For the Record: Today's primary drama isn't with candidates
Happy Acela Primary Day!
This is the biggest delegate haul up for grabs until the final blast on June 7. You’d think that would make it more dramatic than it is. But … dah well. Let’s just explain.
THE SPOILS
There are 172 Republican delegates up for grabs today:
- Connecticut: 28.
- Delaware: 16.
- Maryland: 38.
- Pennsylvania: 71.
- Rhode Island: 19.
And 384 delegates for Democrats (462 if you include superdelegates, which we aren’t because … we can. Yeah, that’s our power trip):
- Connecticut: 55.
- Delaware: 21.
- Maryland: 95.
- Pennsylvania: 189.
- Rhode Island: 24.
THE RULES
Neither Hillary Clinton nor Donald Trump will officially lock up their nominations today. But if the polls are right, both are expected to pad their leads. And Clinton could effectively dash hopes of a Bernie Sanders rally. Why? Well, once again, a lot of it has to do with the rules.
FOR DEMOCRATS: As we’ve told you before, Democrats award their delegates proportionally. All five states today (except Rhode Island) are closed to independents, which is a huge part of Sanders’ support base. (Few states after today allow independents to cast ballots, either.) Rhode Island is sort of open to independents; they can vote in either party’s election, but if they do vote in one or the other, they have to later "disaffiliate" themselves by filling out a form. Seriously: Who comes up with this stuff?
FOR REPUBLICANS: Rhode Island is a GOP oddball, in that it awards delegates more proportionally than most states. But Connecticut’s sort-of proportional delegates become winner-take-all if a candidate gets at least half of the vote. Trump has a good chance of doing that, based on the polls. Combine that with winner-take-all rules in Maryland and Delaware, where Trump also has the lead, and the swirly haired guy clearly has the advantage.
THEN THERE’S PENNSYLVANIA
Clinton and Trump are expected to win in Pennsylvania. No big drama there. But here’s where things get interesting: Only 17 of the state’s 71 Republican delegates are bound to the winner. The rest can vote for whoever they want at the national convention. More interesting: These unbound delegates are elected popularly, not by a few party elites at the state convention, where Ted Cruz has done a better job than Trump of getting slates elected that would vote for him to the death. (And suddenly, in our mind’s eye, we see people casting ballots while being tortured, yelling, “Ted Cruuuuuuuuuz” in a Scottish brogue while the crowd gently weeps. No wait, that’s a scene from “Braveheart.” But imagine if that’s how the GOP convention played out. Hey, we’d watch it.)
Anyway, many of Pennsylvania’s unbound delegate candidates have said they’d vote for the state winner. But the fact remains that they don’t HAVE to if crap hits the fan. Which leads us to this gem of a quote from a delegate candidate, as reported in U.S. News and World Report: “‘Bizarre’ is the best word to describe the whole damn process. This is going to shape up to be a battle."
MORE FROM THE CAMPAIGN TRAIL
- Advice to Fox News host and Trump adversary Megyn Kelly when she interviews him: Wear a helmet (USA TODAY)
- Carly Fiorina said to be on Cruz’s short list for VP, but who else is he considering? Our endorsement: The garden gnome from his Bad Lip Reading parody (USA TODAY)
- This definitely won’t win any points with Purdue fans. Fiery former Indiana Coach Bobby Knight to campaign with Trump (Indianapolis Star)
TED CRUZ ASKS THE INTERNET, AND IT SAYS NO
Ted Cruz made a funny on the campaign trail. Or, well, he thinks it’s funny. “If Donald Trump dresses up as Hillary Clinton, he still can’t use the little girls’ restroom,” Cruz has said repeatedly to illustrate why he’s against transgender use of public bathrooms. He has beseeched Jimmy Fallon to digitally dress Trump in a Clinton pant suit. But Fallon hasn’t obliged – and neither, apparently, has the Internet. A Google image search for “Trump dressed as Clinton” returned nothing.