Wyoming Democrats' Draft Delegate Selection Plan Indicates April Caucuses

Though it isn't imminent, the May 2 deadline for state Democratic Parties to have submitted their draft delegate selection plans to the DNC Rules and Bylaws Committee is approaching (Rule 1.D). Before that can happen, though, said draft plans must be posted for thirty days of public viewing/comment prior to submission (Rule 1.C). What that means is that state parties should begin to tip their hands in terms of when they are considering scheduling their delegate selection events. In primary states, that decision is dependent to some degree on what the state legislature has done to schedule or reschedule those contests. Caucus states, on the other hand, are more of an unknown, but these draft delegate selection plans give a glimpse into the state parties' thinking. As long as the first step of the contest occurs within the window of time in which the two national parties allow contests to be held, the approval process from the national parties should be nothing more than a formality.

That seems to be the case in Wyoming where the Democratic Party there has proposed April 7 county caucuses as the first step in determining national convention delegates. Wyoming Democrats appear, it seems, to be shifting the opening of their caucuses back by a month compared to the 2008 county caucuses in a year in which the Democratic nomination will not be contested. By moving back to April, the party opens the possibility of bonus delegates for holding an event in April or later.

Now, it should be noted that the Republican Party has a different set of delegate selection rules and the state parties in caucus states have a different motivation with a contested nomination on the horizon in 2012. That said, Wyoming Republicans are more of a wild card -- especially considering what happened with the Equality state's Republican caucuses in 2008 -- than their Democratic counterparts. As of yet, however, there is no indication from Wyoming Republicans about when they are considering holding the county caucuses in the state.

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Alaska + Wyoming = Obama + 1 Delegate

A week after Clinton emerged from the Colorado state convention with one extra delegate (compared to her estimated share in the precinct level vote), Obama returned the favor by duplicating his Nevada gain at Alaska's state convention last night. During the February 5 caucuses in the Last Frontier, Obama just missed out on gaining 10 delegates to Clintons 3. The estimated spread then was 9-4. The Obama campaign got just enough more support in the state convention to push that edge to 10-3. Factoring in the superdelegates (plus former governor, Tony Knowles as an add-on superdelegate supporting Obama), Obama will carry a 14-4 advantage over Clinton within the Alaskan delegation to the national convention.

The original precinct vote numbers didn't allow either candidate much room to maneuver in Wyoming. The predicted 7-5 split favoring Obama was what came out of the Democrats' convention in the Equality state last night. According to The Green Papers, 4 of the 5 Wyoming superdelegates have endorsed Obama, while the fifth remains undecided. There was no word on who the add-on superdelegate, determined at the convention yesterday, was backing between Clinton and Obama. UPDATE: The AP says that the Wyoming add-on did back Obama and so too did the one chosen at the Georgia state convention. In all, Obama picked up 4 delegates yesterday: one extra pledged delegate out of Alaska, add-ons in Alaska, Georgia and Wyoming.

So, Obama gained one delegate this weekend. That isn't a resounding finding in favor of the caucus question. However, the winner from the original step gained through the process in Alaska (albeit slightly) and that falls in line with what we witnessed in Nevada. The lack of shift in Wyoming is similar to what came out of North Dakota's convention at the end of March. Finally, Colorado has been the only caucus state to break with expectations, handing Clinton more support in the final step than in the original one. And the Kansas Democratic Party has yet to confirm the final numbers that I've seen floating around.

Up next? Well, Puerto Rico has its primary next Sunday, but Maine holds its state convention and has 24 of the state's 32 delegates at stake. FHQ will be back with more on that one later in the week.


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Alaska and Wyoming: State Convention Day (18 Delegates at Stake)

The weekend isn't just slow for political news. There isn't much going on by way of delegate selection either. Two of the least Democratic states have state conventions scheduled for today and offer both Clinton and Obama one last opportunity to shift the pledged delegate numbers in Alaska and Wyoming before the convention.

In Alaska, all 13 of the state's pledged delegates are on the line. If the convention voting follows the precinct/county level vote, then Obama will walk away with an estimated 9-4 advantage from The Last Frontier. That count is slightly more advantageous to Clinton since she was outpaced in the state's February 5 meetings by a 3:1 margin. Obama may be able to squeeze one more delegate out for a seven delegate advantage. That is Obama's best case scenario, whereas the 9-4 count is Clinton's best but Obama's worst case scenario. According to the party's agenda, that process should be completed by 10pm eastern. Also, as this is the state convention, one add-on superdelegate will be selected. As we saw with Kansas (another caucus state that leaned heavily toward Obama) last weekend, that person is likely to be (but not assured of being) an Obama supporter.

Further south and east of Alaska, Democrats in the Equality state are also meeting to put the finishing touches on their slate of pledged delegates to the Democratic National Convention this summer in Denver. Wyoming Democrats selected 7 of the state's delegates at the precinct meetings on March 8. Clinton was able to keep Obama from getting over 64% of the vote that would have given him a 5-2 edge among those 7 delegates. So, even though Obama received over 61% of the vote in the Wyoming caucuses, he only got just more than 57% of the delegates. For the Illinois senator to get anything more than a 3-2 split among the remaining 5 (state convention) delegates he'll need to get 70% of the vote. The most likely result, then, is that 3-2 split which will produce a final tally 7 Obama delegates and 5 Clinton delegates from the state. As with Alaska, Wyoming also has one add-on superdelegate to be allocated at the state's convention. And given the vote spread, that add-on is most likely to be an Obama backer. The delegate portion of the convention should be completed by around 8pm eastern tonight.

At the end of the day, Obama may be able to add one more delegate than has been estimated from these two state combined. That would fall in line with the results in Nevada (which was supportive of the caucus question hypothesis: A winner in the original step of the caucus or the presumptive nominee stands to gain as the process continues.

Hopefully the results are a bit quicker to emerge from these two states than they were from Kansas or Washington last weekend.


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M.I.S.S...Oh, it's time for Mississippi (...before the long layoff)

Well, off we go again for the last time before the Pennsylvania primary rolls around on April 22. With no debates scheduled and obviously no contests to be waged, it will be an interesting time in this race. Not since before Iowa on January 3 have we had such a span between events (...and even then it was in July 2004. We can thank North Carolina for having an extended court debate over congressional districts for pushing that primary-turned-caucus to that late date. So, at least the wait won't be that long).

It will be an interesting stretch simply because the frontloaded system wasn't suppose to allow for this sort of contest. Super Tuesday had proven the decisive primary day since at least the 1996 cycle. [And one could argue, as I have, that, even though the race wasn't wrapped up in the way that McCain finished things off in Texas and Ohio last week, the nominations for the GOP in 1988 and the Democrats in 1992 were all but over on Super Tuesday.] As we go forward then, both the campaigns and those political junkies following them will be in for a different sort of battle. The "backloaded" system of cycles past yielded breaks more like what we saw between Wisconsin and Texas-Ohio than what we will witness from Mississippi to Pennsylvania. Of course, the campaign started in late February instead of early January then, so that accounts for the six weeks to be endured starting tomorrow. In other words, there is quite an unprecedented void to be filled.

Tonight we have Mississippi on the menu. As we saw in last week's post, the state fits the profile of the other deep South states that have gone thus far (and have gone to Obama).
The average margin of victory in those other contests (Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana and South Carolina) was a hair more than 25%. That is the number to keep your eye on tonight. If Obama clears that hurdle then it is on to Pennsylvania with an argument of "He was supposed to win that one" from the Clinton campaign. If she can get the margin under 25 or even 20 points then she may be able to say that she did better than expected. Granted, that's a tough argument to make when that type of margin will yield a pretty big disparity in the delegates won from Mississippi. However, there's a long time until Pennsylvania (Have I mentioned that yet?) and the Clinton folks could try out that line of argument. The polls (via Real Clear Politics) are indicating that something under 20% is possible for Clinton. The average of the five polls taken since last Wednesday is a bit more than 15 points. Turnout was expected to be lighter than what it has been in other states this cycle. Much will depend on how much of the electorate tonight is comprised of African Americans. The bigger that percentage, the better Obama is going to do.

Early on (8:22pm) no results have come in from the Magnolia state (polls closed at 8pm eastern).

Speaking of results, Obama managed another caucus win in Wyoming over the weekend. There's nothing too shocking about the win. However, some of the results were interesting. No, not the 10-10 vote tie in Niobrara County. Teton County in the upper northwestern part of the state (just under where Yellowstone is) began its meeting at 4pm (mountain time). This was after nearly 90% of the caucus results were in (and reported--leaning toward Obama). And how did Teton County come out? It was an 80-20 split for Obama; by far his largest margin and in the county with the third highest vote total. Now I know how those Californians feel on presidential election night. We'll call it the west coast (of the Yellowstone River) bias. That may not have been the cause (Hey, Jackson Hole is in Teton County.), but that is a pretty drmatic shift in what had been a 55-40 race to that point. That pushed Obama over 60% across the entire state, giving him an extra delegate at Clinton's expense.

Still nothing out of Mississippi at the 8:40pm mark. Time to check the exits over at the Drudge Report. From the AP report, Obama won the black vote 9:1 with that group making up about half of today's voters in Mississippi. That's a recipe for success but also one that speaks toward a racial division within Democratic primary voters. Obama does do well in red states, but in the South, the racial polarization could potentially hurt efforts for the Democrats to make inroads there. In other, more homogeneous red states Obama does well also (among the select few who caucus), but will that be enough to make gains in those states? Those are the questions that Clinton's wins last week planted in the minds of Democratic primary voters (at least those who haven't voted) and as long as the narrative continues along this path, the longer the race will remain at a stalemate.

8:48pm: I've got to stop following the results on the New York Times site. There's something to be said about being cautious about making a call, but at the same time, everyone else has already (presumably at 8:01pm) call it for Obama.

What does that seemingly inevitable result mean for the race?

"He was supposed to win there."

"But remember the delegates."

And so it goes on the march to the Keystone state.

Wyoming Democrats, You're Up!: An Examination of Event Scheduling

It is interesting that the Wyoming Republican party moved their caucuses to January 5 and got lost in the shuffle; stuck between Iowa (Jan. 3) and New Hampshire (Jan. 8). Cowboy state Democrats, on the other hand, opted to wait it out and adhere to their scheduled March 8 caucus date, and they will end up receiving more attention than the GOP contest in Wyoming despite the move. Bill Clinton stumped for Hillary in the state on Thursday and both Hillary and Obama were in the state yesterday (see Slate.com for a map of the stops).

Candidate stops are only part of that equation though. Clinton made two stops in Wyoming yesterday while Obama stuck to where he's been successful--college towns--with a stop in Laramie at the University of Wyoming. But that doesn't differ from the number of visits the Republican candidates made. Fred Thompson was in the state soon after he announced in September and Mitt Romney made three stops in the state on November 18 (see again the Slate.com map linked above). So Republican visits actually outnumbered those of the Democratic candidates (Of course you'd have to control for the number of candidates still in the race at the time...if you were to use this as a measure of attention. More Republicans were in the race at the time of their Wyoming caucuses than there are Democrats now that their caucuses are being held.).

Media attention figures into this as well. Media attention though, is largely a function of candidate attention to a state. So why are Wyoming Democrats getting more "attention" now than their Republican counterparts in the state got in early January? Much of it has to do with timing. Both contests were the only events on their respective dates, but the Republican caucuses were sandwiched between Iowa and New Hampshire on the same day as bookend New Hampshire debates for both parties. In other words, the Wyoming GOP did not have a recipe for success. That the Democrats in the Cowboy state do, is more a function of the competitiveness of the Democratic race at this point than the state party's decision to hold a March 8 caucus. [Plus being between Texas-Ohio and Mississippi is a lot different than being between Iowa and New Hampshire.]

Typically, demand for calendar dates is frontloaded. So having a contest that is the only event on a particular date or week is a much more difficult proposition early on the calendar than later. The tradeoff though, is that those "only event" contests (those not named Iowa or New Hampshire) are, more often than not, on dates that come after the point at which the nomination(s) has (have) been decided. The outcome then is that attention wanes because the state is not decisive. Let's use Pennsylvania as an example. The late April primary date in the Keystone state has been outside of the "decisive zone" during the Super Tuesday era. So while the state is rich in delegates, it is not in decisiveness. Since the contest is still competitive for the Democrats this cycle and almost guaranteed to be when Pennsylvania rolls around on April 22, the state should receive more attention than is usual. In fact, you could argue that since both the Clinton and Obama camps are after Philadelphia ward leader endorsements this weekend, attention is already greater than it has been in the past.

Wyoming Democrats then are getting a bit more attention than you would otherwise expect this year. Caucuses got under way there early this morning with the last one commencing at 4pm (mountain time) this afternoon. Results may trickle out as the day progresses like they did for the Republicans in January, but won't be fully in until later this evening. There are already reports that (surprise) turnout is high at at least one caucus. Seven of the states 18 total delegates are on the line today.

On to Wyoming! To Mississippi! To Pennsylvania!

Perhaps I should add a "WOOOOOO!!!!" at the end of the byline and finish off the "Dean scream" speech analogy. I'll pass.

Now that Texas and Ohio (Fine, Rhode Island too.) have sent the Democratic nomination race back into undecided territory, the focus shifts to the next round of states. [Didn't I lament the tendency to do this in my Nevada caucuses post-post-mortem?] Let's have a look at the particulars for Wyoming, Mississippi and Pennsylvania (A tip of the cap to thegreenpapers.com is warranted here. The information is from them.):

	Delegates	Event Type	Open/Closed?
Wyoming	18	Caucus	Closed
Mississippi	40	Primary	Open
Pennsylvania	187	Primary	Closed

Given the table, what are the first impressions of these contests? Well, as I said in the post earlier this morning, at first glance Wyoming and Mississippi appear to be in a group that can be considered Obama's bread and butter. Wyoming is a caucus and as we saw last night in Texas, Obama's power in those types of contests cannot be questioned. [Incidentally, Wyoming's is the last caucus of the 2008 cycle with the exception of Puerto Rico which brings up the rear on June 7. In other words, that well is drying up for Obama.] He has won all the caucuses but Nevada, but he got more delegates out of the Silver state than Clinton. Real Clear Politics doesn't have any polls up yet for either Wyoming or Mississippi and I wouldn't wait around on those. There are seven delegates that are directly awarded in the first step of the caucuses on Saturday, five more at the state convention in May and six superdelegates at stake in Wyoming.

Mississippi's contest is like many of the other contests across the deep South: the electorate is heavily African American tilting the state in Obama's direction. He won those states by an average of twenty-five percentage points (AL +14, GA +36, LA +22, SC +29--source: NYT Election Guide). The focus for the Obama camp will be on turning out the vote in the state's 2nd congressional district where most of the African Americans are and thus the largest piece of the delegate pie (7 delegates. The other four districts have five delegates each.). Applying the 25 point margin to Mississippi would give Obama a roughly nine delegate advantage coming out of the state which would get back a third of the net delegates he lost to Clinton during yesterday's contests (according to the AP delegate count). So while 40 delegates (minus seven superdelegates) seems like a drop in the bucket and can bolster the delegate advantage he holds currently.

The one quirk in Mississippi is that the contest is an open one. Now that the GOP race is over, could some Republicans cross over and vote for a candidate they feel would not stack up well against McCain? And could it amount to a difference in the outcome? Outcome, as in statewide percentage breakdown, slightly. Outcome in terms delegates netted, certainly. And the delegate count matters because things are so close.

But that leads to Pennsylvania. The six week charge to the Keystone state after Mississippi would be an intense one (One that party insiders may like to avoid. Could superdelegates intercede? Obama and the DNC may hope so, for different reasons.). [I find it interesting that Pennsylvania insists on being called a commonwealth, yet the commonwealth's nickname is the Keystone state.] That time span between contests becomes as important, if not more so, than the contest itself. I can't imagine a scenario where the tensions between the two campaigns doesn't turn extremely negative. It won't be a McCain-Huckabee affair. And that negativity could affect Pennsylvania in ways that no one could even begin to predict (Well, someone could try, I suppose.).

What I believe we'll begin to see though is that the candidates will begin to micro-target some of the congressional districts where the most delegates are at stake. The distribution of delegates within those nineteen districts ranges from three to nine. Over a six week stretch, you'll begin to see more attention paid to those delegate-rich districts. Another thing that has not been mentioned is that this stretch allows for a return to retail politics; negative retail politics, but retail politics nonetheless. Six weeks is a long time. And with only seven contests remaining after Pennsylvania (plus Guam and Puerto Rico), it isn't far-fetched to imagine an awful lot of focus on the commonwealth.

The rules in these three states are not unlike what we've seen in earlier primaries and caucuses, but the timing of them on the calendar leaves a lot of room for interpretation.

Romney wins in Wyoming

The nomination fight left Iowa Thursday and headed, for the most part, to New Hampshire in anticipation of Tuesday's primary there. However, the GOP took a small detour to Wyoming today, for a caucus there. Mind you, this detour did not include any immediate attention from any of the Republican candidates, but it did include a caucus that distributed twelve delegates to this summer's GOP convention in Minneapolis. Small peanuts, sure. But a win's a win and Mitt Romney can now lay claim to a win in Wyoming's county conventions; wrapping up eight of the twelve delegates at stake.

What impact does that have on New Hampshire for Tuesday? Given that you really have to dig to find any news of this and the fact that visits from the candidates were limited at best, I doubt much affect will be felt.

The results:
Romney: 8 delegates
Thompson: 3
Hunter: 1

Wyoming GOP Stakes Its Claim

After earlier this year voting to hold their nomination conventions on the same day as the New Hampshire primary (whenever that was), the Wyoming Republican Party reconsidered. With New Hampshire tentatively (And when I say tentatively, I mean this is the latest possible date on which New Hampshire will hold its primary.) slotted in on January 8, this moved Wyoming as well. Apparently that wasn't early enough for Wyoming Republicans. Bent on getting hard core Republican candidates like Mitt Romney and Rudy Giuliani to plow through feet-deep snow drifts in the lead up to delegate-binding county conventions, the Wyoming GOP moved those conventions up to January 5. No, not February 5.

January 5.

Snow drifts aside, this is the earliest contest with a set date at this time. And because, as I stated earlier today, Republican National Committee rules exempt caucuses and conventions from frontloading sanctions, this is all fine. Granted not all of the state's delegates are up for grabs, but nearly half of the state's 28 delegates will be at stake on that day.

So take that Michigan.

Correction: RNC rules exempt states that do not allocate delegates in the first step of their process. Iowa and Nevada qualify for that exemption, but Wyoming does not.