The Electoral College Map (6/22/20)

Update for June 22.

After polling releases took a day off on Father's Day, a couple of new surveys greeted the start of the work week on Monday. Both strayed a bit -- and in different directions -- from the collective picture assembled from recent polling across the country. Neither, however, fundamentally altered the outlook either on the state level or in the tally of electoral votes for Joe Biden or Donald Trump.

Polling quick hits:
Alabama:
States with competitive Senate races in 2020 get not only Senate polls, but tend to churn out a steady stream of presidential race data as well. And that happens whether the presidential race is close or not. Think of all those Brown-Warren polls of Massachusetts from 2012 that nonetheless continually showed Obama well ahead of former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney in the presidential race. That is what is likely to happen in Alabama this year with Doug Jones representing the one Democratic-held seat most likely to flip in November. Any polls that come out will no doubt also have a test of the presidential trial heat as well and all a very likely to show a healthy lead for Trump.

That said, the internal statewide poll of Alabama from the Jones campaign found a presidential race within 15 points, a margin that passes for "close" in Alabama. But in all honesty, Alabama is not going to be a state that is going to be much closer than that or even anything other than ruby red in November. Nevertheless, the survey finds Biden under 40 points but running five points ahead of Hillary Clinton's pace set in the 2016 race in the Yellowhammer state. But the eye-opening number in this poll -- and again it is an internal Democratic poll -- is that Trump is barely cracking the 50 percent mark in the state, a nearly 10 point decline from the share of support he enjoyed in Alabama in 2016. If Trump is only garnering 53 percent in Alabama in November, then there are a lot of states that were red in 2016 turning blue in 2020.

The race in Alabama is unlikely to get to that point unless there is a significant cratering of Trump support. That does not seem all that probable.


Michigan:
While Alabama may be one of those uncompetitive states to get at least regular updates in the presidential race throughout the campaign, that is not a worry in Michigan, the most surveyed state in 2020. After a few recent polls found Biden up double digits in the Wolverine state, the last two surveys have shown a much tighter race. The latest is from Trafalgar Group with Biden up only one point.

However, the answer (or the margin really), as FHQ often says, is probably somewhere in the middle of those two sets of polls. And the FHQ graduated weighted average in Michigan is certainly there, placing the state firmly in the Lean Biden category. Does that make this poll an outlier? Well, both candidates are running behind their parties' share of support in the state in 2016. And that is not exactly a finding consistent with the 7 plus point average shift toward the Democrats that has been borne out of the 2020 polls to this point here at FHQ. It also does not jibe with overall trend that we have seen: Biden running ahead of 2016 and Trump running behind. The opposite is true here.

Come to your own conclusion on whether that constitutes an outlier. Yet, one thing is clear, Michigan remained a Biden state with a roughly 6.5 point lead on average.


NOTE: A description of the methodology behind the graduated weighted average of 2020 state-level polling that FHQ uses for these projections can be found here.

The Electoral College Spectrum1
MA-112 (14)	CT-7 (173)	NV-6 (249)	MO-10 (125)	NE-2 (56)
HI-4 (18)	OR-7 (180)	FL-293 (278/289)	AK-3 (115)	TN-11 (54)
CA-55 (73)	DE-3 (183)	WI-10 (288/260)	MT-3 (112)	AL-9 (43)
VT-3 (76)	CO-9 (192)	AZ-11 (299/250)	SC-9 (109)	ID-4 (34)
NY-29 (105)	NM-5 (197)	PA-20 (319/239)	UT-6 (100)	KY-8 (30)
MD-10 (115)	MN-10 (207)	NC-15 (334/219)	LA-8 NE CD1-1 (94)	ND-3 (22)
IL-20 (135)	VA-13 (220)	OH-18 (352/204)	MS-6 (85)	SD-3 (19)
WA-12 (147)	ME-2 (222)	GA-16 (186)	IN-11 (79)	OK-7 (16)
RI-4 ME CD1-1 (152)	MI-16 (238)	IA-6 (170)	KS-6 (68)	WV-5 (9)
NJ-14 (166)	NH-4 NE CD2-1 (243)	TX-38 ME CD2-1 (164)	AR-6 (62)	WY-3 NE CD3-1 (4)
1 Follow the link for a detailed explanation on how to read the Electoral College Spectrum. 2 The numbers in the parentheses refer to the number of electoral votes a candidate would have if he or she won all the states ranked prior to that state. If, for example, Trump won all the states up to and including Florida (Biden's toss up states up to Florida), he would have 289 electoral votes. Trump's numbers are only totaled through the states he would need in order to get to 270. In those cases, Biden's number is on the left and Trumps's is on the right in bold italics. To keep the figure to 50 cells, Washington, DC and its three electoral votes are included in the beginning total on the Democratic side of the spectrum. The District has historically been the most Democratic state in the Electoral College. 3 Florida is the state where Biden crosses the 270 electoral vote threshold to win the presidential election, the tipping point state.

No, neither poll did much to shake things up too much. The Alabama poll did draw in the margin there and pushed it four cells toward the partisan line on the Electoral College Spectrum above. But the state remains in the far right column, deep in the coalition of Trump states. Michigan, despite the tight margin in the Trafalgar poll, did not budge on the Spectrum and the gap did not close enough to bring the average much closer to pushing Michigan onto the Watch List below.

Florida retains its position as the tipping point state and Montana, even without a new survey, slipped off the Watch List. The decay of older polls nudged the margin there below 9 points in favor of Trump, but kept the Treasure state on the upper end of the Lean Trump states.

But with 134 days until the election, the Electoral College stuck at Biden 352, Trump 186.

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NOTE: Distinctions are made between states based on how much they favor one candidate or another. States with a margin greater than 10 percent between Biden and Trump are "Strong" states. Those with a margin of 5 to 10 percent "Lean" toward one of the two (presumptive) nominees. Finally, states with a spread in the graduated weighted averages of both the candidates' shares of polling support less than 5 percent are "Toss Up" states. The darker a state is shaded in any of the figures here, the more strongly it is aligned with one of the candidates. Not all states along or near the boundaries between categories are close to pushing over into a neighboring group. Those most likely to switch -- those within a percentage point of the various lines of demarcation -- are included on the Watch List below.

The Watch List1
State	Switch
Louisiana	from Strong Trump	to Lean Trump
Mississippi	from Strong Trump	to Lean Trump
Nebraska CD1	from Strong Trump	to Lean Trump
Nebraska CD2	from Toss Up Biden	to Lean Biden
New Hampshire	from Toss Up Biden	to Lean Biden
Ohio	from Toss Up Biden	to Toss Up Trump
South Carolina	from Lean Trump	to Strong Trump
Utah	from Lean Trump	to Strong Trump
Virginia	from Strong Biden	to Lean Biden
1 Graduated weighted average margin within a fraction of a point of changing categories.

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Methodological Note: In past years, FHQ has tried some different ways of dealing with states with no polls or just one poll in the early rounds of these projections. It does help that the least polled states are often the least competitive. The only shortcoming is that those states may be a little off in the order in the Spectrum. In earlier cycles, a simple average of the state's three previous cycles has been used. But in 2016, FHQ strayed from that and constructed an average swing from 2012 to 2016 that was applied to states. That method, however, did little to prevent anomalies like the Kansas poll the thad Clinton ahead from biasing the averages. In 2016, the early average swing in the aggregate was  too small to make much difference anyway. For 2020, FHQ has utilized an average swing among states that were around a little polled state in the rank ordering on election day in 2016. If there is just one poll in Delaware in 2020, for example, then maybe it is reasonable to account for what the comparatively greater amount of polling tells us about the changes in Connecticut, New Jersey and New Mexico. Or perhaps the polling in Iowa, Mississippi and South Carolina so far tells us a bit about what may be happening in Alaska where no public polling has been released. That will hopefully work a bit better than the overall average that may end up a bit more muted.

2020 Democratic Delegate Allocation: ALABAMA

ALABAMA

Election type: primary
Date: March 3
Number of delegates: 60 [11 at-large, 7 PLEOs, 34 congressional district, 8 automatic/superdelegates]
Allocation method: proportional statewide and at the congressional district level
Threshold to qualify for delegates: 15%
2016: proportional primary
Delegate selection plan


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Changes since 2016
If one followed the 2016 series on the Republican process here at FHQ, then you may end up somewhat disappointed. The two national parties manage the presidential nomination process differently. The Republican National Committee is much less hands-on in regulating state and state party activity in the delegate selection process than the Democratic National Committee is. That leads to a lot of variation from state to state and from cycle to cycle on the Republican side. Meanwhile, the DNC is much more top down in its approach. Thresholds stay the same. It is a 15 percent barrier that candidates must cross in order to qualify for delegates. That is standard across all states. The allocation of delegates is roughly proportional. Again, that is applied to every state.

That does not mean there are no changes. The calendar has changed as have other facets of the process such as whether a state has a primary or a caucus.

Alabama retained its Super Tuesday position on the 2020 primary calendar, keeping the state in March for the third straight cycle and on the first Tuesday in March for the second consecutive cycle. One difference over 2016 is that Alabama lost one district delegate but gained two more superdelegates. But outside of that, much remains the same in 2020 as it was in 2016 in the Yellowhammer state.


Thresholds
The standard 15 percent qualifying threshold applies both statewide and on the congressional district level.


Delegate allocation (at-large and PLEO delegates)
To win any at-large or PLEO (pledged Party Leader and Elected Officials) delegates a candidate must win 15 percent of the statewide vote. Only the votes of those candidates above the threshold will count for the purposes of the separate allocation of these two pools of delegates.

See New Hampshire synopsis for an example of how the delegate allocation math works for all categories of delegates.


Delegate allocation (congressional district delegates)
Alabama's 34 congressional district delegates are split across seven congressional districts and have some variation across districts from the measure of Democratic strength Alabama Democrats are using based on the results of the 2016 presidential election and the 2018 gubernatorial election in the state. That method apportions delegates as follows...
CD1 - 5 delegates* [Mobile]
CD2 - 5 delegates* [Montgomery]
CD3 - 4 delegates [Auburn]
CD4 - 3 delegates* [Gadsden]
CD5 - 5 delegates* [Huntsville]
CD6 - 4 delegates [Hoover]
CD7 - 8 delegates [Birmingham, Tuscaloosa]

*Bear in mind that districts with odd numbers of national convention delegates are potentially important to winners (and those above the qualifying threshold) within those districts. Rounding up for an extra delegate initially requires less in those districts than in districts with even numbers of delegates.


Delegate allocation (automatic delegates/superdelegates)
Superdelegates are free to align with a candidate of their choice at a time of their choosing. While their support may be a signal to voters in their state (if an endorsement is made before voting in that state), superdelegates will only vote on the first ballot at the national convention if half of the total number of delegates -- pledged plus superdelegates -- have been pledged to one candidate. Otherwise, superdelegates are locked out of the voting unless 1) the convention adopts rules that allow them to vote or 2) the voting process extends to a second ballot. But then all delegates, not just superdelegates will be free to vote for any candidate.

[NOTE: All Democratic delegates are pledged and not bound to their candidates. They are to vote in good conscience for the candidate to whom they have been pledged, but technically do not have to. But they tend to because the candidates and their campaigns are involved in vetting and selecting their delegates through the various selection processes on the state level. Well, the good campaigns are anyway.]


Selection
All 34 of the district delegates in Alabama will be elected on the March 3 primary ballot. Filing for ballot access closed on November 8, 2019. While a campaign's inability to file a full slate by then is often a signal of lack of organization, those same campaigns are not shut out of delegate positions if they are allocated them in the primary but do not have a full slate to fill them. In that case, the campaign would have an opportunity to fill those empty allocated slots at a scheduled March 28 meeting conducted by the state party. The PLEO and then at-large delegates will be selected on April 4 by the state executive committee based on the statewide results in the primary.

Importantly, if a candidate drops out of the race before the selection of statewide delegates, then any statewide delegates allocated to that candidate will be reallocated to the remaining candidates. If Candidate X is in the race in early April when the Alabama statewide delegate selection takes place but Candidate Y is not, then any statewide delegates allocated to Candidate Y in the March primary would be reallocated to Candidate X. [This same feature is not something that applies to district delegates.] This reallocation only applies if a candidate has fully dropped out. Candidates with suspended campaigns are still candidates and can fill those slots allocated them.

Alabama Republicans Nix Changes to 2020 Delegate Selection Process

In the lead up to last month's meeting of the Alabama Republican Party Executive Committee, the party's Bylaws Committee unanimously passed a resolution to rework the way in which national convention delegates are selected.

Traditionally, Alabama delegate candidates -- for both at-large and congressional district positions -- have appeared on the ballot and have been directly elected by Republican presidential primary voters. Like the changes recently made in West Virginia, the proposed change in the selection process would have removed delegate candidates from the primary ballot and shifted the responsibility for selection to the 467 member Executive Committee. While this is certainly a way to streamline and shorten the March primary ballot, it would also give the state party more control over the selection process and likely serve as a boon to President Trump's chances of identifying delegates more closely aligned with him.

However, although the resolution passed the Bylaws Committee with no dissent, there was some pushback from within the party. Opponents of the change balked at the anti-democratic shift in the rules, seeing the change as potentially ceding too much power to the few in the state party.

But at the August 24 meeting of the Executive Committee in Auburn, the party rejected the resolution that emerged from the Bylaws Committee. It was a vote that kept the basic structure under which Alabama Republicans have selected delegates the same.

Now, the lack of change is no real significant loss for President Trump. Yes, there will be less party control over the delegate selection process. Yet, Trump and the campaign apparatus behind him will be maximally positioned compared to his challengers to identify delegate candidates and assist them, individually or as a slate, in filing for ballot access. That will serve as a large enough advantage for the president.

This delegate slate filing issue was highlighted in 2015 when the Jeb Bush campaign had some trouble in filing a full slate of delegate candidates in Alabama, foreshadowing perhaps the difficulties Bush would have later in the 2016 race. Trump likely will not have that problem in 2019 when candidates -- presidential and delegate -- have to file between October 8 and November 8, 2019.

No changes were proposed or made by the party to the delegate allocation process. The 2020 method, then, should look much as it did in 2016.


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The Electoral College Map (8/11/16)

Latest Update

New State Polls (8/11/16)
State	Poll	Date	Margin of Error	Sample	Clinton	Trump	Undecided	Poll Margin	FHQ Margin
Alabama	Strategy Research/WKRG	6/19	+/- 2.0%	4100 adults	33	57	--	+24	+24.00
Florida	Opinion Savvy/Fox 13	8/10	+/- 4.0%	622 likely voters	45	44	3	+1	+2.19
Georgia	Gravis	8/4-8/8	+/- 2.5%	1604 likely voters	39	43	--	+4	+0.60
Idaho	Dan Jones & Associates	5/18-6/4	+/- 3.99%	603 adults	32	49	18	+17	+19.36
Iowa	Suffolk	8/8-8/10	+/- 4.4%	500 likely voters	36	37	18	+1	+2.04
Maine	Gravis	8/4-8/8	+/- 2.2%	2046 likely voters	43	33	--	+10	+8.69
New Hampshire	Vox Populi	8/7-8/8	+/- 3.4%	820 registered voters	41	31	13	+10	+4.60
New York	Gravis	8/4-8/8	+/- 2.4%	1717 likely voters	48	34	--	+14	+19.17
South Carolina	Public Policy Polling	8/9-8/10	+/- 2.7%	1290 likely voters	39	41	13	+2	+2.00

Polling Quick Hits:
There was a flood of new polling from old and new battleground states alike and a couple of backlogged polls freshly added to the FHQ dataset. Here is a quick tour.


Alabama:
One of the older polls comes out Dixie. There is quite a bit of support not going to the two major party candidates, but Trump led Clinton by 24 points. Both are underperforming where their 2012 predecessors were in the Yellowhammer state, but the margin is in line with the spread in November 2012. Even if there is a blue wave that surges into the most Republican columns below on the Electoral College Spectrum, Alabama figures to be one the hold outs on the Republican side of the partisan line.


Florida:
One has to wonder if the volatility in the polling in Florida is dying down some after the narrow margins of the last two days of survey releases. That said, Quinnipiac -- yesterday's entrant -- has leaned more Republican this cycle. It could be that there is a tighter new normal in the Sunshine state, or that could be a function of the firms that have released polls in the last two days. It will just take some more data to answer that question.


Georgia:
In the Peach state, there is yet more evidence that Georgia is more competitive in 2016. The head-to-head in the new Gravis poll has Trump clinging to a one point advantage, but the multicandidate results show a larger gap with most of the support for the third party candidates being siphoned off of Clinton's. Either way one goes -- and FHQ uses the multicandidate numbers in these situations -- Trump is just a hair ahead of Clinton in the FHQ averages. Georgia is essentially tied along with Arizona and Nevada.


Idaho:
Dan Jones and Associates polled Idaho just before the end of primary season. As was the story in the firm's July survey of the Gem state, Trump was ahead by a comfortable margin, but running behind recent GOP nominees in the state. Like Alabama above, Idaho will likely be red in the fall, insulated from any Clinton advances. It is only August, but these are data from before the conventions.


Iowa:
Like Florida, another day brought another close poll in the Hawkeye state. The slight Trump edge nudged the FHQ average down enough that Florida and Iowa switched places with each other on the Spectrum, and both are now fairly tightly knotted in a group with Ohio in terms of their average margins. What is perhaps more interesting about Iowa is that no candidate has garnered anything more than 44% in any poll this year (with the exception of the very first survey back in early January). And now both candidates in the last two days of polling have dipped into the 30s. Iowa is close, but there is a deep reservoir of undecideds there. That should taper off as election day approaches, but could swing Iowa depending on how that segment breaks.


Maine:
There has not been a lot of survey work done in Maine yet. Thus far in 2016, there has been but one poll, and it showed Clinton ahead, though in the lean range. Another poll -- this one from Gravis -- has the race in the Pine Tree state in a similar position, but with a slightly larger Clinton lead. That was enough to bump the FHQ average in the state up, but keep Maine in the Lean Clinton category.


New Hampshire:
If Florida and Iowa have had a series of closer post-convention polls, New Hampshire can be said to be moving in the opposite direction. Rather than a second close poll, there is now a second double digit lead for Clinton in the Granite state in the wake of the two national conventions. One the weight of those polls, New Hampshire enters the Watch List -- on the verge of shifting into a Lean Clinton state -- and pushes past Virginia on the Electoral College Spectrum, breaking the electoral college "tie" scenario that occurs when Pennsylvania and Virginia are on the Democratic side of New Hampshire. [Tie is in quotation marks above because the partisan line pushes well beyond where those three states are in the alignment of states. It is not at all a likely scenario at this point in time.]


New York:
There are a number of ways one could frame the current picture in New York: home state of both candidates, tighter than usual margin, etc. But it is pretty clear that Trump is hovering right around where Romney did in the Empire state in 2012. That makes New York a story of Clinton underperforming Obama in the state. Yet, even given that trend, the margin there is comfortably blue. It would be more noteworthy if Trump was actually running ahead of Romney's pace there. He isn't and that is likely to keep New York in the Democratic column.


South Carolina:

Changes (August 11)
State	Before	After
South Carolina	Lean Trump	Toss Up Trump

Finally, the first presidential polling data of 2016 emerged from South Carolina. It might be easy to get carried away with the small two point advantage Trump has in the Palmetto state. And it is a surprising number at first glance. However, South Carolina ended up a couple of percentage points redder than Georgia in 2012. And if Georgia is tied, then South Carolina +2 to Trump is right in line with what would be a uniform shift of states. And truth be told, that is not that far off. South Carolina is still in range of its positioning on the Spectrum in November 2012. It is simply closer there in 2016 if much stock can be put in just one survey. Of course, this one does harken back to the 2008 Zogby poll of South Carolina; the one where Obama was narrowly ahead.

South Carolina shifts from Lean to Toss Up Trump with the addition of this poll, and jumps to a spot next to Georgia on the Spectrum after the Peach state switched places with Arizona.

NOTE: A description of the methodology behind the graduated weighted average of 2016 state-level polling that FHQ uses for these projections can be found here.

The Electoral College Spectrum1
HI-42 (7)	NJ-14 (175)	NH-4 (260)	MS-6 (155)	TN-11 (58)
MD-10 (17)	DE-3 (178)	VA-133 (273 | 278)	MO-10 (149)	LA-8 (47)
RI-4 (21)	WI-10 (188)	FL-29 (302 | 265)	AK-3 (139)	SD-3 (39)
MA-11 (32)	ME-4 (192)	IA-6 (308 | 236)	UT-6 (136)	ND-3 (36)
VT-3 (35)	NM-5 (197)	OH-18 (326 | 230)	KS-6 (130)	ID-4 (33)
CA-55 (90)	MI-16 (213)	NC-15 (341 | 212)	IN-11 (124)	NE-5 (29)
NY-29 (119)	OR-7 (220)	NV-6 (197)	TX-38 (113)	AL-9 (24)
IL-20 (139)	CT-7 (227)	AZ-11 (191)	AR-6 (75)	OK-7 (15)
MN-10 (149)	CO-9 (236)	GA-16 (180)	MT-3 (69)	WV-5 (8)
WA-12 (161)	PA-20 (256)	SC-9 (164)	KY-8 (66)	WY-3 (3)
1 Follow the link for a detailed explanation on how to read the Electoral College Spectrum. 2 The numbers in the parentheses refer to the number of electoral votes a candidate would have if he or she won all the states ranked prior to that state. If, for example, Trump won all the states up to and including Virginia (all Clinton's toss up states plus Virginia), he would have 278 electoral votes. Trump's numbers are only totaled through the states he would need in order to get to 270. In those cases, Clinton's number is on the left and Trumps's is on the right in bold italics. To keep the figure to 50 cells, Washington, DC and its three electoral votes are included in the beginning total on the Democratic side of the spectrum. The District has historically been the most Democratic state in the Electoral College. 3 Virginia is the state where Clinton crosses the 270 electoral vote threshold to win the presidential election. That line is referred to as the victory line.

NOTE: Distinctions are made between states based on how much they favor one candidate or another. States with a margin greater than 10 percent between Clinton and Trump are "Strong" states. Those with a margin of 5 to 10 percent "Lean" toward one of the two (presumptive) nominees. Finally, states with a spread in the graduated weighted averages of both the candidates' shares of polling support less than 5 percent are "Toss Up" states. The darker a state is shaded in any of the figures here, the more strongly it is aligned with one of the candidates. Not all states along or near the boundaries between categories are close to pushing over into a neighboring group. Those most likely to switch -- those within a percentage point of the various lines of demarcation -- are included on the Watch List below.

The Watch List1
State	Switch
Alaska	from Lean Trump	to Toss Up Trump
Arizona	from Toss Up Trump	to Toss Up Clinton
Arkansas	from Strong Trump	to Lean Trump
Georgia	from Toss Up Trump	to Toss Up Clinton
Missouri	from Toss Up Trump	to Lean Trump
Nevada	from Toss Up Trump	to Toss Up Clinton
New Hampshire	from Toss Up Clinton	to Lean Clinton
New Jersey	from Strong Clinton	to Lean Clinton
Virginia	from Toss Up Clinton	to Lean Clinton
Wisconsin	from Lean Clinton	to Strong Clinton
1 Graduated weighted average margin within a fraction of a point of changing categories.

Recent Posts:
The Electoral College Map (8/10/16)

The Electoral College Map (8/9/16)

The Electoral College Map (8/8/16)

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The Extent of Jeb Bush's Alabama "Problem"

This story that the Jeb Bush campaign and its supporters failed to line up a full slate of delegate candidates littered the FHQ Twitter stream last night and has picked up some steam this morning. Let's be real here: It is certainly something of a problem, but the degree of that problem is being overstated. Much of the reporting thus far on the matter -- on the heels of the Alabama filing deadline late last week -- is missing quite a bit of context. And, really, much of it has missed the real story.

But first, Jeb.

Alabama Republicans will send 50 delegates to the national convention in Cleveland next year. Three of those are automatic delegates (the state party chair, the national committeeman and the national committeewoman) which leaves 47 other delegate slots that candidates, their campaigns and supporters have to fill by filing to run. Of those 47 spots, Bush has 32 delegate candidates covering 29 vacancies. That is short of the more than full slates that candidates like Donald Trump, Ben Carson, Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio had filing in support of them.

Looks bad, right?

It is. If a campaign touts its strength in filing a full slate of delegate candidates in Tennessee -- as the Bush campaign has done and others have reported -- then it says something that the campaign has missed the mark further south in Alabama. It says something about organization in an area of the country -- SEC primary territory -- where Bush has spent some time this fall. It says something more that, compared to the other candidates, Bush ranks sixth in terms of the number of Alabama delegate candidates that filed pledged to the former Florida governor.

There are, however, a couple of matters that have gone unsaid and/or underreported in this story. One is that the above it just one comparison. The second is that the process in Alabama -- the rules -- are being overlooked. Both factors when not considered help to overstate the extent of the problem for Bush in Alabama.

2012
Sure, when we look at the 32 delegate candidates that filed on Jeb Bush's behalf compared to the 76 potential delegates that aligned with Carson and Cruz, it looks kind of ominous. Again, it is. FHQ does not want to understate that. In the invisible primary, that is a signal that organizationally, Bush is lagging behind his competitors. Think of this as a straw poll of activists in Alabama, which it functionally is. Jeb Bush just came in sixth. That's winnowing territory.

Yet, look back four years and you will see that all four candidates who made the Alabama presidential primary ballot -- Gingrich, Paul, Romney and Santorum -- all had gaps in the delegate slates that appeared on the ballot next to their names. And yes, that is more an excuse from the Bush perspective than anything else. 2016 is not 2012. However, if FHQ had asked you before the Alabama filing deadline -- so absent this revelation about delegate slates there -- whether Bush would get more or less than 12 delegates (of 47 total), I suspect most would have taken the under given the crowded field of candidates.

Why 12 delegates?

That is the number of delegates Mitt Romney won after the March 13 Alabama presidential primary in 2012. If Bush is a stand-in for 2012 Romney, then those 32 delegate candidates covering 29 slots do not really look all that bad. They cover the bases. Romney won 8 delegates statewide. Bush has 14 at-large delegate candidates covering 13 (of 26) slots. Romney won the first congressional district in 2012 but with less than a majority (two delegates) and was runner up in the fifth and sixth districts (one delegate each). Bush has at least two delegate candidates in each of those three districts.

The delegates slots that Bush is most likely to win, then, are covered. The harder part, perhaps, is getting to the 20% of the vote statewide and in the congressional districts to qualify for those delegates. That strikes FHQ as a much larger Alabama problem at the moment.

Process
Well, what if the at this moment problem is not a problem after the March 1 primary in the Yellowhammer state? What happens if Bush actually exceeds expectations and wins more delegates than his campaign has delegate candidates to cover?

First of all, Bush would still likely have enough delegate candidates to cover his bases even given a winnowed field. But on the offhand chance that Bush really exceeds expectations, and he wins, say, 35 delegates, what happens?

The Alabama Republican Party allocation rules state that voters cannot vote for Jeb Bush and then vote for delegate candidates aligned another candidate to fill in blanks left by Bush. There is no procedure to discard ballots for conflicts (i.e.: voting for Bush and then voting for a Rubio delegate where there is no Bush delegate), but the comments of the Alabama Republican Party seem to indicate that the topline, presidential preference vote has precedence over the delegate votes.¹ The candidate is going to get their delegates in other words.

But how?

Well, if a voter cannot vote for Bush and then a delegate candidate not aligned with Bush, then that means that Bush is winning the top line vote. However, that also means those delegate slots are not being filled. Those slots are vacant.

The first step in filling those vacancies is through the alternate delegate process. The alternate delegates are not elected directly on the ballot. Instead, the state party executive committee selects alternates for the statewide at-large delegates while alternates for congressional district delegate slots are selected by the congressional district committees. There could theoretically be some jockeying on these committees to stack the alternate slates, but recall that these decisions are being made after the vote in the presidential primary. And again, the state party has said that the candidates will receive their rightful share of the delegates based on the vote in the primary.

And in the event there are any shenanigans based on one candidate exceeding expectations -- at least as measured by a comparison to how well their campaign did in lining up delegate candidates -- then the state executive committee will fill those slots.

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Is all this a black eye for Jeb Bush and his campaign during a downward trend for them? Sure, but is it the end of the world? No. Bush seems to have his bases covered for even a reasonable result for him in Alabama. But even if he exceeds even the 2012 Romney baseline, the Alabama rules provide cover.

...and that is true for the other candidates who played the delegate filing game even worse than Bush as well.


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¹ Those comments from Reed Phillips at ALGOP (via Daniel Malloy at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution):

A candidate that wins enough of the vote to be allocated any delegates, will still receive the number of delegates that they won in the primary. If there are any vacancies in delegate slots then the delegates that did qualify will vote to fill those vacancies for that candidate. If a candidate didn’t have anyone qualify as a delegate for them but wins enough of the vote to have delegates, then the state executive committee will vote to fill those slots.

Recent Posts:
2016 Republican Delegate Allocation: ALABAMA

Karl Rove Tries His Hand at a Brokered Deadlocked Convention Scenario...

South Carolina Democrats Are Not Getting Snubbed

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