-
Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.
Hillary Clinton wins Washington Primary
- Thread starter johnsmith
- Start date
- Status
It's pretty easy to set a record when your competition is non existant. If cruz and kasich were still campaigning trump would not have won anywere near 400k votes in that state.Also, the biggest reason he broke a record today was because he was still able to attract people that don't vote in the primaries usually to vote for him.
They're both garbage and need to go.
googleplex
Member
Nope, nothing wrong with Super delegates. Its smart to have a system in place as an emergency procedure to keep a completely un-electable candidate from leading the party. The RNC would give their right testicles for a republican version of Super delegates right about now.
There is a lot wrong with teh primary process. Super delegate aren't one of them.
Pretty difficult to draw any kind of conclusions from this. Why would Sanders supporters bother turning in a primary ballot when they know it doesn't mean anything? Why does anyone turn in a primary ballot? It's dumb that they even send out ballots when the party uses a caucus. A lot of first-time WA state voter friends of mine were pretty confused by the whole thing.
Mailed ballots are good and primaries are good (although I personally enjoyed going to caucus). State party is garbage for not using the primary.
Mailed ballots are good and primaries are good (although I personally enjoyed going to caucus). State party is garbage for not using the primary.
BlastProcessing
Member
It is very telling that the Primary that didn't matter, that confused people had way way higher turnout than the Caucus. I really hope States wake up to this.
User 463088
Banned
Of course we won't complain about it. The rules, silly as they are, are the rules.
Obama won the Washington caucus in 2008 and managed to win the primary as well. This is now the second time Bernie has win a states caucus but managed to lose the subsequent primary. The fact that the results were so lopsided illustrates that caucuses are not indicative of the will of the people.
It's not telling of anything. The primary is done by mail. There was nothing else on the ballot. The cost of voting in the primary is so low that people didn't even take the time to read the insert that said "this vote doesn't matter for Dems".
Free always sells better than expensive.
whyamihere
Banned
So they did know it mattered or they didn't know it mattered?
Either way, this is a good example of why caucuses are garbage.
BlastProcessing
Member
Nebraska also had a substantially higher turnout and it wasn't by mail. The Democratic Party's goal should be to have as high a turnout as possible (that should be the GOP's goal too but they are jamming on their whole voter suppression shtick); caucuses need to go.
VendettaRed07
Member
User 463088
Banned
They could include it in the envelope.
BlastProcessing
Member
My wife voted absentee in Texas last month, there was a sticker in the envelope.
Dudes I agree that caucuses are a bad system. But *this* result isn't necessarily evidence of that. The caucus was months ago, before Bernie was clearly eliminated. Voters in the caucus were working with different information than voters in the primary. There's no get out the vote effort for the primary. Furthermore, there was no reason to vote in the primary, there were no stakes. Would Bernie have even won the caucus if we held it today? Who knows! The primary is noisy and there are a million reasons it isn't apples-to-apples with the caucus from a voter information standpoint.
If you want to make the case that caucuses poorly represent the will of the people, you gotta compare the caucus results to a poll of likely democrat *voters*, not caucusers, taken at the time of the caucus.
If you want to make the case that caucuses poorly represent the will of the people, you gotta compare the caucus results to a poll of likely democrat *voters*, not caucusers, taken at the time of the caucus.
VendettaRed07
Member
D.Lo
Member
Yeah this result is functionally a survey at best.
Caucuses seem somewhat logical to me for in-party candidate selection, as the most involved people in the party should get the most say. That's basically how it works in Australia for local member pre-selection.
Primaries are strange to me, a very low-bar party affiliation now qualifies you to vote for things that the party will have to run with? Hence the expense of the primary system and the massive ad spends required for candidates. In that sense, maybe the candidate should ONLY be selected by superdelegate type people. Or Caucuses plus superdelegates, aka dedicated party people.
But basically the lack of preferential voting in the USA main elections has locked in the two party system, so people are scambling for something slightly democratic in the candidate selection process?
It's all very strange. Pseudo democracy.
BlastProcessing
Member
It's not the result that is telling, it's the turnout.
Washington and Nebraska this year hang a lantern on the fact that Caucuses dramatically suppress turnout.
People have work, school and families. Caucuses don't filter out the dedicated as much as they filter out the people who don't have the privilege of dedicating a few hours of their time to sit in a room and yell at people without repercussion.
But it's trivially obvious that more people will "turn out" to check one of two boxes on a mail in ballot vs spending three hours in person. This isn't news to the state party, it isn't news to anybody.
User 463088
Banned
Bernie has been essentially eliminated since March 15th.
But to your point about this being an example of caucuses being a bad system, I think it is.
We have two contests, one counted one didn't. The one that counted had about a third as much participation as the thing that didn't count at all. It shows us that when barriers to access are removed, surprise, more people take part. We saw the same thing in Nebraska. Bernie won the caucus but lost the primary. That one definitely did matter because there were down ballot issues, I believe. (Could be wrong on that, though.)
As to your poll point, I disagree because pollsters in caucus states screen for likely caucus goers. If you are disabled, can't arrange child care, don't have transportation at a specific time, have to work, etc you'll be screened out. (If the pollster is any good.) All of these aspects explain why most pollsters don't even bother with polling caucus states. It's too difficult because there are too many variables that go into it.
So, it boils down to more people participated in the beauty contest primary because it was easier than having to deal with a caucus...which, again, is a perfect example of why caucuses are pure shit.
And this goes both ways, btw. There's a good chance Bernie would have won Iowa had it been a primary and not a caucus.
D.Lo
Member
Devil's advocate here: why would a party (or branch of a party) want easy, low consequence democracy for candidate selection? You just end up with the 'sorta care' group having the most say.
Party meetings (which I guess caucuses are a form of) = dedicated supporters
Ballot of registered party affiliated = 'sorta care' level participants
I can see why a party would want the selection to be done by the dedicated party people. They have 'earned' their vote by being fully involved.
Some with lots of argument go late into the night, but they generally don't affect normal work hours.
Interestingly, our elections are always in Saturdays, and have easy standardised pre-poll and mail voting. And they are run by independent (government funded) bodies.
Party meetings (which I guess caucuses are a form of) = dedicated supporters
Ballot of registered party affiliated = 'sorta care' level participants
I can see why a party would want the selection to be done by the dedicated party people. They have 'earned' their vote by being fully involved.
In Australia our party meetings are after hours, starting at like 7:30pm.
Some with lots of argument go late into the night, but they generally don't affect normal work hours.
Interestingly, our elections are always in Saturdays, and have easy standardised pre-poll and mail voting. And they are run by independent (government funded) bodies.
User 463088
Banned
Also, I think it's important to keep in mind this is a caucus state Bernie won by close to 46 points. The fact that the primary (pointless as it may be to some) was even close, let alone a Hillary win should be worrying for what's left of his campaign. It was just as "pointless" to Hillary's supporters as it was to Bernie's....but she still way, way over performed what one would logically expect based on previous results.
IrishNinja
Member
honest question: what's the actual argument against one person, one vote? no electoral, no caucuses, no none of it - just one national holiday where everyone votes, and it's done.
i get primaries not necessarily wanting non-party members voting, but we could do it in a similar fashion. the only time ive heard this argued as unfair was by conservatives who don't want their flyover district to feel unimportant, but i fail to see how making kingmakers out of otherwise irrelevant places does anything other than elongate the circus/donation period.
i get primaries not necessarily wanting non-party members voting, but we could do it in a similar fashion. the only time ive heard this argued as unfair was by conservatives who don't want their flyover district to feel unimportant, but i fail to see how making kingmakers out of otherwise irrelevant places does anything other than elongate the circus/donation period.
D.Lo
Member
America is a federation of states, not a single entity.
In theory, the states decide something, then represent that to the federation in proportion to their importance/population.
I mean, true democracy means citizens vote personally on every single issue, which is not feasible for larger organisations (let alone countries). Representative democracy (ie parliaments) is a similar abstraction of democracy anyway.
User 463088
Banned
Well, it would take a constitutional amendment to permanently get rid of the Electoral College. And there are benefits to having it, actually. It does give smaller states a bigger say than they would have if it was strictly based on just the popular vote. If it's purely popular vote, candidates would camp out in major cities and be done with it. While swing states get the most focus, they're swingy for a reason. They, typically, look more like America than safe red/blue states. (Although blue states tend to be fairly diverse.) I also think it's good for consensus building. You have to learn to balance the needs of a state like Ohio against the needs of a state like Florida.
I have no issue, though, with making it way, way easier to vote. I think every state should have mail in voting as an option. There should be early voting that doesn't require any loopholes to jump through. Registration should be automatic.
I also think we should revamp the primary calendar. Iowa, NH, and SC will always go first, but we should have rolling, regional primaries (no caucuses). Breaking up primaries helps candidates who maybe don't have the name recognition they need to run a national campaign. If we had a national primary, Hillary would have won in 2008 easily. (And in 2016 too). Breaking it up gives lesser known candidates a chance to build coalitions. It doesn't need to drag out as long as it does, though.
The thing is we have two distinct but related questions here:
1) Did the March caucus reflect the will of the state *at the time*?
2) Should we do caucuses or primaries?
The answer to 1) is relevant but maybe not determinant of 2). To answer 2), we need to answer "what is the point of candidate selection?" If we think that a caucus accomplish things like "energizing" politically-engaged, evangelist types, then we might hold a caucus regardless of 1), trusting the caucusers to go forth and drive higher turnout in a general election than we'd see without the caucus. I haven't really looked at any evidence to support the idea that the caucus is valuable in any way like that, and given my experience at the caucus this year I'm disinclined to think any such effect exists, but that remains an open question. Personally, I doubt that any benefit of the in-person caucus outweighs the danger to GE voter enthusiasm that a caucus result going against general voter preference poses; we should probably hold a primary *ESPECIALLY* since we have a vote-by-mail system, which should make our results an even more reliable indicator of GE voter preference than in-person vote states.
But as to 1), this primary result doesn't help us answer the question. Caucus and primary voters went to vote with different information, and faced totally different costs and benefits in each system. Indeed, a given caucus voter might have voted differently in the primary than she did in the caucus, as a function of voting in a different information / state-of-the-race environment. Do we even know how big is the overlap between caucus voters and primary voters, who voted in both?
I don't know about Nebraska, but the down-ballot question is significant in approaching 2). In a state where there is a down ballot vote at the same time as the candidate-selection process, the party should definitely hold a primary, using the primary excitement turnout to drive down-ballot turnout.
Actually we do agree here, we just had a misunderstanding:
If someone had held a poll at the time of the caucus, not to project caucus results, but rather pretending that Washington was a primary state, then we could have compared that poll to the caucus result. That comparison would speak to question 1), but as far as I know we don't have that.
1) Did the March caucus reflect the will of the state *at the time*?
2) Should we do caucuses or primaries?
The answer to 1) is relevant but maybe not determinant of 2). To answer 2), we need to answer "what is the point of candidate selection?" If we think that a caucus accomplish things like "energizing" politically-engaged, evangelist types, then we might hold a caucus regardless of 1), trusting the caucusers to go forth and drive higher turnout in a general election than we'd see without the caucus. I haven't really looked at any evidence to support the idea that the caucus is valuable in any way like that, and given my experience at the caucus this year I'm disinclined to think any such effect exists, but that remains an open question. Personally, I doubt that any benefit of the in-person caucus outweighs the danger to GE voter enthusiasm that a caucus result going against general voter preference poses; we should probably hold a primary *ESPECIALLY* since we have a vote-by-mail system, which should make our results an even more reliable indicator of GE voter preference than in-person vote states.
But as to 1), this primary result doesn't help us answer the question. Caucus and primary voters went to vote with different information, and faced totally different costs and benefits in each system. Indeed, a given caucus voter might have voted differently in the primary than she did in the caucus, as a function of voting in a different information / state-of-the-race environment. Do we even know how big is the overlap between caucus voters and primary voters, who voted in both?
I don't know about Nebraska, but the down-ballot question is significant in approaching 2). In a state where there is a down ballot vote at the same time as the candidate-selection process, the party should definitely hold a primary, using the primary excitement turnout to drive down-ballot turnout.
Actually we do agree here, we just had a misunderstanding:
you gotta compare the caucus results to a poll of likely democrat *voters*, not caucusers
If someone had held a poll at the time of the caucus, not to project caucus results, but rather pretending that Washington was a primary state, then we could have compared that poll to the caucus result. That comparison would speak to question 1), but as far as I know we don't have that.
User 463088
Banned
I think part of the difference may be some shifting support away from Bernie. I've been involved in party politics since I was a kid, and the way his campaign has behaved ( a la NV, although not exclusively) has turned a lot of people off.
I will believe, though, that the larger sample size gives us more information. As I said, Obama managed to win both beauty contests that Bernie managed to lose. I cannot envision how a state, especially Washington, swung away from Bernie by more than 50 points. The fact that he lost King County in the primary leads me to believe the caucus over estimated his level of support.
I mean it doesn't much matter. The rules are the rules and he won the thing that counted.
I will believe, though, that the larger sample size gives us more information. As I said, Obama managed to win both beauty contests that Bernie managed to lose. I cannot envision how a state, especially Washington, swung away from Bernie by more than 50 points. The fact that he lost King County in the primary leads me to believe the caucus over estimated his level of support.
I mean it doesn't much matter. The rules are the rules and he won the thing that counted.
IrishNinja
Member
i understand this, but nothing here points to why such a system is preferable
+1 to the voting simplicity, and i can see the merits of letting lesser known candidates have some time....agreed that it feels elongated.
and i do take your meaning on solid red/blue states feeling as though their vote doesn't matter in my example, it just feels natural to point out that's the case with our current electoral college as well.
i tend to think doing away with a lot of this could potentially attack some of our problem with voter turnout/disenfranchisement, but honestly that's a more complex issue and might speak to the parties/candidates themselves more than anything.
- Status
Similar threads
- Locked
- Locked