Live Blog: Western Tuesday and the Returns of the Day
Posted: March 22, 2016 Filed under: just because 94 Comments
Good Evening!
We’ve got primaries and caucuses to discuss this evening! The election has gone West big time as states up and down the nation’s Rocky Mountains take to the voting booth. Dynamics here may be different than the nation’s east coast and the south. These states have populations of Native Americans and Hispanics as well as many white people. Additionally, they’re home to many of the Nation’s National Parks and natural resources. What’s in store for tonight?
On March 22, three states and one territory will hold nominating contests in the 2016 presidential election.
Arizona will hold a primary for both Republicans and Democrats, Idaho will hold Democratic caucuses, Utah will hold both Republican and Democratic caucuses and American Samoa will hold Republican caucuses.
Both Trump and Clinton are expected to boost their leads from the previous primaries. This particular primaries may not provide windfalls for any one, but should continue the trend.
Eager to move beyond a divisive primary season, Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton seek to pad their delegate lead over their underdog rivals as the 2016 race for the White House moves West on Tuesday.
Arizona and Utah feature contests for both parties, while Idaho Democrats also hold presidential caucuses. Trump and Clinton hope to strengthen their leads in delegates that decide the nominations, as Democrat Bernie Sanders and Republicans Ted Cruz and John Kasich struggle to reverse the sense of inevitability taking hold around both party front-runners.
“I have more votes than anybody,” Trump charged on the eve of the elections as he courted skeptical Republican officials in Washington. “The people who go against me should embrace me.”
A firm delegate lead in hand, Clinton looked past Sanders ahead of Tuesday’s contests and instead sharpened her general election attacks on Trump. “We need steady hands,” she said, “not a president who says he’s neutral on Monday, pro-Israel on Tuesday and who-knows-what on Wednesday because everything’s negotiable.”
Despite the tough talk, both Trump and Clinton face challenges on Tuesday.
Trump’s brash tone has turned off some Republican voters in Utah, where preference polls suggest Cruz has a chance to claim more than 50 percent of the caucus vote and with it, all of Utah’s 40 delegates. Trump could earn some delegates should Cruz fail to exceed 50 percent, in which case the delegates would be awarded proportionally based on each candidate’s vote total.
Kasich hopes to play spoiler in Utah, a state that prizes civility and religion. A week ago, the Ohio governor claimed a victory in his home state his first and only win of the primary season. Yet Mitt Romney, the GOP’s 2012 presidential nominee, is telling his fellow Utah voters in a recorded phone message that Cruz “is the only Republican candidate who can defeat Donald Trump.”
Here are some of the latest poll results from RCP:
Monday, March 21
There are quite a few things to look for tonight.
Mr. Sanders may face a daunting delegate deficit after his defeats on March 15, but he may be on the verge of a wave of successes.
Tuesday begins a series of contests in friendly territory for him. He is a strong favorite in both Utah and Idaho, where he could win by a two-to-one margin or better. A win in Arizona would show his resilience after a weak performance last week. Even if he fails to sweep the three states, he could follow up with strong performances in Hawaii, Washington, Alaska and Wisconsin over the next few weeks.
Of course, Mr. Sanders needs a lot more than a sweep of Western caucuses to erode Mrs. Clinton’s big lead in pledged delegates. But a string of sizable victories could blunt the pressure on him to withdraw from the race and could keep his fund-raising efforts strong as he heads into bigger and more competitive contests in April.
All the results will come in late because, well, it’s the West!!!
Results will be coming in late — very late, in some cases. Arizona is holding primaries, with polls closing at 7 pm local time. Utah is holding caucuses in person and, for Republicans, online; online voting doesn’t end until 11 pm local time.
Here’s what’s expected from the few polls available on those races.
Arizona and Utah, as well as Democrats in Idaho and Republicans in American Samoa, vote Tuesday. Arizona is the biggest prize of the day, with 85 delegates to be awarded in the winner-take-all Republican primary and 85 delegates to be divided proportionally among Democrats. Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump are leading their respective parties in the limited Arizona polling. According to HuffPost Pollster’s average, Trump is ahead by a 17 percentage point margin with 37 percent of the vote, followed by Texas Sen. Ted Cruz at 20 percent, and Ohio Gov. John Kasich at 16 percent. But there have only been three polls in the last month, and only one in the last week. On the Democratic side, Clinton leads Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) by 26 points, 58 percent to 24 percent, according to the one poll conducted in the past month.
Utah appears to be Cruz territory – Polls are scarce in Utah, but Cruz is widely expected to win the caucus. The most recent poll, conducted by Republican firm Y2 Analytics, shows Cruz leading with 53 percent. Kasich is in second place with 29 percent and Trump trails with 11 percent. Utah’s 40 delegates for Republicans will be distributed proportionally among the candidates unless one reaches 50 percent, in which case all the delegates will go to the winner.
Sanders is running a close race in Utah and Idaho – A Dan Jones/Deseret News/KSL poll released Monday shows Sanders leading Clinton with 52 to 44 percent in Utah, while a month-old survey from the same pollster shows the two candidates in a close race in Idaho. The 37 delegates up for grabs in Utah and the 27 delegates in Idaho will be distributed proportionally.
So, it’s time to grab your popcorn and curl up for our live blog! I know we have a few voters out there! Let us know what you hear from your state and what your voting day was like!
peej
Carissa
dakinikat
ecocatwoman
grayslady
mablue2
peggysue22
quixote
skydancingguestblogger
Mona (aka Wonk the Vote)
Perfect name for her!
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That’s so kewl!
Indeed, it is!
Re-postingng my comment from last thread. This is a significant honor (and well-deserved).
Wow! This is huge. After this, no one needs to guess how they feel about the candidates. May she be blessed, protected, and strengthened.
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Gosh, it made me tear up too.
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I don’t really understand the national polls that have Sanders running only 5-7 points behind Clinton. Hillary beat him by 30 points in FL, 20 or more in TX, 14 in OH. She is leading in NY by about 40 points. She obviously won the Deep South states by big margins. So where is Sanders’ popular strength so as to make that poll margin so relatively small? Not NH or NE or even WI are going to make up much of that gap. I can only think that these polls are sampling Independents who are not likely to vote for a Democrat in the national election, but who are choosing Sanders in polls for various reasons. Or Sanders is going to win by 20 points in CA, something I think is highly unlikely.
The national polls are completely meaningless. For one thing, the president is elected state by state, not by national popular vote. For another, Sanders is being propped up by the Republicans, who are being very careful not to say anything negative about him.
Also, a lot of national polls (not all) are based on registered voters, not likely voters. This early even likely voters is suspect, since it is so far out from the GE. But registered voters is even worse, because it has so little relationship to turnout. They are more like general popularity polls than likely voting.
In fact, I was just checking one of the national Clinton vs Sanders polls on RCP from CNN. It has Clinton up by only 7. But it is all registered voters, and in fact they didn’t ask who people would vote for, but “Who would you most like to see win the Democratic nomination for President?”
Just today I read (can’t remember where) that GE polls aren’t any use until at least 100 days before the election.
I don’t really find it that surprising. Clinton has crushed Sanders in Southern states, but outside of that region, Sanders won probably more states than Clinton, so the contest has to be much closer outside of the Southern states, and I think only WV and KY haven’t voted in the South yet.
The primary votes cast so far have split about 58%-42%, so I would expect the margin to shrink at least a little now that the primary moved past many of the best states for Clinton.
I would still be shocked if Sanders manages to come within less than 5% of Clinton’s vote.
I think it’s confusing to refer to “Southern state” because I’m not sure what is implied by that. Let’s assume you are differentiating between red states and blue states and use the most recent presidential election, 2012. So far, in 2016 Clinton has won 18 states and Sanders has won 11. Of those victories, Clinton and Sanders have each won 7 states that went blue in the 2012 election. Of course, the presidential election isn’t determined by number of states but by electoral votes which reflect the populations of those states. Based on electoral votes in each of the blue states won by Clinton and Sanders so far, the electoral vote count for Clinton’s victories in blue states comes to 105, the electoral count for Sanders’ victories in blue states comes to 50. It’s a fun math exercise, but really irrelevant since the contest now is the Democratic Party’s primary which has an entirely different set of criteria especially considering that some states hold primaries and some states hold caucuses.
So true.
I don’t get how we’re supposed to be impressed with his wins in extremely low populated,white,mostly rural States. I mean Michigan seems a fluke.
It’s nonsense really. It’s seizing numbers to fit a narrative. How many articles and analyses have been published showing that numbers like turnout and state by state victories in primary elections do not reflect what will happen in the general election? The current contest is not a general election it is a Democratic primary election which is completely different from either the general election or the Republican primary election for that matter. Based on the criteria of the Democratic primary election, Clinton is beating Sanders and will win the Democratic primary. But I guess we could continue to distract ourselves by speculating who could run faster or jump higher or by speculating about who would win if you didn’t count some of the states they have already won, but it won’t change the fact that she is leading by over 300 delegates without counting the super delegates.
See my response to Mouse in the same thread. By South, I mean LA, MS, GA, SC, NC, VA, AL, TX.
“So I would expect the margin to shrink at least a little now that the primary moved past many of the best states for Clinton.”
As of this morning Bernie got a +5 from his two wins last night. Still Hillary received 20K more votes from the 3 states. I don’t know how Bernie makes up a 303 delegate margin unless he can win the big delegate States convincingly. He could win WA & OR, but can he win them by 40-60 points? That will be tough. I think NY will be an excellent State for Clinton as will PA. Bernie’s working hard in CA, but I think Hillary will still win it. I think she will win KY, IN, WV, NJ, PA & DC. With the exception of CA, WA & OR, I don’t think the rest of the States west of the Mississippi matter a bit in what’s left in this election.
And FYI….. Florida, in primary parlance, isn’t considered a “Southern State”. Florida, which she won by 31 points is a purple State and like OH, which Hillary won by 14 points, is also a bellwether.
http://www.politico.com/story/2016/03/can-bernie-sanders-still-win-2016-221137
I actually put the primary vote counts in the spreadsheet (I ignored caucuses because it really is apples and oranges). So I got 60%-40% over all primaries, but 55%-45% outside of the Southern states – counting Florida, Arizona, and Arkansas as “not South”.
I wish there was a way to meaningfully count caucuses, but since Sanders won most of them or lost them by a 5% or less (except Pacific Islands), I have to guess that in the past caucus states he’d be about even with Clinton +/-5%. And the states that are now left are outside of the South (except WY and KY) so the 80%-20% whippings are probably over for him.
This all goes to say that I think that Sanders can well be within 10% of Clinton among likely Democratic primary voters. What I definitely don’t think is that he can actually win the majority of either primary votes or delegates.
http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/sanders-wins-overshadowed-arizona-loss
And he’ll still lose. I was just trying to argue that the polls showing him within 10% of Clinton do not necessarily contradict the larger primary margins in the states that voted so far.
I cannot understand your reasoning for choosing the states you have chosen. It’s not a red/blue state thing because Virginia went blue in the last two presidential elections but you are not including Arkansas in your grouping of southern states even though it was red in ’08 and ’12. So why carve those particular states out?
http://www.thenation.com/article/whats-wrong-with-bernie-sanderss-strategy/
Dan Merica: Hillary is trolling Donald Trump by repeatedly talking about how the president needs “steady hands.”
Hahaha – you have to hand it to her! Trump has zero chance going up against her. None.
You know, I read that earlier and I thought that she was tweaking him by saying that but I dismissed it. Brilliant!
Me too!
I think “steady, smart, strong minds” part also constitutes trolling Trump. 🙂
Politico: Here’s How You Know 2016 Is Already Decided
The most decisive phase of the election has passed; and it’s not looking good for the GOP.
http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/03/doug-sosnik-memo-2016-is-over-213753
Good!
I’m trying to read the transcript of the WaPo interview with Trump. It’s almost unintelligible. Trump rambling on, making no sense. And it’s obvious he gets all his information about politics from TV.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-partisan/wp/2016/03/21/a-transcript-of-donald-trumps-meeting-with-the-washington-post-editorial-board/
Early voting in AZ looks encouraging for Clinton, here
Yes. The polls will be closing soon. Here is the NYT results page.
http://www.nytimes.com/elections/results/arizona
ABC numbers are at the first link in the post.
We were told to call Utah today.
http://thehill.com/opinion/markos-moulitsas/273972-markos-moulitsas-sanders-time-to-bow-out
Oh boy. The Bernie bros at DailyKos are already freaking out because people are being banned for saying crazy shit about Hillary. This is going to kill them.
Yup.
Love it!
They are having tantrums.
There’s already a diary up about what a bad prognosticator Marcos is and how he has been wrong since day one.
Bye Felicia!
Al Giordano thinks Hillary must know something about Washington, because she decided to go there today instead of staying in Arizona.
The Mayor of Seattle endorsed her today.
Super
Apparently a lot of independents showed up at the polls in Ariz. to vote for Bernie. But it’s a closed primary, and they aren’t eligible. Now Sanders supporters claiming election fraud.
Bernie bros are also claiming that machines are flipping Bernie votes to Hillary. LOL!
I heard they all said they were registered Dems but mistakenly put as other things. I was reading that. They voted provisionally.
I don’t know whether to laugh or cry about this. It bothers and frightens me that words like fraud and lies fly right off their lips the minute they run into anything they don’t like, even when it’s their own damn fault for not being able to follow simple rules. It really takes an elevated self-centeredness, not to mention selfishness, to consistently react as if only your own desires matter and cast apersions of wrongdoing on all others.
They’re in the bargaining stage of grief.
I just want the anger phase to be over.
lol! {{{{{{bb}}}}}}
Hahahah……………did not make it to Hillary caucus in Boise……….it just about 9 pm. and people are still awaiting in lines. They should have split this up into different locations. They are just now taking ballots outside and letting them vote. It’s really screwed up. They are saying it’s the largest caucus evah. The group I was going to meet up with cancelled too……..
It’s a really cold day……..parking looked like a nightmare on State Street, and we bailed out and went for nice dinner, just he two of us, celebrating birthday, and to hell with all that standing. I was told to go to head of the line, line 12,000 people ahead me. Joke. They really should have planned this in several locations.
I’ll wait and see what happens.
You can do it on line.
?
So young people have an advantage over older or disabled. Typical caucus crap.
Seriously, I can do it online. Let me see.
I tried to call, and left a message on their pages, and will call and let Hillary know.
AZ coming in, 65-36 for Clinton, about 40% of vote counted.
CNN calls Arizona for Trump
CNN calls Arizona for Hillary
YAY……..Luv you Arizona.
CNN votes analysis guy says she’s likely to still come out ahead on delegates no matter what happens in UT and ID.
Lol, I guess Jane Sanders’ visit with Joe Arpaio didn’t work out the way they wanted.
CNN just called AZ for Hillary! She even took Pima County (Tucson) which I thought would go for BS.
It’s done. She won AZ.
I really enjoyed her rally there in Arizona! Good ending for Hillary.
Bedtime here. She won the big prize by a huge margin. Good night friends. Sleep well.
Best to go out with the big win!!! Nite!
Yey for AZ!! Yey for Clinton!
Idaho polls closed at 8.
Bernie is in San Diego.
Wow. His voice is hoarse and his face is bright red.
I noticed that too.
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Rolling Stone to endorse Clinton on Friday, check it out.
Yay!
Rolling Stone endorsed Hillary. Taibbi will be livid.
Hillary speaking from Seattle.
Trump won AZ46% to 22% 9.5% reporting.
Wapo is reporting zip for Idaho and Utah. I heard earlier some problem with the Utah vote.
You wouldn’t believe the long lines……..biggest caucus in US history.
Yup. Ridiculous.
Idaho Rising is reporting that the Bonner Co caucus just ended and it went very strong for Sanders.
They all appear to be.
AP called Utah for Bernie.
Wapo is reporting Utah, 10.8% for Dems: Sanders 74.8% vs Clinton 24.2%. For Repubs 2.7% reporting: Cruz 58.8%, Kasich 22%, Trump 19.2%
Cruz will get all the delegates then
Yeah at 15% reporting Wapo called it for Sanders, Cruz is still ahead of Kasich, with Trump 3rd, no win yet.
Caucus rules elongate the margins, beyond what any primary in that state would show. Last poll I saw of Utah had Sanders up 54-46. Caucuses vastly favor younger voters without jobs to get up for. They are a travesty of democracy. Obama won the nomination by winning 3-1 in these kind of caucuses, and amazingly enough, Sanders wins by these margins, too. Just fortunate that there are not enough of them, or Kim Kardashian would be the nominee.
Yes, caucuses favor voters without dependents, voters who can travel to a certain place at a certain time, voters who can stand up for hours.
Still no reporting for Idaho. It’s a late night for the East Coast. I’m surprised you all are still up.
Idaho reporting Sanders18,640 78.0% Clinton 5,065 21.2%
Nite peeps, I’ve got a sick hubby to nurse. Some stupid coughing flu.
Idaho 78-21 for Sanders, 100% counted. Utah 74-25 for Sanders with 23% in. MSNBC projecting Sanders will net 3 delegates.