The Electoral College Map (8/3/16)

Latest Update

New State Polls (8/3/16)
State	Poll	Date	Margin of Error	Sample	Clinton	Trump	Undecided	Poll Margin	FHQ Margin
Arizona	OH Predictive Insights	8/1	+/- 3.1%	996 likely voters	45	42	8	+3	+0.21
North Carolina	Survey USA/Civitas	7/31-8/2	+/- 5.0%	400 likely voters	42	46	7	+4	+1.87
Tennessee	icitizen	7/25-7/27	+/- -.-%	531 registered voters	29	46	16	+17	+13.97

Polling Quick Hits:
Arizona:

Changes (August 3)
State	Before	After
Arizona	Toss Up Trump	Toss Up Clinton
Tennessee	Lean Trump	Strong Trump

The Grand Canyon state's position along the partisan line has been a constant throughout much of the summer. That is no different after the addition of yet another survey from OH Predictive Insights. The firm has favored Clinton in its polling of Arizona during 2016 and another slight edge for Clinton in the latest survey is enough push the state over the line into Clinton territory. That alters the electoral count overall, but does not change the fact that Arizona is still on the Watch List, right on the partisan line.

North Carolina:

In the Tar Heel state, the latest from Civitas continues to favor Trump as the last pre-convention poll did. The change this month is that both candidates added to their support in the intervening month. Still, the bulk of polling in the state slightly favors Clinton, though this survey cuts some into what had been a more than two point edge for the former secretary of state in North Carolina. At this point, however, North Carolina remains on the Clinton side of both Ohio and now Arizona on the Electoral College Spectrum below. As a result, it is more likely that Trump finds some inroads in those states before North Carolina. 

Tennessee:

There has been one lonely poll out the Volunteer state in 2016, and it pointed toward a Trump advantage, though one not as strong as past Republican nominees. Of course, that was way back in May during primary season. The internet poll from citizen shows a wider Trump margin in Tennessee, but one still running slightly behind where Romney was in 2012. It helps that Clinton is -- in this poll at least -- underperforming Obama 2012 there. Tennessee shifts into the Strong Trump category and slides off the Watch List below.

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)	VA-133 (269 | 282)	UT-6 (158)	LA-8 (55)
MD-10 (17)	DE-3 (178)	IA-63 (275 | 269)	AK-3 (152)	SD-3 (47)
RI-4 (21)	WI-10 (188)	NH-4 (279 | 263)	MO-10 (149)	ND-3 (44)
MA-11 (32)	NM-5 (193)	FL-29 (308 | 259)	IN-11 (139)	ID-4 (41)
VT-3 (35)	OR-7 (200)	NC-15 (323 | 230)	TX-38 (128)	NE-5 (37)
CA-55 (90)	CT-7 (207)	OH-18 (341 | 215)	KS-6 (90)	AL-9 (32)
NY-29 (119)	ME-4 (211)	AZ-11 (352 | 197)	SC-9 (84)	KY-8 (23)
IL-20 (139)	CO-9 (220)	NV-6 (186)	AR-6 (75)	OK-7 (15)
MN-10 (149)	MI-16 (236)	GA-16 (180)	MT-3 (69)	WV-5 (8)
WA-12 (161)	PA-20 (256)	MS-6 (164)	TN-11 (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 282 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 Iowa and Virginia are collectively the states where Clinton crosses the 270 electoral vote threshold to win the presidential election. That line is referred to as the victory line. If those two states are separated with Clinton winning Virginia and Trump, Iowa, then there would be a tie in the Electoral College.

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 Clinton	to Toss Up Trump
Arkansas	from Strong Trump	to Lean Trump
Missouri	from Lean Trump	to Toss Up Trump
Nevada	from Toss Up Trump	to Toss Up Clinton
New Jersey	from Strong Clinton	to Lean Clinton
Pennsylvania	from Toss Up Clinton	to Lean Clinton
South Carolina	from Lean Trump	to Strong Trump
Utah	from Toss Up Trump	to Lean Trump
1 Graduated weighted average margin within a fraction of a point of changing categories.

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2016 Republican Delegate Allocation: TENNESSEE

Updated 3.1.16

This is part eleven of a series of posts that will examine the Republican delegate allocation rules by state. The main goal of this exercise is to assess the rules for 2016 -- especially relative to 2012 -- in order to gauge the potential impact the changes to the rules along the winner-take-all/proportionality spectrum may have on the race for the Republican nomination. For this cycle the RNC recalibrated its rules, cutting the proportionality window in half (March 1-14), but tightening its definition of proportionality as well. While those alterations will trigger subtle changes in reaction at the state level, other rules changes -- particularly the new binding requirement placed on state parties -- will be more noticeable. 

TENNESSEE

Election type: primary
Date: March 1 
Number of delegates: 58 [28 at-large, 27 congressional district, 3 automatic]
Allocation method: proportional (with supermajority (67%) winner-take-all trigger statewide and in congressional districts)
Threshold to qualify for delegates: 20% (both statewide and within the congressional districts)
2012: proportional primary

--

The Tennessee Republican Party method of delegate allocation echoes that of Oklahoma in many respects. In several others, it does not.

Changes since 2012
The biggest similarity between Tennessee and Oklahoma in terms of their respective delegate selection plans is that Volunteer state Republicans were similarly overly proportional given the 2012 RNC rules. Again, four years ago, states could achieve proportionality by simply proportionally allocating their at-large delegates. State parties were free to adopt plans for 2012 that would accomplish that while still allocating congressional district delegates in a winner-take-all fashion. Both Tennessee and Oklahoma awarded both at-large and congressional district delegates in a proportionate manner in 2012. With nearly the same sets of state-level rules carrying over from 2012 to 2016, both states were already in line with the new, tighter definition of proportionality the RNC has for 2016.

Thus, there are no real changes to those rules in either Oklahoma or Tennessee.


Thresholds
Tennessee Republicans have the highest allowable threshold under RNC rules to qualify for delegates statewide and at the congressional district level. In the vast majority of scenarios, to be awarded delegates, a candidate must win at least 20% of the vote. The only exception is if no one finishes over 20%.

If no candidate clears the 20% hurdle statewide, then the delegates are allocated in proportion to the candidates share of the statewide vote. In other words, if no one hits 20%, the Tennessee primary will basically operate as if there is no threshold.

If no candidate receives 20% of the vote in a congressional district, then the top 3 finishers each receive one delegate.

But as FHQ has stated before, March 1 -- the date on which the Tennessee presidential primary will be held -- the race will have wended its way through the carve-out states and some likely winnowing of the field of candidates. As the field decreases in size, the likelihood of no candidate getting to 20% of the vote in Tennessee (or anywhere else for that matter) decreases as well.

The rules change, however, if more than one candidate exceeds 20% of the vote. If multiple candidates are over 20% statewide, then the delegates would be allocated to those candidates in proportion to their share of the over 20% vote (the total share of just those over 20%). Should that happen at the congressional district level, the top finisher would be allocated two delegates and the district runner-up would take the remaining one.

Finally, there are a couple of winner-take-all situations. But it should be noted that it is a unit-specific winner-take-all, not a truly winner-take-all allocation.¹ If only one candidate crests over 20% either statewide or at the congressional district level, then that candidate would win all of the at-large and automatic delegates or congressional district delegates. As in Oklahoma and several other states, there is a backdoor to a modified winner-take-all allocation and with a much lower threshold.

There is also a supermajority threshold for winning all of the delegates as well. If there is more than one candidate over 20% -- again, either statewide or in a congressional district -- and the winner has more than two-thirds of the vote, then that candidate would also lay claim to all of the at-large and automatic delegates or congressional district delegates. Obviously, though, that is a much higher winner-take-all trigger (but lower than the similar threshold in Minnesota).

Needless to say, there are a number of contingencies packaged around these various thresholds. The supermajority trigger seems unlikely to be tripped if the field is large, but even as it -- the field of candidates -- shrinks, the other options, including the backdoor winner-take-all route all would be probable.


Delegate allocation (at-large and automatic delegates)
The statewide results in the March 1 Tennessee presidential preference primary will dictate how many of the 31 at-large and automatic delegates are allocated to which candidates. If multiple candidates are over the 20% threshold, those candidates will win a proportional share of those delegates. Based on the last poll conducted on the race in Tennessee (a November Vanderbilt poll), the statewide allocation would look something like this²:

• Trump (29%) -- 16.648 delegates
• Carson (25%) -- 14.352 delegates

• Cruz (14%) -- 0 delegates
• Rubio (12%) -- 0 delegates
• Bush (6%) -- 0 delegates
• Fiorina (2%) -- 0 delegates

First off, no one is over 67%, so there is no winner-take-all allocation. There is also more than one candidate over 20%, and that means that there is no backdoor winner-take-all allocation. Out of the 6 candidates, only two cleared the barrier and nearly evenly split the 31 at-large and automatic delegates. Trump would be allocated 17 delegates in this scenario and Carson would take 14.


Delegate allocation (congressional district delegates)
If we extend the hypothetical statewide numbers above to the congressional district level, it would trigger a top two allocation. If multiple candidates are over 20%, then the district winner -- hypothetically Trump here -- is allocated two delegates while the runner-up wins the other of the three congressional district delegates.

In both the statewide and congressional district allocation simulations, the results would have been no different if the threshold was lowered to, say, 15%. If it was lower still -- set at 10%, for instance -- then Cruz and Rubio would qualify for at-large delegates. Neither would win any congressional district delegates. The 1-1-1 allocation of the three congressional district delegates is only triggered if no one is above the 20% threshold.


Binding
Like Oklahoma, it is not entirely clear how long or how many ballots the bind lasts for Tennessee delegates. That has a lot to do with how the delegates are selected. The at-large delegates are selected in a couple of different ways. Half of them (14 delegates) are elected directly, listed with candidate affiliation on the primary ballot. The other 14 at-large delegates are selected by the Tennessee Republican Party Executive Committee and with input from the candidates' campaigns. In both cases, those delegates are loyal to their candidate. If that candidate has withdrawn, then those delegates presumably become unbound (or can opt out of attending the convention, in which case the Executive Committee fills the vacancy). The district delegates also appear on the ballot affiliated with (and bond to) the candidate to whom they have pledged. The same rationale applies to them as is the case with the elected at-large delegates.

Update: The three automatic delegates (see above) are bound on the first ballot at the convention, according to Brent Leatherwood, the Executive Director of the Tennessee Republican Party (citing RNC rules). Mr. Leatherwood later tweaked this, indicating a change in TNGOP rules meant the three automatic delegates as well as the rest of the delegation would be bound through two ballots.


--
State allocation rules are archived here.


--
¹ By unit specific FHQ means the winner-take-all allocation is confined to either just the at-large delegates based on the statewide results or just the congressional district delegates based on the results in the several congressional districts. A candidate would have to claim victory by a wide margin in Tennessee to win all 58 delegates.

² This poll is being used as an example of how delegates could be allocated and not as a forecast of the outcome in the Volunteer state presidential primary.

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"SEC Presidential Primary" Back on the Radar for 2016

Jim Galloway and Greg Bluestein at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution report that Georgia Secretary of State, Brian Kemp (R) is still working on a southern regional primary for March 1, 2016:

"Secretary of State Brian Kemp’s efforts to build what he calls an “SEC” presidential primary in 2016 appear to be proceeding apace.  

"Kemp is working with his counterparts in Mississippi, Louisiana, Tennessee, Arkansas and Alabama to arrange a coordinated, regional primary for the first Tuesday in March 2016.  

"In a letter to six Southern secretaries of state, Kemp confirmed that he intends to set March 1 as the date for Georgia’s presidential primary:

'It is my hope that our region will participate together that day and that the voters of the Southeast will have a major impact in the selection of the presidential nominees of both parties.'"

--
A few things either mentioned or neglected:
1) Kemp seems focused on that March 1 date for the Georgia presidential primary in 2016. The secretary has signaled more than once now that this is a likely destination for the primary in the Peach state. That is a change from the 2012 cycle when the date of the Georgia primary was an unknown through much of 2011 after the state legislature ceded the date-setting authority to the secretary of state.

2) Mississippi, Louisiana, Tennessee, Arkansas and Alabama are the low hanging fruit of potential presidential primary moves for 2016. Here's the calendar. Tennessee is already on March 1 (as Galloway and Bluestein mention) and Louisiana is now locked into a Saturday, March 5 primary date after legislation moving the primary up by two weeks was signed into law this summer. That will be as far as Louisiana moves up; the same week as the other southern states. Alabama and Mississippi are already slated for primary dates just a week later on March 8. Those states bumping their dates up by a week is not all that heavy a lift. Arkansas is a different matter. Having gotten lost in the early state shuffle during the Southern Super Tuesday in 1988 and the Titanic Tuesday of 2008, state legislators moved the presidential primary back to the traditional May date in the immediately subsequent cycles. However, Republicans now have unified control of the state government in the Natural state after the 2014 midterms and may be more receptive to such a move.

3) Perhaps more importantly, it should be noted that the two biggest SEC states -- Florida and Texas are already positioned on March 1. It leaves one to wonder if this version of a Southern Super Tuesday plays out the same way as it did in 1988, but in reverse. Spurred by the action of Southern Democratic action, most southern states moved up to the second Tuesday in March in 1988. There was a split decision on the Democratic side with Michael Dukakis, Al Gore and Jesse Jackson all laying some claim to having won the day. While Democrats had a split decision across the South, George HW Bush swept the region. Such a reversal may be less about the decisions throughout the South to cluster primaries on the same date than how the Republican and Democratic nomination races are shaping up at this point in late 2014. Still...


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The Electoral College Map (10/28/12)

There was a lot of light blue in the polls released Sunday. That meant both that there were a number of polls fresh out of the field in Toss Up Obama states, but also that there was at least one instance of a tighter than "normal" margin in one state -- Minnesota -- that had to this point been camped out in the upper reaches of the Lean Obama category. In all, there were nine new surveys from six states.

New State Polls (10/28/12)
State	Poll	Date	Margin of Error	Sample	Obama	Romney	Undecided	Poll Margin	FHQ Margin
Florida	Public Policy Polling	10/26-10/28	+/- 3.7%	687 likely voters	49	48	3	+1	+0.37
Minnesota	Mason-Dixon/Star Tribune	10/23-10/25	+/- 3.5%	800 likely voters	47	44	7	+3	+7.87
New Hampshire	Grove Insight	10/24-10/25	+/- 4.4%	500 likely voters	47	44	7	+3	+3.17
New Hampshire	Public Policy Polling	10/26-10/28	+/- 3.3%	874 likely voters	49	47	5	+2	--
Ohio	University of Cincinnati	10/18-10/23	+/- 3.1%	1015 likely voters	49	49	1	0	+2.95
Ohio	Gravis Marketing	10/27	+/- 3.6%	730 likely voters	50	49	2	+1	--
Ohio	Public Policy Polling	10/26-10/28	+/- 3.7%	718 likely voters	51	47	2	+4	--
Tennessee	Middle Tennessee State University	10/16-10/21	+/- 4.0%	609 likely voters	34	59	6	+25	+12.53
Virginia	Garin-Hart-Yang	10/25-10/27	+/- -.-%	807 likely voters	49	46	--	+3	+2.12

Polling Quick Hits:

Florida:

One could certainly quibble with this assertion, but a Romney +1 to an Obama +1 in Florida from PPP is not all that noteworthy. Sure, there was some "movement" toward Obama, but this is a within the margin of error sort of move in the Sunshine state. Stated differently, not much has changed in Florida. It's still close.

Minnesota:

A state that has not been close in the polls, but is in this one instance is Minnesota. The eight point Obama lead Mason-Dixon found in mid-September is now down to three points. It is the first non-partisan poll showing the gap any narrower than six points all year. That is a new development, to be sure, and is in line to some extent with some of the polling in other Lean Obama states, but it is more of an outlier absent other similar data. Flag this one and let's wait -- hopefully not too long -- for some more information from some other firms. 

New Hampshire:
The FHQ weighted average polling margin in the Granite state continues to inch down toward parity between the two candidates. While that is the case, it is also true that the president maintains a small and persistent lead. I'll gloss over the perpetually +3 Grove survey (The margin is seemingly Obama +3 most everywhere.), but the PPP survey represents, as was the case with Florida above, a slight shift toward the president. And while I minimized that shift above (and do here as well), looking for similar shifts across all firms is something to watch out for. If it happens in only PPP polls then that is one thing, but if it is happening elsewhere, then that means something else altogether.

Ohio:
There were three new surveys out of Ohio today and they once again, like a number of multi-Ohio poll days recently, spanned the range of typical results. In this case, from tied to Obama +4. That pretty well encapsulated the post-Denver polling in the Buckeye state: bouncing around within that range, but usually in that range. That translates into about Obama +2 and that is the range that the FHQ weighted average margin now sits at for the state.

Tennessee:

Changes (October 28)
State	Before	After
Tennessee	Lean Romney	Strong Romney

FHQ hesitates to call this MTSU poll an outlier, but given the surprisingly narrow margin in the scant number of polls conducted this year in the Volunteer state, that seems right. However, Tennessee was McCain +15 on election day in 2008 and "should" have swung back more toward the Republicans heading into 2012 like most other states have. It hasn't, but this poll helps bring the FHQ average closer to that mark, shifting Tennessee into the Strong Romney category.

Virginia:
Days with only one (or no) Virginia polls feel very rare indeed at this point in the race. That has been particularly true over the last couple of weeks as the polls have been a tit-for-tat trade-off between the candidates in the Old Dominion. As for this poll from Garin et al., well, it shows the same three point lead for the president that the firm indicated in June with both candidates gaining three points. This poll fits in with the others that have come out since the first debate and is well within the Romney +3 to Obama +5 range the polls have exhibited since that time.

Tennessee's move to the Strong Romney category squeezes the Lean Romney category down to just a couple of states. That distinction really is of little value right now. Even if we assumed that the polls (and averages) across the board were five points "too Romney" right now and adjusted them accordingly, those Lean Romney states would only barely be in play. More than anything, that highlights North Carolina's position as the lone toss up state favoring the former Massachusetts governor and just how "settled" Romney's side of the partisan line is outside of the Tarheel state.

If we performed that same exercise in the opposite direction Michigan and Wisconsin would be a lot closer than they already are, and Pennsylvania and Oregon would not be very far behind. In other words, the Obama side of things, at least as the Lean Obama states are concerned, is not nearly as "settled" as Lean Romney states are on the opposite side of the partisan line.

This race is in the middle of those two extremes right now, but where in the middle is the operative question.

The map finds Tennessee now shaded in the dark Strong red and likewise the Spectrum shows the Volunteer state seven spots deeper in the order on the Romney side of the ledger. Other than that, things stayed the same on both figures.

The Electoral College Spectrum1
VT-3 (6)2	WA-12 (158)	NH-4 (257)	GA-16 (167)	ND-3 (55)
HI-4 (10)	NJ-14 (172)	OH-183 (275/281)	SD-3 (151)	KY-8 (52)
NY-29 (39)	CT-7 (179)	IA-6 (281/263)	IN-11 (148)	AL-9 (44)
RI-4 (43)	NM-5 (184)	VA-13 (294/257)	SC-9 (137)	KS-6 (35)
MD-10 (53)	MN-10 (194)	CO-9 (303/244)	TN-11 (128)	AR-6 (29)
IL-20 (73)	OR-7 (201)	FL-29 (332/235)	NE-5 (117)	AK-3 (23)
MA-11 (84)	PA-20 (221)	NC-15 (206)	TX-38 (112)	OK-7 (20)
CA-55 (139)	MI-16 (237)	AZ-11 (191)	WV-5 (74)	ID-4 (13)
DE-3 (142)	WI-10 (247)	MO-10 (180)	LA-8 (69)	WY-3 (9)
ME-4 (146)	NV-6 (253)	MT-3 (170)	MS-6 (61)	UT-6 (6)
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 won all the states ranked prior to that state. If, for example, Romney won all the states up to and including Ohio (all Obama's toss up states plus Ohio), he would have 281 electoral votes. Romney's numbers are only totaled through the states he would need in order to get to 270. In those cases, Obama's number is on the left and Romney's is on the right in italics. 3 Ohio is the state where Obama crosses the 270 electoral vote threshold to win the presidential election. That line is referred to as the victory line.

The same was not true on the Watch List. Consequentially, Ohio drops off the list. The Buckeye state is no longer within a fraction of a point of moving back into the Lean Obama category. As of now, it is well within the Toss Up range. The same is true of Minnesota, but now it is firmly within the Lean category.

The Watch List1
State	Switch
Florida	from Toss Up Obama	to Toss Up Romney
Georgia	from Strong Romney	to Lean Romney
Montana	from Strong Romney	to Lean Romney
Nevada	from Toss Up Obama	to Lean Obama
New Hampshire	from Toss Up Obama	to Lean Obama
Wisconsin	from Lean Obama	to Toss Up Obama
1 The Watch list shows those states in the FHQ Weighted Average within a fraction of a point of changing categories. The List is not a trend analysis. It indicates which states are straddling the line between categories and which states are most likely to shift given the introduction of new polling data. Montana, for example, is close to being a Lean Romney state, but the trajectory of the polling there has been moving the state away from that lean distinction.

Please see:

Frequently Asked Questions about FHQ graduated weighted average methodology.
&
An Update on how to read it in 2012.

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