News from the Votemaster

January Candidate List

Below is the January list of 2016 Republican presidential candidates in roughly the order of most likely to be nominated to least likely. The strengths and weaknesses of each one in the primaries are listed. Note that what is a strength in the primaries may be a weakness in the general election and vice versa. For example, Jeb Bush's wife is a Mexican-American, which may hurt him in the primaries but help him in the general election.

Candidate	Advantages in Primaries	Disadvantages in Primaries
Ted Cruz	Leading in Iowa Republican establishment hates him Called Mitch McConnell a liar Tea party darling Young, fiery, and very conservative Surprisingly good at fund raising Excellent speaker and debater Well organized in Iowa & Super Tuesday states Using his outspoken father Rafael to great effect	Republican establishment hates him First-term senator For a first-term senator, has a lot of enemies Has more enemies than most six-term senators Masterminded the 2013 government shutdown Too much of a firebrand for some voters Too establishment for some outsider voters Too outsider for some establishment voters Are evangelical voters enough to take the nomination?
Donald Trump	Loved by "poke-'em-in-the-eye" voters Has been atop the polls for months Actually created thousands of jobs Can't be bribed, could self-fund Says things no one else dares to say Not a politician Brilliant self-promoter The most famous Republican candidate	Would be crushed by Clinton Establishment will do anything to stop him Used to be fairly liberal Not exactly sure where the Middle East is Demeaned John McCain's war record Lots of sexist and racist remarks His hair gets more attention than Hillary's The most infamous Republican candidate
Marco Rubio	American-dream type biography Can get votes from all wings of the party Young and telegenic, sort of like Jack Kennedy Very charismatic and likable From the mother of all swing states Sounds presidential when delivering talking points	Not leading in any early state Has misrepresented elements of his biography First-term senator Something of a lightweight on policy Supported immigration bill before he opposed it Doesn't do well when going off-script Personal finances raise a lot of questions Help for brother-in-law raises a lot of questions Seems more suited to the second slot
Jeb Bush	Establishment loves him Executive experience galore Huge, battle-tested field operation Also from the mother of all swing states SuperPAC has more money than Uncle Scrooge	Grassroots hates him Weak campaigner, keeps inserting foot in mouth Has to defend his unpopular brother Wrong positions on immigration & Common Core Married to a Latina Barbara Bush: "We've had enough Bushes" Jeb can fix it? Not so far.
Chris Christie	Aggressive character Ran the RGA well; popular with governors Won election twice in a blue state #3 with establishment after Bush and Rubio Endorsed by New Hampshire Union Leader	Polling badly in home state Hugged Obama Has only recently "discovered" he's ultraconservative Last fat President was William Howard Taft; but White House bathtub is bigger now Lambasted by Newark, NJ Star-Ledger We'll cross that bridge when we come to it—if it is open
John Kasich	Could be establishment fallback if others stumble Twice elected in swing state of Ohio From the Midwest, which could help in Iowa Serious candidate, which could help in New Hampshire Would win some Democrats in general election	Not well known Running on competence, not ideology Said St. Peter likes poor people Supported Medicaid expansion, Common Core in Ohio Has performed poorly in debates
Carly Fiorina	Ran a Fortune 500 company Can attack Clinton without being called sexist Took on liberal icon Barbara Boxer in 2010 Self-made multimillionaire Could self fund in the primaries for a while Good knowledge of the issues and good debater Not a politician	Was fired from a Fortune 500 Company Got $20 million severance when fired Was crushed by Barbara Boxer in 2010 No political experience Barebones political operation Not raising enough money
Ben Carson	Devoted following Was polling very well for a while A more polite version of Donald Trump Not a politician Married to the same woman for 40 years Allows racist voters to say they are not racist	Prone to gaffes His numbers are trending downward He's black in a nearly all white party Never held public office Not a dynamic speaker or debater Not politically savvy Campaign staff is in disarray Very weak on foreign policy Does he want to be president or just sell books?
Rand Paul	Could bring in new Republican voters Inherits his father's zealots Dislikes Big Government spying on people Does not tailor his views to pander to voters	Doesn't like wars Doesn't support "Israel good, Arabs bad" policy More of a libertarian than a conservative Was cheered at UC Berkeley Establishment is lukewarm on him First-term senator
Mike Huckabee	Good sense of humor and very likable Ordained Baptist minister Southerner in a party whose base is the South Well known due to 2008 run and Fox show Economic populist	As Arkansas governor raised taxes repeatedly Very poor fundraiser Unpopular outside the South Did badly in 2008 against a much weaker field Appeals only to evangelicals, who largely favor Cruz and Carson over him
Rick Santorum	Been around the track before Won Iowa caucuses in 2012 Very strong social conservative Comes from a big blue state	Didn't win in a much weaker 2012 field One-trick pony: only social conservatism Tends to lecture people and not likable Voters in that big blue state tossed him overboard Running out of money
Jim Gilmore	Nobody hates him	Nobody ever heard of him Lost 2008 Senate race to Mark Warner by 31 points British bookies give the ineligible Arnold Schwarzenegger better odds Not allowed into the Republican debates without a ticket

Rundown of Republican Primaries and Caucuses

The Republican National Committee gives each state a fair amount of freedom in choosing its delegates to the Republican National Convention. The number of delegates allocated to each state is determined by a complicated formula. The formula starts with population, but then adds bonus delegates to states that Romney carried in 2012. States also get bonus delegates for electing Republicans as governor, senator, or member of the House. Finally, the three RNC members from each state get to go to the convention. Here is a simplified table.

How the delegates are allocated to candidates is a complex process and different for each state. Many states have a certain number of delegates chosen by the statewide vote. Before March 15, these are awarded proportionally to the statewide vote—but with a catch: States may set a threshold. Some states have set it to 20%, meaning that when divvying up the statewide delegates, only candidates above the threshold get any delegates. These rules were adopted three years ago when no one was expecting that nearly all the candidates would be below 20%. For example, if Donald Trump gets 25% of the vote, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) gets 20%, and everyone else gets less than 20%, then Trump gets 25/45 of the delegates and Cruz gets 20/45. The others get nothing.

Many states allocate some delegates statewide and some by congressional district (CD). Often the rules are different for statewide delegates and CD delegates. In the statewide contests, people vote for a candidate, such as Trump, Cruz, Rubio, etc. However, in some of the CD contests, people vote for the actual delegates, who may or may not be bound to vote for the candidate they claim to support. Thus a voter might see a ballot with the well-known candidates on the top part (statewide) and Jim Wilson, Mary Smith, Tom Edwards, and Nancy Jones as the delegate candidates on the bottom part, possibly indicating who they favor (but not necessarily).

Finally, just to make it more interesting, states with caucuses generally have a multilevel system. In Iowa, for example, what actually will happen on Feb. 1 is that people will gather in Iowa's 1,681 precincts and elect people to attend the 99 county caucuses a month later. They are bound to vote there for the candidate they supported in the precinct caucus. The county caucuses elect delegates to the four CD caucuses, where delegates to the state caucus are elected. The state caucus chooses the delegates to the Republican National Convention. Thus the voting on Feb. 1 at the precinct caucuses doesn't really indicate how many convention delegates each candidate has, but it gives a general indication.

Here is a table giving a rough summary of the process. The data are from Time Magazine. All elections are primaries unless stated otherwise.

Date	State	Delegates	Thresh.	Notes
Feb. 1	Iowa	30		Caucus; proportional
Feb. 9	New Hampshire	23	10%	Proportional
Feb. 20	South Carolina	50		Winner take all statewide and also per CD
Feb. 23	Nevada	30		Caucus; proportional
Mar. 1	Alabama	50	20%	Proportional
Mar. 1	Alaska	28	13%	Caucus; proportional
Mar. 1	Arkansas	40	15%	Proportional
Mar. 1	Georgia	76	20%	Proportional
Mar. 1	Massachusetts	42	5%	Proportional
Mar. 1	Minnesota	38	10%	Caucus; proportional
Mar. 1	North Dakota	28		Caucus but none of the delegates are bound
Mar. 1	Oklahoma	43	15%	Proportional
Mar. 1	Tennessee	58	20%	Proportional
Mar. 1	Texas	155	20%	Proportional
Mar. 1	Vermont	16	20%	Proportional
Mar. 1	Virginia	49		Proportional
Mar. 1	Wyoming	29		Caucus but none of the delegates are bound
Mar. 5	Kansas	40	10%	Caucus; proportional
Mar. 5	Kentucky	45	5%	Caucus; proportional
Mar. 5	Louisiana	46	20%	Proportional with 20% threshold statewide; none for CDs
Mar. 5	Maine	23	10%	Proportional
Mar. 6	Puerto Rico	23	20%	Proportional
Mar. 8	Hawaii	19		Caucus; proportional
Mar. 8	Idaho	32	20%	Proportional
Mar. 8	Michigan	59	15%	Proportional
Mar. 8	Mississippi	39	15%	Proportional
Mar. 12	D.C.	19	15%	Convention
Mar. 12	Guam	9		Convention but none of the delegates are bound
Mar. 15	Florida	99		Winner take all
Mar. 15	Illinois	69		Statewide winner take all; CD delegates elected personally
Mar. 15	Missouri	52		Above 50%, then winner take all; else WTA by CD
Mar. 15	North Carolina	72		Proportional
Mar. 15	Northern Marianas	9		Winner take all
Mar. 15	Ohio	66		Winner take all
Mar. 19	Virgin Islands	9		Winner take all
Mar. 22	American Samoa	9		Convention; delegates elected personally
Mar. 22	Arizona	58		Winner take all
Mar. 22	Utah	40	15%	Caucus; proportional
Apr. 5	Wisconsin	42		Winner take all statewide and by CD
Apr. 9	Colorado	37		Convention; delegates elected personally and bound
Apr. 19	New York	95	20%	Proportional
Apr. 26	Connecticut	28	20%	Above 50%, then winner take all; WTA by CD
Apr. 26	Delaware	16		Winner take all
Apr. 26	Maryland	38		Winner take all
Apr. 26	Pennsylvania	71		Winner take all statewide; rest elected personally and unbound
Apr. 26	Rhode Island	19	10%	Proportional
May 3	Indiana	57		Winner take all statewide and by CD
May 10	Nebraska	36		Winner take all
May 10	West Virginia	34		Delegates elected personally and bound
May 17	Oregon	28		Proportional
May 27	Washington	41	20%	Proportional
Jun. 7	California	172		Winner take all statewide and by CD
Jun. 7	Montana	27		Winner take all
Jun. 7	New Jersey	51		Winner take all
Jun. 7	New Mexico	24	15%	Proportional
Jun. 7	South Dakota	29		Winner take all

If the nomination is close or if no candidate clearly has a majority, the details may matter a lot. If you are a real delegate-counting nerd, this detailed piece may be of interest. Also of interest to number crunchers is this table showing the cumulative percentage of delegates chosen by any given date. For example, on Feb. 29, 5.4% of the delegates will have been chosen, but on March 2, that number jumps to 29.8%. On March 16, it becomes 57.7%, so we will certainly have some clarity by then, with winner-take-all Florida and Ohio having voted the day before. (V)

Everyone's Angry about Something

A new Esquire/NBC News/Survey Monkey online poll shows that Americans are pretty angry, although different groups are angry about different things. Many questions were asked so you have to read the whole story to get a feel for who is angry about what. Here are just a few Q & A's.

Q: What's your sense of America's place in the world?

• The U.S. is the most powerful country in the world (41%)
• The U.S. was once the most powerful country but isn't any more (54%)
• The U.S. was never the most powerful country (4%)

Hello, Donald Trump. He's got this one down pat. It's on his hat. More than half the people perceive that U.S. is no longer #1 and they are angry about it. There was no follow-up follow-up question though, namely, who is #1 now? Russia? It's a poor third-world kleptocracy. China? A communist dictatorship. Japan? Maybe 25 years ago, but not now. The U.K.? Maybe 150 years ago. Denmark? Bernie Sanders thinks so and its people are very happy, but it is hardly a world power. By any conceivable measure, the U.S. was and is the most powerful country but people have been told it's not by various right-wing media outlets and they believe it.

Q: How does your financial situation compare to what you expected when you were younger?

• I'm better off than I thought I'd be (22%)
• I'm about where I thought I'd be (23%)
• I'm worse off than I thought I would be (54%)

These two questions lie at the core of the populist appeal: America is going down the tubes and the American Dream is dead. Interestingly enough, whites are more likely to complain here than blacks and blame it more on external circumstances than bad personal choices. Whites are also more likely than blacks to get angry multiple times a day.

Republicans are angriest about

• Congress being dysfunctional (80%)
• Massive consumer fraud (80%)
• Cops shooting an unarmed black man (65%)

Democrats are angriest about

• Cops shooting an unarmed black man (84%)
• Massive consumer fraud (83%)
• Billionaire vowing to spend $500 million on 2016 elections (80%)

The survey goes on and on about many other topics. (V)

Three-time Loser Endorses Carly Fiorina in New Hampshire

NBC has a story with the headline: "Carly Fiorina Wins Key Endorsement in New Hampshire." That sounds great for Fiorina until we get into the details a bit more. The endorser is Ovide Lamontagne and he is signing on as her state chairman. He said: "In my opinion, Carly is the most conservative candidate who can win." But who is Lamontagne, exactly? He ran for governor in 1996. Now-senator Jean Shaheen (D) crushed him by 17 points. Then he ran for the Senate in 2010. He didn't even win the Republican primary. In 2012 he ran for governor again. He was crushed by Gov. Maggie Hassan (D-NH) by 12 points.

The point of this news item is not to show that Fiorina is going nowhere in New Hampshire (though that's true) and has signed up third-rate talent to run the show for her. It is to point out how the media often distort the news. To say that a guy who has run for statewide office three times and was decisively defeated each time is somehow a key endorser is very misleading. There are plenty of important Republicans in New Hampshire, including former governors John Sununu, Judd Gregg, Steve Merrill, and Craig Benson, whose endorsement might be worth something, but why does NBC think the endorsement of a three-time loser is a "key endorsement"? Caveat lector. (V)

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---The Votemaster