There was Super Tuesday I. Then Super Tuesday II. There was also a Super Tuesday III, maybe? Child’s play, the lot of them. They were all warmups for April 26, in which a bunch of rando non–New York Northeastern states cast their ballots before the presidential campaign finally departs this unseemly domain of coastal elites until the New Jersey primary in June, ugh.
Delegates
The five states voting Tuesday are Pennsylvania, Maryland, Rhode Island, Delaware, and Connecticut.
Democrats Hillary Clinton and Sen. Bernie Sanders will vie for a total of 384 pledged delegates divided proportionally in each contest.
The 172 total delegates up for grabs on the Republican side are, as usual, allocated through a byzantine mix of weirdo rules that vary state-by-state. Pennsylvania (71 delegates) will award 17 delegates to the statewide winner, who will be bound through the first convention ballot. The remaining 54 delegates, three per 18 congressional districts, are elected directly on the ballot with no candidate preference listed next to their names, meaning they’re unbound on the first convention ballot. Maryland (38) awards 14 delegates to the statewide winner and three to the plurality winner of each of eight congressional districts. Connecticut (28) allocates its 13 statewide delegates proportionally, with a 20 percent qualifying threshold, unless a candidate wins a statewide majority, in which case he takes them all; its 15 congressional-district delegates go to the plurality winner of each of five districts. Delaware (16) is pure winner-take-all to the statewide winner. Rhode Island (19) divvies up its delegates proportionally at the statewide and district levels.
Got all that? In case you can’t memorize the numbers between now and 8 p.m., when the polls close, here’s what to watch for in the various races.
The Democrats
If you see anyone on cable news television talking about how Hillary Clinton is “taking momentum into Tuesday following her big win in New York”—and I guarantee you have heard/will hear this many times—you should punch that lousy TV right in its face. Clinton is indeed poised to do well on Northeastern Leftovers Blockbuster MegaVote Night, but it stems less from the “momentum” narrative than the fact that these contests take place in a favorable region of the country for her. But anyway: She’s going to do well and continue finishing off the already finished-off Bernie Sanders.
Clinton leads in most of the contests’ polling averages, though more safely in some than others. Her safest bet is Maryland, a reliably blue state offering 95 delegates, where black voters, her strongest demographic, comprise a significant portion of the electorate—the number was 37 percent in the 2008 Democratic presidential primary. Clinton has also been maintaining a healthy lead in Pennsylvania (189), a state that Sanders’ campaign manager Jeff Weaver nearly called a must-win last week before backing off and merely describing it as “very, very important.” Other races are tighter. The most recent Connecticut poll, from Public Policy Polling, showed Clinton’s lead in Connecticut (55) trimmed down to 2 percentage points. Rhode Island (24) is something of a mystery, while Clinton has a slight edge in the only recent survey of Delaware.
Barring a Michigan-esque surprise in Pennsylvania for Sanders, the night ends with him losing delegates on net. Even if Sanders could pull off wins in Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Delaware, those gains would probably be wiped out entirely—or even surpassed—just by Clinton’s pickups in Maryland. It’s hard to sugarcoat it for Sanders and his supporters: He needed to win New York and he got blown out, and now he needs to blow out Clinton in Pennsylvania, an outcome that’s not in the cards. Sanders will stay in the race for the remainder of the primary calendar. But barring some inexplicable mass conversion of superdelegates, Sanders’ shot at the nomination is over.
Below the presidential level, there will be two Democratic Senate primaries of note Tuesday between so-called “establishment” hopefuls and pesky challengers. Maryland’s Senate race between Reps. Donna Edwards and Chris Van Hollen was absolutely neck-and-neck for months, but appears to have drifted in the past couple weeks toward Van Hollen, a leading House Democrat and the overwhelming preference of the party. In Pennsylvania, former Rep. Joe Sestak, who defeated the incumbent (and briefly Democratic) Sen. Arlen Specter in the 2010 primary only to lose the general to now-Sen. Pat Toomey, is running again, much to the annoyance of many Democratic leaders. His opponent, Katie McGinty, a former Clinton administration environmental official, has been endorsed by many leading Pennsylvania Democrats—as well as by President Obama. Sestak had been leading in polls, but the most recent ones either show them tied or give McGinty the slight edge.
The Republicans
Finally, some action! Sort of. Donald Trump will probably win every state, probably by double digits. But since this is the Republican side and every last delegate matters, let’s run through some subplots to keep an eye on.
- Can Trump break 50 percent statewide in Connecticut? The survey says … yes! But it will be close. A majority would deliver Trump all 13 statewide delegates. With that large a lead, too, it’s hard to see how he doesn’t take the pluralities needed to win each congressional district and pull off a 28-delegate sweep.
- Can Kasich snatch any Maryland congressional districts from Trump? Republicans in the D.C. suburbs are mostly the sort of moderate, educated RINO types who just lap up Kasich’s hand-holdy shtick. Maryland’s congressional districts are drawn, though, to combine the D.C. suburbs with the more conservative outer parts. In terms of a Republican presidential primary, then, votes from the outer parts of the districts—i.e., Trump votes—could overwhelm Kasich’s suburban strength.
- Pennsylvania’s 54 unbound delegates, hoo boy. As I’ve written, this pool of free agents could decide whether Trump is the Republican presidential nominee or not. Of the 162 delegate candidates up for election Tuesday, a plurality of them are pledging to support either the winner of their district or the statewide vote on the first convention ballot. Cruz and Trump each have about 30 or 40 delegate candidates supporting them and are urging voters to select their preferred delegate slates in their own districts. Since Trump is expected to do so well statewide, that augurs well for his hopes in the 18 congressional districts and “winning” the delegates who’ve pledged to support their district’s preferred candidate. A pledge is only a pledge, though, and come convention time they may change their minds about supporting their district winner if that means handing Trump the nomination. Keep an eye on who wins these slots.
