Showing posts with label Massachusetts. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Massachusetts. Show all posts

Tuesday, July 28, 2020

The Electoral College Map (7/28/20)

Update for July 28.


Changes (July 28)
StateBeforeAfter
FloridaLean BidenToss Up Biden
OhioToss Up BidenToss Up Trump
PennsylvaniaToss Up BidenLean Biden
The Tuesday 14 weeks before election day brought with it a slew of new polls. In fact, 35 new surveys were added to the FHQ polling dataset for 2020 from 19 states. That included a couple of 12 state waves from Morning Consult and another 7 state series from Public Policy Polling. There was even a Maine survey that included the first look at the races on the congressional district level.

And all that new data ushered in a few changes in this space. One will forgive FHQ for glossing over the Florida and Pennsylvania shifts. Both continue to hover around the border between Lean and Toss Up on the Biden side of the partisan line. But the noticeable change is Ohio jumping the partisan line into Toss Up Trump territory. Other than a brief period at the end of June and the beginning of July when Georgia drifted over to Biden's side of the ledger, the race has fairly steadily been stuck on a Biden 352, Trump 186 tally. That changes today. The Buckeye state has been on the Watch List for the majority of these updates over the last month plus, but has stubbornly stayed ever so slightly tipped in Biden's direction. Now, the opposite is true. How stubborn that bent is, however, remains to be seen. Ohio has been underpolled for the most party -- at least compared to past cycles -- and the two Morning Consult surveys of the Buckeye state were more Trump-favorable than a lot of recent polling there.

Elsewhere...


Polling Quick Hits:
Massachusetts (Biden 55, Trump 23):
The funny thing about the MassINC Polling Group survey of the Bay state is that Biden received his lowest share of support in the limited number of polls conducted there so far in 2020. And the former vice president still led by 32 points. That is because Trump had his lowest share of support in Massachusetts this year as well. The data are nice, but only confirm what was already known about Massachusetts. Yes, it will be a blue state in the fall, but it will be among the bluest states. It had held down the most Democratic cell on the Electoral College Spectrum below, but this poll actually reduced the margin there and yielded that spot to Hawaii.


Maine CD1 (Biden 55, Trump 35):
Both polls from Maine today -- the Public Policy Polling survey (linked below) and this one from Colby College -- are right in the area where the Pine Tree state has settled in this race: just on the Strong side of the Strong/Lean Biden line. And while nothing in either poll changed that, what the Colby poll offered was the initial glimpse at the race on the congressional district level. There were no surprises in CD1. It continues to be a safe jurisdiction for the Democrats. And, in fact, the Biden +20 margin was close to the uniform swing projection FHQ had made based on the shift since 2016 in states that had finished close to the district.


Maine CD2 (Biden 45, Trump 42):
But the real news may have been from the more rural, northern district of the two in Maine; the one Trump won by nearly 10 points in 2016. There, the picture is different through the lens of this survey. Biden may lead by three, but combining that shift with the changes in states that finished near ME CD2 in 2016 still gives the edge to Trump. But that advantage has shrunk and is trending toward the Watch List. Bear in mind that the average shift from 2016 across all states is now a little less than eight points. If one were to shave that average shift off Trump's 2016 margin in ME CD2, then it ends up a with a margin only a little more than the Trump +1.98 at which FHQ now has it calculated.


New Jersey (Biden 51, Trump 33):
Like Massachusetts above, New Jersey, too, is in no danger of being anything other than a safe state for Joe Biden in November. But the update in the Garden state from DKC Analytics is welcome. The 18 point advantage there for the former vice presidential matches the existing gap between the major party candidates in FHQ's graduated weighted averages.


South Carolina (Trump 50, Biden 45):
This one actually was released a day ago but did not quite make it before the update yesterday. But ALG Research, like the brilliant corners survey yesterday, found Trump right at the 50 percent mark in a state the president carried by 14 with 55 percent in 2016. The Palmetto state is unlikely to turn blue any time soon unless the bottom truly drops out on Trump, but the two surveys from the state released in the last 24 hours show about an eight point swing since 2016. And again, that is right there where FHQ has the average swing nationwide.


Morning Consult (May | July waves):
Rather than go through these polls one by one, FHQ will handle them collectively as has become the custom around here when large waves of polls are released. The focus in those cases should always be on the order of the states and how they match up with the established rank ordering as depicted on the Spectrum below.

The big thing between the May and July waves is that while Biden and Trump split the 12 states in May, Biden had taken the lead in 10 of the 12 in this latest round. On average Biden gained a little more than 3.5 points across the dozen states from May to July.

May
Ohio: Trump +8
Texas: Trump +7
North Carolina: Trump +3
Georgia: Trump +2
Arizona: Trump +2
Florida: Trump +1
                               
Pennsylvania: Biden +4
Wisconsin: Biden +5
Minnesota: Biden +7
Michigan: Biden +8
Colorado: Biden +8
Virginia: Biden +10

July
Ohio: Trump +3
North Carolina: Tied
Georgia: Biden +1
Texas: Biden +2
Florida: Biden +3
Minnesota: Biden +3
Arizona: Biden +7
Wisconsin: Biden +7
Pennsylvania: Biden +8
Michigan: Biden +10
Virginia: Biden +11
Colorado: Biden +13

And the order largely holds up in both. Ohio stands out as a state that looked a little more Trump-favorable in these polls than elsewhere, but the Buckeye state is in a fairly tight cluster with Georgia and Texas with North Carolina a bit more distant at the moment. Other than Ohio, Minnesota was the only state among the 12 to actually move in the president's direction since May. But it remains a Lean Biden state and the one most tilted in his direction among that group. Arizona looked like an outlier in the May wave, but swung hard toward Biden in this latest survey conducted by Morning Consult. Split the difference between those two polls and one pretty much has where Arizona is now at FHQ: Biden +3.45.


Public Policy Polling (July wave):
Alaska: Trump +6
Montana: Trump +5
Iowa: Trump +1
                                
Georgia: Biden +1
North Carolina: Biden +3
Maine: Biden +11
Colorado: Biden +13

This group of polls may be more interesting for any Senate or gubernatorial polling simultaneously done with the presidential trial heats. But the bottom line is that the rank ordering in this series aligns with where FHQ has them among each. None of the seven did anything to uproot any of the states from their current positions, either the categories each is in or their spots on the Spectrum below.



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
HI-42
(7)
NJ-14
(173)
PA-203
(269 | 289)
AK-3
(125)
TN-11
(56)
MA-11
(18)
OR-7
(180)
FL-293
(298 | 269)
MO-10
(122)
NE-2
(45)
CA-55
(73)
DE-3
(183)
NH-4
(302 | 240)
SC-9
(112)
AL-9
(43)
VT-3
(76)
CO-9
(192)
NV-6
(308 | 236)
MT-3
(103)
ID-4
(34)
NY-29
(105)
NM-5
(197)
AZ-11
(319 | 230)
UT-6
(100)
ND-3
(30)
MD-10
(115)
ME-2
(199)
NC-15
(334 | 219)
LA-8
NE CD1-1
(94)
KY-8
(27)
IL-20
(135)
VA-13
(212)
GA-16
(204)
MS-6
(85)
SD-3
(19)
WA-12
(147)
MN-10
(222)
OH-18
(188)
IN-11
(79)
OK-7
(16)
RI-4
ME CD1-1
(152)
MI-16
(238)
TX-38
(170)
AR-6
(68)
WV-5
(9)
CT-7
(159)
WI-10
NE CD2-1
(249)
IA-6
ME CD2-1
(132)
KS-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 Pennsylvania (Biden's toss up states up to the Keystone state), 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 for the former vice president. But because the line between Florida and Pennsylvania creates an Electoral College tie (269-269), Pennsylvania is the tipping point state for Trump. It is where the president surpasses 270 electoral votes. Collectively, Florida and Pennsylvania are the tipping point states.

The take home today is that the shuffling among those states around the Lean/Toss Up Biden line has once again affected the tipping point in the order. Once again, there is no one tipping point state. If Trump were to mount a comeback and win all of the states up to Florida in the order then the president would have 269 electoral votes. The tipping point, then, is just between Florida and Pennsylvania. A candidate would have to win both states to get to 270.

The order on the Spectrum remained much the same. Obviously, Ohio pushing over into Trump territory is noteworthy, but so too is the fact that it did that and passed Georgia in the process. The Peach state is now the closest state. Both are on the Watch List below, within a point of shifting to Toss Up Biden.

Speaking of the List, Maine, Minnesota and Montana all came off today with the addition of new polls.


--
There were also no new polls from Nevada nor New Hampshire today.

Days since the last Nevada poll was in the field: 89.
Days since the last New Hampshire poll was in the field: 42.

--
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
Potential Switch
Florida
from Toss Up Biden
to Lean Biden
Georgia
from Toss Up Trump
to Toss Up Biden
Indiana
from Strong Trump
to Lean Trump
Louisiana
from Strong Trump
to Lean Trump
Mississippi
from Strong Trump
to Lean Trump
Missouri
from Toss Up Trump
to Lean Trump
Nebraska CD1
from Strong Trump
to Lean Trump
Nebraska CD2
from Lean Biden
to Toss Up Biden
New Hampshire
from Toss Up Biden
to Lean Biden
Ohio
from Toss Up Trump
to Toss Up Biden
Pennsylvania
from Lean Biden
to Toss Up Biden
Utah
from Lean Trump
to Strong Trump
Virginia
from Strong Biden
to Lean Biden
Wisconsin
from Lean Biden
to Toss Up Biden
1 Graduated weighted average margin within a fraction of a point of changing categories.

--
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 that had 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.


--
Related posts:
The Electoral College Map (7/27/20)

The Electoral College Map (7/26/20)

The Electoral College Map (7/25/20)


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Tuesday, March 3, 2020

2020 Democratic Delegate Allocation: MASSACHUSETTS

MASSACHUSETTS

Election type: primary
Date: March 3
Number of delegates: 114 [20 at-large, 12 PLEOs, 59 congressional district, 23 automatic/superdelegates]
Allocation method: proportional statewide and at the congressional district level
Threshold to qualify for delegates: 15%
2016: proportional primary
Delegate selection plan


--
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.

Little has changed in Massachusetts since 2016 with respect to delegate selection. The primary remains on Super Tuesday as it has for most cycles in the post-reform era. The delegation shrank by two superdelegates, but that is really it.

The largest change is that Massachusetts voters had the opportunity for the first time to vote early in a presidential primary election.


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)
Massachusetts's 59 congressional district delegates are split across 9 congressional districts and have some limited variation across districts from the measure of Democratic strength Massachusetts 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 - 6 delegates
CD2 - 6 delegates
CD3 - 6 delegates
CD4 - 6 delegates
CD5 - 8 delegates
CD6 - 6 delegates
CD7 - 8 delegates
CD8 - 7 delegates*
CD9 - 6 delegates

*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 59 district delegates in Massachusetts are chosen at district caucuses on April 25 based on the results in the respective congressional districts. Later, on May 16 the state central committee of the Massachusetts Democratic Party will select 12 PLEO and then 20 at-large delegates. based on the allocation from the statewide vote.

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 mid-May when the Massachusetts 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.

Wednesday, October 16, 2019

Appropriations Bill Sets Up Early Voting in 2020 Massachusetts Presidential Primary

The Massachusetts House on Tuesday, October 15 moved quickly on an appropriations bill -- H 4127 -- that funds and establishes early voting in the commonwealth's presidential primary next year. 2020 would be the first time that Massachusetts presidential primary voters would have access to early voting.

The bill calls for a five day period to be set aside for early voting during the work week prior to the Super Tuesday presidential primary in the Bay state. It would run from Monday, February 24 through Friday, February 28, the day before the South Carolina Democratic primary. Sites have to be set up two weeks in advance of the commencement of early voting and those locations have to be made public under the provisions of the bill at least seven days in advance of the early voting window.

While this adds to the strategic complexities of Super Tuesday and the Massachusetts presidential primary, the early voting window stretches neither on for as long (only five days) or as far into February as is the case in other Super Tuesday primary states.


--
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Tuesday, May 7, 2019

Massachusetts GOP Rules Change Adds an Element of Winner-Take-All to 2020 Delegate Allocation

The Massachusetts Republican Party has adopted changes to its method of allocating national convention delegates for the 2020 cycle according to Stephanie Murray at Politico. New in 2020 will be a winner-take-all trigger that will award all of the Republican delegates in the Bay state to any candidate who receives a majority of the vote in the Super Tuesday Massachusetts primary.

While that addition is not without import, one should take a step back before ramming it into the "change the rules to help Trump" narrative. On the surface, adding a winner-take-all trigger would theoretically benefit a popular (within party) incumbent president. And that is more true in light of the facts (at this time) that President Trump is likely to face only token opposition and from a very limited number of candidates. The closer the number of challengers is to one, the greater the chances are that Trump hits the winner-take-all trigger.

That sounds like advantage Trump, right?

Yes, but as is often the case with respect to rules changes, there is a bit of context that is missing from the Politico piece.

First, Murray overstates the extent of the change via a misleading description attributed to Dean Cavaretta, Trump's 2016 Massachusetts state director. The rules change does not "eliminate" the traditional proportional allocation of delegates in Massachusetts. Instead, it makes the overall allocation conditional on the results. If no candidate receives a majority, then the allocation is proportional among all qualifying candidates. However, if one candidate clears the majority threshold then a winner-take-all allocation is triggered.

And that reality neatly dovetails with another issue in the Politico story: the replication of these winner-take-all triggers in other states. But here is the thing: Massachusetts is actually joining other early calendar states on the Republican side in using a conditional trigger in the allocation process. FHQ says "early" because under the rules of the Republican party for 2020, states with delegate selection events prior to March 15 have to meet the RNC definition of proportional in the state-level allocation rules. But while states have to maintain some measure of proportional allocation, winner-take-all triggers are allowed and can be set as low as 50 percent. This is what Massachusetts has done with its rules change for 2020. The party has added a trigger.

But again, that addition brings the Massachusetts Republican delegate allocation process in line with other early states. Of the eleven Super Tuesday states with defined allocation rules in 2016, Massachusetts was one of just three to lack a winner-take-all trigger. And six of the remaining eight states set a winner-take-all trigger of 50 percent. [The other two had much higher winner-take-all thresholds.]

The question, then, is not really whether other states will replicate the Massachusetts Republican strategy, but rather, whether the small number of states without those triggers will add them and join the majority of states that had them as part of their rules before Trump even came down the escalator in June 2015.

--
The trigger addition won the headlines, but the real essence of this change is geared toward the delegate selection process. It is on that front that the Massachusetts Republican Party has had some issues over at least the last two presidential nomination cycles, issues this change in allocation method indirectly impacts.

The 2016 RNC Rules Committee meeting that preceded the national convention in Cleveland saw a showdown over the binding of delegates (based on the results of primaries and caucuses). During the 2016 nomination process a vocal minority of activists argued against binding based on the fact that delegates elected/selected may have other allegiances. In other words, the two processes -- allocation and selection -- could point in different directions. Trump could overwhelmingly win a Massachusetts primary and be allocated a set number of delegate slots, but Cruz candidates for delegates in the Bay state could be selected to fill some of those slots. As the argument went, those Cruz-sympathetic delegates could not, under the rules, be forced to vote for Trump at the convention.

However, that argument lost at the 2016 Republican National Convention. But it was spurred, in part, by things that had happened in Massachusetts in 2012 and 2016. In 2012, it was Ron Paul delegate candidates in Massachusetts who were selected to Romney-won slots from the Super Tuesday Massachusetts primary. They later were disqualified. And the Ted Cruz campaign attempted to follow the Paul plan in Massachusetts (and elsewhere) in 2016.

But those problems lie in the selection process, not the allocation process.

[UPDATED, 5/7/19 1:45pm]

And the Massachusetts Republican Party addressed that as well. In lieu of the problematic caucus/convention process, the party has shifted the delegate selection responsibility to other entities. Under the new plan, the state party chair would select one-third of the 27 congressional district delegates, the state committee would select another third of the congressional district delegates and the qualifying presidential candidates would select the remaining third of the congressional district delegates and the 11 at-large delegates.

This is the bigger change. This is the change that most benefits Trump and especially if the president clears the 50 percent winner-take-all threshold. There is far less room for the sorts of shenanigans that  hampered the party in its delegate selection process each of the last two cycles.

--
Thanks to Evan Lips, Communications Director at the Massachusetts Republican Party for passing along the plan adopted last week by the party's State Committee.

Quick glance at the delegate allocation process:

  • The plan confirms that the baseline allocation is proportional (as it has typically been in Massachusetts). 
  • To qualify for delegates, a candidate must win at least 20 percent of the vote. That is an increase over the 5 percent qualifying threshold the party used in 2016. It is also the maximum qualifying threshold allowed under RNC rules for 2020. That means that the protest vote would have to be quite large against an incumbent president running for renomination for any challenger to receive delegates under this plan. 
  • Again, as stated above, if a candidate receives a majority of more of the vote in the Massachusetts Republican presidential primary, then that candidate is allocated all of the state's delegates. 
  • There is no backdoor to a winner-take-all allocation. This can in some states happen if a candidate is the only candidate to clear the qualifying threshold but not the winner-take-all threshold. Hypothetically, for example, if Trump again received 49 percent of the vote in the Massachusetts primary (as he did in 2016), then under the 2020 Massachusetts Republican rules, at least the runner-up would receive some delegates even if that runner-up received less than 20 percent of the vote. Again, using the 2016 results but 2020 rules, Kasich would have received a share of the delegates (split with Trump) even though he only got 18 percent of the vote in the primary. Rubio, less than a thousand votes behind Kasich would be locked out of the allocation. 



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Friday, June 1, 2018

[2017-18 State Legislative Review: Proposed Primary Movement] June Consolidated Primary Falls Short in Massachusetts Again

This post is part of a series examining efforts -- both attempted and successful -- to move presidential primary election dates for 2020 during the now-adjourning 2017-2018 state legislative sessions in capitols across the country. While shifts tend to be rare in sessions immediately following a presidential election, introduced legislation is more common albeit unsuccessful more often than not.

--
If the Massachusetts General Court is in session, then state Rep. James Dwyer (D-30th, Woburn) has a bill before the state House to consolidate all of the primaries in the Bay state in June.

In every session since Dwyer first took office, he has filed legislation -- in 2011, 2013, and 2015 -- to shift the presidential primary back to June from March and the primaries for other state offices to June from the late summer/early fall. And in each instance the bill has died with little consideration. That dynamic was again on display during 190th session of the General Court. Dwyer in 2017 once again filed a bill -- H 361 -- in an attempt to create one all-encompassing primary on the first Tuesday after the first Monday in June; typically the date of the last cluster of primaries and caucuses in the presidential nomination process.

Moves toward primary consolidation are often couched in terms of budget savings and often because the state has transitioned from concurrent primaries to a split set up with a separate, earlier, and expensive presidential primary. Often the return on investment is lacking in the eyes of legislators, who, in turn, move to reestablish the more traditional (and cheaper) consolidated option. But that is not the cast in Massachusetts. The savings are certainly in Dwyer's bills, but the main driver in his push is more about the administrative buffer between the later primary for state offices and the general election. The rationale then becomes "move the state primaries to the latest date that can still be coupled with the presidential primary." That gives election administrators a double reprieve -- one less election and without the rush to prepare for the general election -- and budget makers some additional money to shift elsewhere.

And that seems once again to be the case in the 2017 version of this legislation.

However, as things transition into 2019 and the preparation for 2020 many state legislatures will do, there will at least one less regularly occurring event in Massachusetts. If recent history is any guide, then Bay state Secretary of State William Galvin will likely raise concerns over the elections appropriation and the impact that has on the viability of conducting a presidential primary. FHQ has speculated that Dwyer's primary bills would ease some of that financial burden, but the move has been Galvin's attempt to leverage more funding. Yet, Dwyer will not be around to propose legislation to consolidate the presidential and state primaries in June. He will be retiring at the conclusion of the 190th. That does not mean that a similar bill will not come up. It just means that someone else in the legislature will be filing the legislation.


--
The Massachusetts bill has been added to the FHQ 2020 presidential primary calendar.

Monday, October 9, 2017

Bill Would Push Massachusetts Primary to May

No, not the presidential primary. That will stay in March, unaffected by this proposed legislation.

--
Massachusetts has tended to have a later than typical statewide primary compared to most of the rest of the country, sandwiching a general election campaign into a seven week window between an early September primary and a November election.

However, recently proposed legislation would reconfigure that set up. S 391, introduced last week by Senator Jason M. Lewis (D-Fifth Middlesex), would shift the statewide primary from the seventh Tuesday before the general election (which tends to fall in early September) to the third Tuesday in May. The practical effect, if this bill were to be passed and become law, is to tack an additional ten or so weeks onto the normal general election campaign for those running for federal/congressional and statewide offices.

And, in fact, that is part of the cited rationale behind the legislation: to mimic other states with earlier primaries as a means of increasing public engagement and, by extension, turnout. The move would also eliminate the late summer and early fall calendar conflicts that can arise. The scheduled primary's overlap with Labor Day in both 2012 and 2016 forced those primaries from the Tuesday immediately following the holiday to the Thursday of the same week. The former also conflicted with the Democratic National Convention.

This is not a new idea in the Bay state. For the last several years there has also been legislation to consolidate the Massachusetts primaries -- including the presidential primaries -- in June. Those efforts have met dead ends in the past. Whether this new bill meets the same fate remains unanswered.

Friday, November 4, 2016

The Electoral College Map (11/4/16)



New State Polls (11/4/16)
State
Poll
Date
Margin of Error
Sample
Clinton
Trump
Undecided
Poll Margin
FHQ Margin
Arizona
11/1-11/2
+/-4.12%
550 likely voters
39
47
7
+8
+1.67
California
10/22-10/30
+/-2.3%
1382 likely voters
54
30
7
+24
+22.93
Colorado
10/31-11/3
+/-3.02%
1150 likely voters
45
44
2
+1
--
Colorado
11/2-11/3
+/-4.0%
605 likely voters
43
38
6
+5
--
Colorado
11/3-11/4
+/-3.7%
704 likely voters
48
43
3
+5
+4.13
Florida
10/31
+/-2.2%
1995 registered voters
49
46
1
+3
+2.11
Georgia
11/1-11/2
+/-4.2%
538 likely voters
45
49
1
+4
--
Georgia
11/3-11/3
+/-3.1%
1000 likely voters
46
48
2
+2
+3.05
Indiana
10/30-11/1
+/-4.9%
399 registered voters
39
49
9
+10
--
Indiana
11/1-11/3
+/-4.0%
600 likely voters
37
48
6
+11
+9.71
Iowa
11/1-11/2
+/-3.0%
1076 likely voters
41
44
6
+3
--
Iowa
11/1-11/3
+/-3.6%
700 likely voters
41
44
5
+3
+1.17
Kansas
9/1-10/13
+/-3.2%
892 likely voters
39
47
0
+8
--
Kansas
11/1-11/3
+/-5.5%
313 likely voters
34
58
0
+24
+12.48
Massachusetts
10/23-11/2
+/-5.0%
417 likely voters
56
26
7
+30
+23.92
Michigan
11/1-11/3
+/-4.0%
600 likely voters
42
38
13
+4
--
Michigan
11/3-11/4
+/-3.2%
957 likely voters
46
41
6
+5
+6.86
Missouri
10/31-11/1
+/-3.0%
1083 likely voters
41
52
7
+11
+8.13
Nevada
10/31-11/1
+/-3.7%
688 likely voters
48
45
7
+3
+1.02
New Hampshire
10/31-11/1
+/-3.5%
781 likely voters
48
43
9
+5
--
New Hampshire
10/28-11/2
+/-4.28%
695 likely voters
44
44
4
+/-0
--
New Hampshire
11/1-11/2
+/-2.0%
1001 registered voters
41
43
3
+2
+4.75
New Jersey
10/27-11/2
+/-3.75%
678 likely voters
51
40
6
+11
+11.79
New Mexico
11/1-11/2
+/-3.0%
1102 likely voters
46
43
1
+3
+7.21
North Carolina
10/31-11/1
+/-2.9%
1169 likely voters
49
47
4
+2
+1.46
Pennsylvania
10/31
+/-1.9%
2606 registered voters
47
46
3
+1
--
Pennsylvania
10/31-11/1
+/-3.0%
1050 likely voters
48
44
8
+4
--
Pennsylvania
11/2-11/3
+/-4.4%
504 likely voters
46
46
4
+/-0
+5.16
Utah
10/30-10/31
+/-2.6%
1424 registered voters
29
35
8
+6
--
Utah
11/1-11/3
+/-4.38%
500 likely voters
24
33
7
+9
+9.631
Virginia
10/29-11/2
+/-3.8%
654 likely voters
45
38
9
+7
--
Virginia
11/3-11/4
+/-2.8%
1238 likely voters
48
43
4
+5
+6.35
Wisconsin
10/31-11/1
+/-4.4%
500 likely voters
44
38
9
+6
--
Wisconsin
10/31-11/1
+/-3.3%
891 likely voters
48
41
10
+7
+6.43
1Excluding the two head-to-head online panel surveys in Utah lowers Trump's average advantage there to 7.95 points. Those polls are outliers in view of the majority of surveys in the Beehive state during 2016 and serve as an anchor on the data. The change would shift Utah within the Lean Trump category, closer to Toss Up Trump. McMullin garnered 28% in the Y2 survey and 24% support in the Gravis survey. He currently has an FHQ graduated weighted average share of support of 23.23%, trailing both Trump and Clinton.


--
Changes (11/4/16)
4 more days.
Changes (November 4)
StateBeforeAfter
New HampshireLean ClintonToss Up Clinton

There were another 34 survey releases from across 20 states to close the final full work week before election day. The partisan consolidation that happened for Hillary Clinton after the first debate continued for Donald Trump following the latest round of FBI/emails revelations. That has triggered a subtle but consistent narrowing of the margins in Clinton lean and toss up states.

But those subtle shifts have not translated to many changes to the alignment of states on the Electoral College Spectrum and the shading of states has been steady. However, while no states jumped the partisan line changing the distribution of electoral votes, New Hampshire did inch across the Lean/Toss Up line it has recently been hovering around. But like Colorado, the Granite state remains tilted in Clinton's direction.

Elsewhere, both Iowa and Nevada shifted off the Watch List, moving deeper into their respective candidate's columns. Both are still toss ups, but neither is within one point of pushing across the partisan line any longer. That leaves Ohio as the only state at FHQ that is within range of changing categories and altering the electoral vote breakdown.

On the Electoral College Spectrum, there was only some minor shuffling among a small group of solid Trump states. Utah once again flip-flopped spots with Indiana and the far end of the Lean Trump area and the new polling out of Kansas pushed the Sunflower state past South Dakota among the Strong Trump states.

Again, it is a steady picture here heading into the last weekend before next Tuesday's election.


--


The Electoral College Spectrum1
MD-102
(13)
RI-4
(162)
NH-4
(263)
TX-38
(161)
TN-11
(61)
HI-4
(17)
NJ-14
(176)
CO-94
(272 | 275)
SC-9
(123)
AR-6
(50)
VT-3
(20)
OR-7
(183)
FL-29
(301 | 266)
MO-10
(114)
ND-3
(44)
MA-11
(31)
NM-5
(188)
NC-15
(316 | 237)
UT-6
(104)
NE-53
(41)
CA-55
(86)
MN-10
(198)
NV-6
(322 | 222)
IN-11
(98)
KY-8
(36)
NY-29
(115)
MI-16
(214)
OH-18
(340 | 216)
MS-6
(87)
AL-9
(28)
IL-20+13
(136)
ME-23
(216)
IA-6
(198)
SD-3
(81)
ID-4
(19)
DE-3
(139)
WI-10
(226)
AZ-11
(192)
KS-6
(78)
WV-5
(15)
WA-12
(151)
VA-13
(239)
GA-16+13
(181)
LA-8
(72)
OK-7
(10)
CT-7
(158)
PA-20
(259)
AK-3
(164)
MT-3
(64)
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 Colorado (all Clinton's toss up states plus Colorado), he would have 275 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 Maine and Nebraska allocate electoral college votes to candidates in a more proportional manner. The statewide winner receives the two electoral votes apportioned to the state based on the two US Senate seats each state has. Additionally, the winner within a congressional district is awarded one electoral vote. Given current polling, all five Nebraska electoral votes would be allocated to Trump. In Maine, a split seems more likely. Trump leads in Maine's second congressional district while Clinton is ahead statewide and in the first district. She would receive three of the four Maine electoral votes and Trump the remaining electoral vote. Those congressional district votes are added approximately where they would fall in the Spectrum above.

4 Colorado 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. Currently, Colorado is in the Toss Up Clinton category.



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
Colorado
from Toss Up Clinton
to Lean Clinton
Indiana
from Lean Trump
to Strong Trump
Mississippi
from Strong Trump
to Lean Trump
New Hampshire
from Toss Up Clinton
to Lean Clinton
Ohio
from Toss Up Clinton
to Toss Up Trump
Oregon
from Lean Clinton
to Strong Clinton
Pennsylvania
from Lean Clinton
to Toss Up Clinton
Utah
from Lean Trump
to Strong Trump
1 Graduated weighted average margin within a fraction of a point of changing categories.


Recent Posts:
The Electoral College Map (11/3/16)

The Electoral College Map (11/2/16)

The Electoral College Map (11/1/16)

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