Monday, May 9, 2016

Cinton Wins Guam, Media Yawns

Guam held its contest on Saturday.  I cannot even get agreement from media sources as to whether it was a primary or caucus.  Some news sources called it a primary, others a caucus.  It was listed on the calendars as a primary, but very often, jurisdictions will change to a caucus at the last minute to save money.  A caucus does not have to have all the polling areas open.

According to one source I read, there was only one polling station in all of Guam open for voting.  It was located at the "Agana Shopping Center (2nd Floor)".  Whether that was it or not reports are that about 1300 Democrats voted in the contest.  Clinton took about 60% to Sanders 40%.  Of the seven pledged delegates at issue in the contest, Clinton won 4, Sanders 3.  Clinton had already secured the support of all five superdelegates from Guam.  Therefore, she should get a total of nine votes from the territory on the first ballot.

Neither candidate visited Guam, nor did anyone seem to spend much money there.  With so few delegates at stake, it was not worth the money for either campaign to work hard and perhaps get one more delegate.

Clinton's victory increases her delegate lead by one.  That hardly seems to matter at this point. The win does ensure that Sanders will not get "X wins in a row" after his Indiana victory.  Otherwise, with Clinton facing hostile voters in West Virginia, Kentucky, and Oregon over the next two weeks, Sanders might have started another winning streak with Indiana.

Clinton's victory also means Sanders cannot pursue his long shot plan to convince superdelegates to switch to him if he wins their jurisdiction.  That was not likely to happen anyway, but Guam superdelegates can at least say the voters have reinforced their decision to support Clinton.  At this stage, even if Sanders wins 100% of the remaining pledged delegates, he still loses unless he can also convince superdelegates to change sides.

I was surprised that today (Monday afternoon) two days after the voting took place, most news organizations had not even bothered to update the results on their web sites.  With so many contests updated as the count went on minute by minute, one would think they could at least publish the final results relatively soon after they were available.

Most media organizations are turning to the Clinton-Trump contest that seems inevitable now.  Remaining primary outcomes will not change that result.

That said, I will continue to post and comment on the results here, even while I start to join in the general election punditry as well.

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