So what did we learn?
1. Bernie Sanders did better then expected. Nobody expected him to take any states at all, let alone possibly two. That's the good news for Sanders. It shows that he isn't completely out of this race yet and at least made a showing.
2. Of course the bad news is that the state he won, Rhode Island, is tiny and only gave him, as of this writing, 13 delegates out of 24. Most of the Democrat races are proportional so even when Sanders wins he doesn't gain delegates. Even if Sanders does end up winning Connecticut it won't help him that much. He's way behind even without the super delegate advantage that Hillary Clinton has. And he is rapidly reaching the point where he can't realistically catch up. I wouldn't be totally surprised if he dropped out completely.
3. Hillary Clinton once again did well in the states she needed to win in. Pennsylvania had the most delegates up for grabs, and Clinton won the most of them. She also won in Maryland, which was another large state. Neither of those results are surprising but what is surprising is how easily she took Delaware. That state isn't anywhere near as diverse as Pennsylvania and Maryland and historically, Clinton has done much better in more diverse states.
4. Donald Trump did great tonight, but may not get as many delegates as he deserves. Even though he won Pennsylvania, with about 60% of the vote as of this writing, he might not get much more then the 17 delegates he gets for winning the state. The rest of the delegates are voted for directly but there is no information on the ballot about which candidate they support. Some people will have almost certainly left the ballot blank or voted for the wrong delegate because they didn't know who to support. As of this writing, it's impossible for me to know how well Trump did until more detailed results of which delegates were voted for.
5. Regardless, neither Ted Cruz or John Kasich are likely to gain many delegates. Only Delaware was winner take all so it's likely that both of the candidates will gain some, just not enough to really hurt Donald Trump.
6. The margin of victory for Trump was fairly impressive as well. In the past, even in three person races, Trump had a very difficult time getting more then 50% of the votes. He still won of course but by much closer margins. Today, none of the races were even close. Trump won more then 50% in all five states and in many cases he got more then 60% of the vote.
7. Ted Cruz was just destroyed in the Northeast. Starting with New York last week, Cruz has been in third place in 5 out of 6 races. John Kasich beat him to second place in every state besides Pennsylvania. With only 40% of the vote in, that could change. Cruz just isn't connecting with Northeastern voters. And even though Kasich did ok, he's still in fourth place for delegates. Marco Rubio, who dropped out a long time ago, is still beating him in delegates.
8. I think voters are mad about how the GOP is handling Donald Trump. Donald Trump has been arguing for awhile now that the game is rigged against him and that argument is resonating for the voters. Especially after Kasich and Cruz confirmed that they are pulling out of states just to better stop Trump. Most voters are disgusted by that and want whoever leads in delegates at the end of the race to be the candidate, even if they don't reach the magic 1237 number.
As for the rest of the election, the next major state to vote is Indiana next Tuesday. It will be make or break time for Donald Trump and it will be interesting to see if he can keep up the momentum. After that it is a long train of single state and territory votes before the last major election on June 7th where five states, including critical California, vote. I, personally, can't wait for this to be over!
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