early voting, and  lasted for a couple of days. When it was all said and down, early projections showed Bernie Sanders with a substantial lead over his opponent, and Joe Biden wasn’t anywhere near the 15 percent threshold to receive delegates. That big lead over Joe Biden was supposed to give him a whopping 300 delegates. I believe Michael Bloomberg was a strong second-place showing.

That was before South Carolina changed everything.

The Clyburn endorsement sealed the deal and was enough to clinch Biden his first win in the election cycle. Then as candidates Pete Buttigeg and Amy Klobuchar dropped out of the race, they also endorsed Biden. Even Beto O’ Rourke who was knocked out of the race early on also came out and endorsed him. Three more wins followed, and soon enough Biden was starting to gain traction as a viable candidate whe, a mere three weeks ago, his campaign was seen as all but dead.

By the time the in-person voting for the California primary began (and with the early-voting ballots not counted yet at that point), Biden garnered enough viability in California to surge him into a strong second place finish. I think early predictions before Super Tuesday had him at 11 percent. So 11 percent from three weeks ago to 25 percent today. Not a bad climb.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how you divide up delegates.

And while we’re on the subject of California, this is the state that ultimately went to Hillary Clinton in 2016. As much as I thought change was on the horizon with the first African-American president transitioning to a first-female president, that ended up not happening.

It’s not a huge victory for Sanders, but more of a landslide. Heck, Biden got enough votes to push Bloomberg down to third place finish, so it was more of an uphill victory for him. His delegate count in the state went up from 0 to 162 with 96% of the votes counted.

Sanders received 202 as of this post (again, look at the photo)

Congrats to Sanders on his victory as well as man excellent out-of-the-blue comeback by Joe Biden.

As of now the delegate count are as follows (although it might change once voting in the remaining races are counted):

NEXT UP: The Northern Mariana Islands hold their primary tomorrow, but it won’t amount to much as six delegates are awarded. So basically, the delegate race won’t move an inch THAT much. (At least not until four states vote March 17, but more on that tomorrow folks)

And a change to report: Louisiana was one of the states scheduled to vote on April 4. Because of the Coronavirus scare, the state will now hold that election on June 20 — meaning it becomes the final contest of the election nomination cycle. I’ve heard the other states are doing some switcher when it comes to polling areas, but they are staying where they are.=.

Super Tuesday II: Where we stand before tonight

Super Tuesday II Results - the results so far

Here are the standings leading into tonight's second Super Tuesday primary, in which six states and 395 delegates are up for grabs. I've also heard that this is literally a make-or-break moment for the Sanders campaign. Right now he's literally neck-in-neck with Joe Biden, with the former taking the lead by 100 more delegates. With Warren and Bloomberg having dropped out after their less-than-dissappointing results last week, it's literally a race between the top two candidates: Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders (oh, and Tulsi Gabbard's still managing to hang in there). If Biden wins a majority of the delegates, that could put him right around the 1,000 delegate mark. Bernie still has a fighting chance, although Michigan stands to be his last chance for a campaign boost.

UPDATE:
There are still 140 more delegates from last week’s Super Tuesday up for grabs and accounted for. Most of that comes from California, in which the election results are still being o=processed. Bernie Sanders has been projected to winn that state, but there are 3.3 million mail-in ballots that still to be counted. We could see a winner in our state by the end of March or April.

And there’s the issue of the Coronavirus that is going to see whether that will affect voter turnout. Both Biden and Sanders have cancelled planned events in Washington earlier in the day due to Coronavirus concerns. Whoops, I mean, the CONVID-19 virus.

Biden wins Missouri at 5:00 with 0.4% poll reporting

Biden wins Missouri at 5:20 with only 1% of vote counted

North Dakota - as of 8pm, it’s too early to call.

Michigan - as of 9pm, it’s too early to call as exit polls started tracking even before it closed and showed that both candidates are within striking distance of each other —- 53% Biden to 42% for Sanders. They will each be awarded delegates as Sanders surpassed the threshold of 15 percent.

6:07 - It’s called for Biden with 52% of the votes in. This is an upset for Bernie Sanders as this was a state he won against Hillary Clinton in 2016. Still, it’s a close one in terms of delegate counts.  This race may not be over folks.

9:00 - Washington and Idaho are too early to call.

I think I might have to add another entry tomorrow it looks like, but the results so far tonight: 3 states for Biden, 2 states too early to call, and North Dakota is too early as well but Sanders maintains an early lead of 40 to 26.

It is also of note to point out that another race, the Democrats Abroad, held their week-long primary that began March 3 and wrapped today. On Monday, the DNC chair indicated they didn't anticipate announcing any unofficial results before March 23 due to the high volume of remote ballots.

Check back either tomorrow or Thursday where I will have more and also an updated delegate count total.

Seven becomes six

And just like that seven became six as former South Bend mayor Pete Buggigeg dropped out. While he had a strong showing in Iowa, he wasn’t able to keep the momentum going. He was struggling to gain votes in Nevada and South Carolina.

I was expecting Mike Bloomberg to drop out first, but I guess he’s expecting to go for the big leagues come Super Tuesday. We’ll see if enough political ad money translates into votes. However, I wasn’t’t expecting anyone to drop off until AFTER Super Tuesday.

We’ll see what happens though. More tomorrow or Tuesday.

PolitiView Democratic Primary Journal #4

And just like that, Biden’s back in the game.

The former vice president got back in the race after a strong first place showing in South Carolina, a state he wanted to desperately to win. He appeared confident when asked that question during the Democratic Debate this week, and his endorsement from House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn on either Wednesday or Thursday pretty much sealed the deal.

Biden said that if he wasn’t going to win either Nevada or South Carolina, he was going to drop out.

He won South Carolina. Now he forges ahead to Super Tuesday, in which fourteen are scheduled to vote on Super Tuesday, March 3: 1,617 pledged delegates are up for grabs (from which only 1,344 of them are pledged).

South Carolina’s win makes the count: 1 state for Biden, 2 for Sanders (New Hampshire and Nevada) and one for Buttigeg (Iowa). Since Biden and Sanders were the only top candidates with 15 percent or more of the overall votes, they are awarded the delegate count. Biden got the most.

Here are the results of the primary:

And here are where the top candidates stand in the headboard.

With Biden’s win, he is now almost neck-and-neck with Sanders and can easily overtake this.

Despite finishing in third place, Tom Steyer dropped out of the political race a hour of two after the election was called. Now he can focus on the Need to Vote movement (formerly Need to Impeach), and he has pledged to give his full backing to whoever comes out on top.

Next stop - Like I mentioned, March 3 is Super Tuesday, where 14 states will participate.
The states in play are as follows: Alabama, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, and Virginia
The American Samoa will also hold its caucus on that day, and the Democrats Abroad will also hold a week-long voting from March 3-10, 2020.

I expect a lot more candidates will drop after either this Super Tuesday or next Tuesday, March 10.