Arab America Picks a President: It's Up To You New York, New York
BY: Fred Shwaery/Contributing Writer
After a couple of quiet weeks, things are picking up on the campaign trails. New York is next. Both the Democrats and the Republicans will have their primary elections on Tuesday, April 19. Nothing the week before and nothing until a week after. Gotham stands alone for all the world to see.
If they can make it there, they’ll make it anywhere. Maybe.
We’ll know if they can make it anywhere because one week after New York, five Northeast states have both Democratic and Republican primaries. Voters in Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland, Pennsylvania and Rhode Island will go to the polls. There are a lot of delegates being selected in that one week in April.
For the Republicans, there are 769 more delegates to be selected and 267 of them will be selected in this one-week period. Donald Trump should do well in his home state of New York where he’ll pick up the lion’s share of its 95 delegates.
Connecticut and Rhode Island are proportional states and Delaware, Maryland and Pennsylvania are winner-take-all states. Trump will do well in all of these states as Republicans in this part of the country are not that conservative and not that likely to vote for Ted Cruz. John Kasich should do well, too, but with so many winner-take-all delegates, he’ll come away with votes but not the most important prize–delegates.
With this line up, Trump could pick up 200 more delegates and push the 1,000 delegates mark. If he does, he’ll very likely be the only Republican candidate to earn more than 1,000 delegates. Though that does not get him the Republican nomination, it is a psychological factor that will, no doubt, bring him bragging rights. If he does not garner enough delegates to win the nomination before the convention, he’ll use the “more-than-1,000-delegates” argument to put pressure on the Republicans to support him and give him the nomination.
The Democrats have the same schedule. They have 1,661 more delegates to be selected and 631 of them will be selected in this one-week period. Hillary Clinton has a 250 earned delegate lead over Bernie Sanders even though he’s won 8 of the past 9 races. Of course, her strength is with the super delegates where she has more than a 400 delegate lead over Sanders. Remember, the super delegates can change their votes at any time so, if Sanders catches up to Clinton in earned votes, watch the super delegates move with him.
These states will be the races to watch. Who will New Yorkers support – their former senator or their native son? These April-primary states have substantial numbers of working-class voters who likely will appreciate Sanders’ support for them. He should do well in there.
One thing that Clinton’s campaign team has done very well was to have gotten her the delegates early. They spent last year working their strategies for each state so they could maximize their delegate counts. Clinton picked up the votes in the locations she needed to get more of the delegates. She also picked up 95% of the super delegates.
So, once again, everybody who has been following these races has the same conclusion – it’s just too early to predict what will happen through the primaries and into the conventions.
Like they say in the song, “It’s up to you New York, New York.” Well, New York and a few more nearby states.
Register to vote at vote.usa.gov
Questions? Comments? Please send an email message to me at fshwaery@arabamerica.com