Clinton Delegate Lead Down to 194, Even as Dramatic Miscounting of Delegates
by Media Continues
Published on
Monday, April 18, 2016
by
Huffington Post
Clinton Delegate Lead Down to 194, Even as Dramatic Miscounting of Delegates
by Media Continues
by
Seth Abramson
Bernie Sanders supporters cheer as the candidate speaks during a campaign
rally held in Prospect Park, Brooklyn on Sunday. (Photo: ddp
USA/Rex/Shutterstock)
1,299 to 1,105.
That's the "insurmountable" delegate lead Hillary Clinton has over Bernie
Sanders.
And there are still 1,674 pledged delegates yet to be awarded in twenty
primaries and caucuses to be held over the next two months; scores of
up-for-grabs delegates yet to be decided via state and county Democratic
conventions; and hundreds and hundreds of super-delegates to be wooed by
both candidates in Philadelphia this summer - with not a single one of them
having officially committed themselves to anybody.
That's the cold, hard truth - the indisputable numeric data of the current
election cycle - but it's not the story Americans are being told.
Why?
Well, put it this way: say what you will about Nate Silver's
FiveThirtyEight.com - for instance, that its projections for Bernie Sanders
in primaries and caucuses have routinely been low, a fact which sits
uncomfortably beside its penchant for publishing articles marginalizing
Sanders and his supporters as quixotic - but they've consistently had the
most accurate delegate counts for the Democratic Primary race.
And even they can't keep up with Sanders.
In just the past week, Sanders has cut Clinton's delegate lead by 20 - by 12
in Colorado (Sanders +6, Clinton -6) and by four each in Nevada and Missouri
(Sanders +2, Clinton -2) - without a single statewide primary or caucus
being held, and even Nate Silver and his crew haven't been able to amend
their usually accurate delegate tallies fast enough. That's understandable;
it's easy to fall behind in reporting on a candidate who's beaten Hillary
Clinton eight Election Days in a row - President Obama having never lost
more than two in a row in 2008 - when you also have to publish esoterically
misleading stories like "Clinton Is Winning the States That Look Like the
Democratic Party" and "Bernie Sanders Is Even Less Competitive Than He
Appears".
Sanders supporters understand: burying a candidate is hard work.
But on the assumption Silver, who's actually a pollster and not an
editorialist, will get back to doing what he's known for, he'll notice that
not only is Sanders way ahead of Clinton in favorability polling,
head-to-head national polling against GOP candidates, head-to-head
battleground-state polling against GOP candidates, and also, in many of the
recent national polls, head-to-head polling against Clinton herself, but
he's also cutting into her pledged delegate lead near-daily without having
to lift a finger.
So it bears repeating: after recent second- and third-stage successes in
Missouri, Nevada, and Colorado - that is, after continuing to compete in the
second and third stages of delegate selection in these three states, in a
way both Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton have either declined or been
unable to do - Sanders has gained 20 net delegates on his Democratic
opponent in just the last week, only a fraction of which are reflected in
the current delegate count at FiveThirtyEight.com.
This comes after gaining four net delegates in Arizona the week before that.
This means that Clinton's delegate lead has dropped by 24 in just the last
two weeks, and in events barely covered by the media in four of the nation's
fifty states. If similar events were to occur at even a handful of the other
46 state party conventions, Clinton's lead, even outside any remaining
primaries and caucuses, could be greatly imperiled.
Seems newsworthy, doesn't it? Cutting 24 delegates off Clinton's 200-plus
delegate lead in just four states and 14 days, with two months left in the
primary season, twenty primaries and caucuses left, and many states that
have already held primaries and caucuses still planning to hold precisely
the sort of county conventions that have already netted Sanders so many new
delegates in so little time?
Apparently not.
So what's that new delegate count again?
1,299 to 1,105.
That's right: with 1,674 delegates left to be awarded, and possibly dozens
of delegates left to be "re-awarded" following county- and state-level
Democratic conventions across the nation, Clinton's delegate lead - so
insurmountable it's really only spoken of these days in euphemistic
superlatives - is no more than 1,299 to 1,105.
To put it in perspective, given the number of total pledged delegates on the
Republican side (2,474) as compared to the Democratic side (4,051),
Clinton's lead on Sanders is the equivalent of Donald Trump having a
118-delegate lead on Ted Cruz.
Trump's actual current lead over Cruz?
Not 118, but nearly twice that - 215.
So why are most American news-watchers under the distinct impression that
Ted Cruz has a much better chance of catching Trump in pledged delegates
than Sanders does of catching Clinton?
I don't know - ask Nate Silver and FiveThirtyEight.com.
Or ask any of the other major mainstream-media institutions, who, instead of
reporting that Clinton leads Sanders by only 194 delegates, have done the
Secretary the enormous favor of making it look like she leads by 25 percent
more than that - having already done her the favor of reporting misleading
super-delegate tallies for months, thereby falsely inflating Clinton's lead
by hundreds of unpledged delegates.
Here's how big a favor the media is presently doing Mrs. Clinton - who,
again, leads Senator Sanders by just 194 delegates:
False Delegate Counts, By Media Institution
(from most inaccurate delegate count to least inaccurate count)
CBS: 695 *
Politico: 672 *
NBC: 664 *
ABC: 244
Fox News: 244
RealClearPolitics: 244
CNN: 229
New York Times: 220
FiveThirtyEight: 206
* Network falsely includes super-delegates in delegate count, against the
express demand of the Democratic National Committee.
So, as New York residents prepare to head to the polls on Tuesday, with many
of them - particularly Sanders supporters - wondering how much of a
difference their vote can really make, the answer is: a very, very great
deal.
For as we've already seen over the past two weeks, delegate leads can
evaporate far faster than the even the media intelligentsia can track. The
actual delegate count is 1,299 to 1,105 today, but who knows what it'll be
by mid-week, if Sanders supporters ignore the mainstream media's
computational disabilities and turn out to vote?
C 2016 Huffington Post
Seth Abramson
Seth Abramson is Assistant Professor of English at University of New
Hampshire.
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Clinton Delegate Lead Down to 194, Even as Dramatic Miscounting of Delegates
by Media Continues
Published on
Monday, April 18, 2016
by
Huffington Post
Clinton Delegate Lead Down to 194, Even as Dramatic Miscounting of Delegates
by Media Continues
by
Seth Abramson
. 14 Comments
.
. Bernie Sanders supporters cheer as the candidate speaks during a
campaign rally held in Prospect Park, Brooklyn on Sunday. (Photo: ddp
USA/Rex/Shutterstock)
. 1,299 to 1,105.
. That's the "insurmountable" delegate lead Hillary Clinton has over
Bernie Sanders.
. And there are still 1,674 pledged delegates yet to be awarded in
twenty primaries and caucuses to be held over the next two months; scores of
up-for-grabs delegates yet to be decided via state and county Democratic
conventions; and hundreds and hundreds of super-delegates to be wooed by
both candidates in Philadelphia this summer - with not a single one of them
having officially committed themselves to anybody.
. That's the cold, hard truth - the indisputable numeric data of the
current election cycle - but it's not the story Americans are being told.
Why?
Well, put it this way: say what you will about Nate Silver's
FiveThirtyEight.com - for instance, that its projections for Bernie Sanders
in primaries and caucuses have routinely been low, a fact which sits
uncomfortably beside its penchant for publishing articles marginalizing
Sanders and his supporters as quixotic - but they've consistently had the
most accurate delegate counts for the Democratic Primary race.
And even they can't keep up with Sanders.
https://salsa.wiredforchange.com/o/1493/donate_page/spring2016-articlehttps:
//salsa.wiredforchange.com/o/1493/donate_page/spring2016-article
In just the past week, Sanders has cut Clinton's delegate lead by 20 - by 12
in Colorado (Sanders +6, Clinton -6) and by four each in Nevada and Missouri
(Sanders +2, Clinton -2) - without a single statewide primary or caucus
being held, and even Nate Silver and his crew haven't been able to amend
their usually accurate delegate tallies fast enough. That's understandable;
it's easy to fall behind in reporting on a candidate who's beaten Hillary
Clinton eight Election Days in a row - President Obama having never lost
more than two in a row in 2008 - when you also have to publish esoterically
misleading stories like "Clinton Is Winning the States That Look Like the
Democratic Party" and "Bernie Sanders Is Even Less Competitive Than He
Appears".
Sanders supporters understand: burying a candidate is hard work.
But on the assumption Silver, who's actually a pollster and not an
editorialist, will get back to doing what he's known for, he'll notice that
not only is Sanders way ahead of Clinton in favorability polling,
head-to-head national polling against GOP candidates, head-to-head
battleground-state polling against GOP candidates, and also, in many of the
recent national polls, head-to-head polling against Clinton herself, but
he's also cutting into her pledged delegate lead near-daily without having
to lift a finger.
So it bears repeating: after recent second- and third-stage successes in
Missouri, Nevada, and Colorado - that is, after continuing to compete in the
second and third stages of delegate selection in these three states, in a
way both Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton have either declined or been
unable to do - Sanders has gained 20 net delegates on his Democratic
opponent in just the last week, only a fraction of which are reflected in
the current delegate count at FiveThirtyEight.com.
This comes after gaining four net delegates in Arizona the week before that.
This means that Clinton's delegate lead has dropped by 24 in just the last
two weeks, and in events barely covered by the media in four of the nation's
fifty states. If similar events were to occur at even a handful of the other
46 state party conventions, Clinton's lead, even outside any remaining
primaries and caucuses, could be greatly imperiled.
Seems newsworthy, doesn't it? Cutting 24 delegates off Clinton's 200-plus
delegate lead in just four states and 14 days, with two months left in the
primary season, twenty primaries and caucuses left, and many states that
have already held primaries and caucuses still planning to hold precisely
the sort of county conventions that have already netted Sanders so many new
delegates in so little time?
Apparently not.
So what's that new delegate count again?
1,299 to 1,105.
That's right: with 1,674 delegates left to be awarded, and possibly dozens
of delegates left to be "re-awarded" following county- and state-level
Democratic conventions across the nation, Clinton's delegate lead - so
insurmountable it's really only spoken of these days in euphemistic
superlatives - is no more than 1,299 to 1,105.
To put it in perspective, given the number of total pledged delegates on the
Republican side (2,474) as compared to the Democratic side (4,051),
Clinton's lead on Sanders is the equivalent of Donald Trump having a
118-delegate lead on Ted Cruz.
Trump's actual current lead over Cruz?
Not 118, but nearly twice that - 215.
So why are most American news-watchers under the distinct impression that
Ted Cruz has a much better chance of catching Trump in pledged delegates
than Sanders does of catching Clinton?
I don't know - ask Nate Silver and FiveThirtyEight.com.
Or ask any of the other major mainstream-media institutions, who, instead of
reporting that Clinton leads Sanders by only 194 delegates, have done the
Secretary the enormous favor of making it look like she leads by 25 percent
more than that - having already done her the favor of reporting misleading
super-delegate tallies for months, thereby falsely inflating Clinton's lead
by hundreds of unpledged delegates.
Here's how big a favor the media is presently doing Mrs. Clinton - who,
again, leads Senator Sanders by just 194 delegates:
False Delegate Counts, By Media Institution
(from most inaccurate delegate count to least inaccurate count)
CBS: 695 *
Politico: 672 *
NBC: 664 *
ABC: 244
Fox News: 244
RealClearPolitics: 244
CNN: 229
New York Times: 220
FiveThirtyEight: 206
* Network falsely includes super-delegates in delegate count, against the
express demand of the Democratic National Committee.
So, as New York residents prepare to head to the polls on Tuesday, with many
of them - particularly Sanders supporters - wondering how much of a
difference their vote can really make, the answer is: a very, very great
deal.
For as we've already seen over the past two weeks, delegate leads can
evaporate far faster than the even the media intelligentsia can track. The
actual delegate count is 1,299 to 1,105 today, but who knows what it'll be
by mid-week, if Sanders supporters ignore the mainstream media's
computational disabilities and turn out to vote?
C 2016 Huffington Post
/author/seth-abramson
/author/seth-abramson/author/seth-abramson
Seth Abramson is Assistant Professor of English at University of New
Hampshire.
