Could the Northern Mariana Islands determine the next President of the United States of America
I could have just said “President”, but “President of the United States of America” sounds more impressive.
The 538 blog has an excellent new post showing how the GOP primary process is set up to favor Trump, who is winning far more delegates than votes:
Even worse, Trump tends to do better in areas with fewer GOP voters. Perhaps the most extreme case is the Northern Mariana Islands, where a mere 471 voters delivered 9 out of 9 delegates for Trump:
Nine votes doesn’t seem like much relative to the 1237 needed for the nomination. But you need to think at the margin, not in terms of total votes. No one knows how many votes Trump needs pre-committed, to secure the nomination in Cleveland. Most experts think he can get a few extra votes at the convention, but not very many. I.e., he doesn’t need to come in with 1237 votes, but something fairly close. And guess what, he’s expected to end up with 1155. Is that enough to put him over the top?
The betting markets currently give him a 50.5% chance at the nomination, which suggests that his expected vote total is really, really close the the cutoff point between success and failure. Every delegate counts, and nine delegates may well be the difference.
Of course even if Trump gets the nomination, the betting markets think he’s unlikely to win. His odds of being President are 12.7% meaning he has just over a 1 on 4 chance, conditional on getting the nomination.
To conclude, I don’t want to oversell things, Trump has only a 12.7% chance of being President, and even if elected there’s maybe only a 1 in 5 or 1 in 10 chance that those 9 Northern Mariana Islander delegates will have put him over the top at the convention. But that’s still massively more influence that the GOP voters in my home state:
On the other hand, voters in the most Republican-rich places have the least influence. For example, in Wisconsin’s 5th District (home to the famously Republican Waukesha County) three delegates were awarded to the winner among 191,735 voters — that’s 63,912 voters per delegate. Even within certain states, Republicans living in blue areas have a lot more influence than Republicans living in red areas. For example, Illinois’ 4th District (which President Obama won with 81 percent of the vote in 2012) had a votes-to-delegate ratio of 4,989 to 1, while the state’s 18th district (which Obama lost with just 44 percent of the vote) had a ratio of 43,679 to 1.
So, yes, the playing field is tilted, but it’s tilted in Trump’s favor; he’s been running downhill.
Call me a loyal Cheesehead (I’m from Wisconsin) but I feel safer sleeping at night knowing our next President is picked by the sensible citizens of suburban Milwaukee, than by the Northern Mariana Islanders, about whom I know almost nothing. Unfortunately, it’s possible the exact opposite may be the case.
BTW, Waukesha County picked Cruz over Trump by 61% to 22%.
PS. In contrast, if it were up to “the voters” (as Trump prefers), then Trump would come into Cleveland with less than 40% of the delegates, and almost no chance at the nomination.
PPS. OK, Art Deco, I know you are waiting for the results from the Southern Mariana Islands, aka Guam, which has another 9 delegates. Well, you’ll have to wait until May 9th. And another 9 from American Samoa, apparently unbound. Now we are up to 27. Just how many fricking Pacific islands do we own? Thank God that Teddy Roosevelt didn’t grab all of Polynesia, or Trump would already have the nomination in the bag.
PPPS. By the way, the Northern Mariana Islands are preserving manufacturing jobs for “Americans”. Here’s the NYT:
SAIPAN— On this tiny, tropical outpost of the United States, many people describe what happens to foreign workers here as something close to servitude.
Every year, thousands of laborers from China, the Philippines and elsewhere in Asia are flown here. The workers are often bused straight from the airport to squalid barracks where they live — sometimes for years — as many as a dozen to a room.
They are put to work almost immediately in nearby factories within view of Saipan’s pristine beaches, many of them laboring six days a week at about half the Federal minimum wage, stitching together American brand-name clothes. Familiar Labels
The labels would be familiar to anyone who has strolled through an American shopping mall. Over the last year, Arrow, Liz Claiborne, The Gap, Montgomery Ward, Geoffrey Beene, Eddie Bauer and Levi’s have all made clothes on this palm-fringed island that is part of the American commonwealth in the Western Pacific, 5,000 miles from the continental United States.
And while many of these garments are manufactured in foreign-owned factories by foreign workers, the apparel made in the Northern Marianas often bears another familiar label: “Made in the U.S.A.” The American flag flies over several of the factories.
Not exactly the sort of Pacific island paradise described by Melville.
HT: David Levey
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14. April 2016 at 19:13
Yes; the delegate system is designed to favor the frontrunner; what’s wrong with that? Trump has been and still is the undisputed GOP nationwide frontrunner. Cruz’s net favorability among Republicans is now even lower than Trump’s:
http://www.gallup.com/opinion/polling-matters/190787/clinton-image-among-democrats-new-low.aspx?utm_source=tagrss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=syndication
I suggest Trump make Kasich his Vice-President. Then Kasich can release his delegates, thus granting Trump victory.
BTW, I don’t have much of a problem with the system of unbound delegates: Ron Paul exploited it to his advantage, receiving a greater share of delegates than his share of the popular vote. It allows party leaders to have some say; these are by no means necessarily the establishment.
I support Trump over Cruz because the Cuban people are more important to me than financial moral hazard.
14. April 2016 at 19:14
BTW, the markets think Cruz has a lower chance of victory than Trump given nomination. No wonder; Cruz can’t even beat Trump by attacking him on policy all over the place. He deserves to stay in the Senate.
14. April 2016 at 20:06
Believe it or not Puerto Rico has huge influence on our presidential elections because due to a depression in PR many have moved to the most important swing region in the nation–the I-4 corridor in Florida.
I think having superdelegates like the Democrats is looking very good right now. The 2008 Democratic Primary was very close but Hillary claimed the popular vote lead but the superdelegates chose Obama because the media pushed his narrative that the leader in delegates was entitled to the nomination which is clearly NOT correct. The media has done a better job explaining the rules in this cycle (the media clearly supported Obama in 2008) but the voters don’t quite grasp that the leader in delegates is not entitled to the nomination and Trump voters probably won’t support Cruz or Kasich in the general election.
14. April 2016 at 20:53
The US presidential election system, including the Electoral College, looks more like something we would expect to see in an 1890s Banana Republic.
So what if Al Gore got more votes than George Bush?
I understand parties are not democracies, and they can have any rules they like. Winner take all, winner take district delegates, or oddball caucuses that no sane person groks. Was that Wisconsin?
The Cleveland GOP convention promises to be a warzone. I only regret the open-carry crowd did not win the right to show up loaded for bear. Can you imagine. But those GOP sissy-girls have opted for no guns allowed inside the Quiken arena.
This is the most interesting presidential election in the post-war era. Too bad Sanders is not knocking Clinton off her perch. She is so boring anyway.
A Sanders-Trump showdown would be one for the ages.
One for Scott Sumner; On August 16, 1971, the Dow had its biggest point rally of all time up to that point. Tariffs?
14. April 2016 at 21:33
“This is the most interesting presidential election in the post-war era.”
-I think that honor should go to 1960. Maybe 1964 or 1992.
“Too bad Sanders is not knocking Clinton off her perch.”
-He is -in the nationwide polls. Still means decisive Clinton victory in the pledged delegate count.
14. April 2016 at 21:49
@Scott
That’s a 25 year old NYT article.
Implementation of the Federal minimum wage and application of US mainland immigration rules to CNMI (Saipan) killed off the textile industry a long time ago and devastated the tourist industry. (Think negative 25% annual GDP growth rate.)
BTW – Pelosi tried to exempt Samoa (home to tuna packing operations for SFO based and Pelosi contributor Star-Kist) from the Federal minimum wage.
“I feel safer sleeping at night knowing our next President is picked by the sensible citizens of suburban Milwaukee, than by the Northern Mariana Islanders”
First time I’ve ever heard you sound provincial and xenophobic. Are you sure you’re not a closet Trump supporter?
It’s interesting that Saipan voters (a large number of which are immigrants who have relatively recently becomes U.S citizens) are so supportive of “anti-immigrant” Trump.
14. April 2016 at 22:07
@scott
And BTW – Teddy Roosevelt had nothing to do with it. The Northern Marianas were originally Spanish, then sold to the Germans, then given to the Japanese by the League of Nations. In 1975, the Northern Marianans negotiated with the U.S. and voted to become a U.S Commonwealth.
15. April 2016 at 04:48
Harding, You said:
“Yes; the delegate system is designed to favor the frontrunner; what’s wrong with that?”
So you don’t agree with Trump that the system is undemocratic? Why do you think Trump is wrong?
Ben, You asked:
“One for Scott Sumner; On August 16, 1971, the Dow had its biggest point rally of all time up to that point. Tariffs?”
I think you know the answer—devaluation and tax cuts.
dtoh, You said:
“First time I’ve ever heard you sound provincial and xenophobic.”
That was a joke, as was the comment about Teddy Roosevelt. I know he had nothing to do with taking the Northern Mariana’s, which is why I didn’t say he had anything to with it.
15. April 2016 at 05:12
“This is the most interesting presidential election in the post-war era.”
I vote for 1992 with a close 1968 or 1980. (I find it interesting arguably three worst years in Post War era all fall in Prez year of 1968, 1980 and 2008. I think the only other year would be 1974.) But 2016 is going down in history books as it still going to get worse because nobody knows how the convention will go down.
Anyway, I still think the great joke of 2016 is going to be the Southern African-Americans saved the US from a Socialist President.
15. April 2016 at 06:02
Department of Be Careful What You Wish For;
https://ricochet.com/here-you-go-donald-your-new-delegate-count/
‘…under these new “Trump rules,” his total delegate count today would be 564 (table below), well below his official current total of 755. Cruz would suffer a smaller downward adjustment, ending up with 495 delegates to date instead of his current 545. The gap between the two would fall from 210 to 69, less than 3 percent of the total delegates.
‘Further, in order to get the 1,237 needed for nomination, Trump would need an additional 673 delegates. This means that he would need to win 87.5 percent of the remaining delegates. Under the new rules he advocates, the chances of this happening are, well … zero.’
15. April 2016 at 06:29
Well, I don’t see JAL tour package to Saipan recently.
15. April 2016 at 06:46
@scott
I know. I was just giving you a hard time. Interesting thread on BB and helicopter drops by the way
15. April 2016 at 08:25
Aug. 16 1971 was the Monday after the Sunday Nixon Schock: wage and price controls, taking the dollar off of gold, and 10% tariffs.
Wall Street loved it!
15. April 2016 at 08:36
News flash! Variants of 1st past the post produce results which differ from proportional representation.
The selection process is a barnacle-laden mess and the whole donnybrook produces peculiar results which do not select for the sort of qualities the most capable Presidents might have. This is not news. It’s just that libertarian economists never noticed until someone ran against open borders.
What you might do is assign the conventions the task of electing party officers, approving a platform, undertaking miscellanous intramural business, and showcasing the registered candidates who favor the party. You could have delegates elected the 2d and 3d week of June for a convention in August. The delegates would be apportioned according to party-designees’ vote totals in presidential contests over the previous X election cycles. You could have primary elections where voters elect delegates directly (i.e. the ballot has the aspirant delegates’ names on it, the order on the ballot varies from one precinct to the next, and ordinal balloting with tabulation according to the alternate vote is the order of the day) or you can have precinct caucuses which elect a delegate to a district caucus (again, using ordinal balloting) which elects (using ordinal balloting) a delegate to the national convention.
As for candidate registration, you could have aspirants circulate petitions among state legislators and local councillors or place a deposit with the Federal Election Commission. Each state and territory would have assigned to it a bloc of electoral votes equal to the population of citizens resident therein per the most recent census, with the larger states cut up into electoral constituencies. In each state, territory, or constituency, the electoral votes would be awarded according to the results of an ordinal ballot tallied according to the conventions of the alternate vote. If no candidate receives a majority of the electoral votes, you eliminate the candidate who received the fewest such votes and re-tally the results in those states that he won according to the conventions of the alternate vote. Rinse, repeat, until you have a candidate who has a majority of the electoral votes.
15. April 2016 at 08:48
“So you don’t agree with Trump that the system is undemocratic? Why do you think Trump is wrong?”
-Sure, it’s not the most democratic system in the world, but it’s acceptable at producing nominees voters want. The unbound delegates are clearly undemocratic, but there’s nothing wrong with party leaders getting some say in which candidate the party should pick. If you don’t have enough persuasion skills to convince an “Idaho county treasurer” (in the Onion’s words), you’re toast in the general.
15. April 2016 at 08:55
Ben, It’s not clear what Wall Street “loved”.
15. April 2016 at 09:11
“I could have just said “President”, but “President of the United States of America” sounds more impressive.”
A point that’s been made before….
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Presidents_of_the_United_States_of_America_(band)
15. April 2016 at 09:56
At this point I’m just looking forward to not hearing about Donald Trump anymore, whether the flaming goldplated dumpster crashes in July or November is mostly a matter of personal convenience since Trump’s already doomed the GOP this cycle no matter what.
15. April 2016 at 10:06
Yeah.
15. April 2016 at 10:27
Given Hillary’s stubbornness in the last debate (I did not watch it), I’m more confident that Trump will beat Her in the general (54%). She’s just not that popular among White Democrats. TallDave is just ignoring everything that’s happened since June. The Donald should focus his attention on PA and NH.