2016 Democratic Party presidential nomination

See the main article on this topic: 2016 U.S. Presidential Election

Final results by delegate votes. (Includes superdelegates).

“”If the Republican race is Calvinball, with everyone making up the rules as they go along, the Democratic race is more like — zzzzzzz — golf.

—Nate Silver

With Barack Obama ineligible to run for a third term, Hillary Clinton believed her time had come (again). Political independent Bernie Sanders and a few other Democrats had other ideas.

The hacked e-mails showed that the DNC viewed her nomination as a foregone conclusion, and it probably was. But they claimed to be neutral, while pressuring media surrogates to boost her image with favorable stories while ignoring Sanders. Did the DNC rig the primaries? Not exactly. But they worked closely with Hillary's campaign, hosted fundraising events that raised tens of millions for her at the expense of state committees, and made a mockery of party bylaws that required them to remain neutral in primaries.

Confirmed running

Dropped out

Lincoln Chafee Age: 71 Former Rhode Island Governor and Senator Dropped out 23 October 2015	Advantages: King of the RINOs. He voted against the Bush tax cuts and the Iraq War resolution, −the latter of which is his favorite line of attack against Hillary, whom he thinks should be disqualified from the race as a result. A unicorn social liberal who supports stem cell research and taxes on the wealthy. Opposes the death penalty, torture, and arctic drilling. Advocates for Israeli withdrawal from all occupied territories. Mind you, this all happened when he was a Republican.
	Disadvantages: Toed the party line on free trade, the Patriot Act, and supported partial privatization of Social Security. His environmental record as Governor was a mixed bag. He's fairly unpopular in his home state, having lost his seat to Sheldon Whitehouse (With a name like that why didn't HE run?), and only winning the gubernatorial race in a 3-way election. He also lacks the monetary apparatus of Clinton. He actually called himself a "block of granite" on the issues in contrast to Hillary. His debate answers gave you zero sense of what Chafee actually stood for. (Is anyone here a "metric system" one-issue voter?) Watching him obliterate his own future was pretty glorious, in an awful kind of way. ("Secretary Clinton, would you like to respond?" "No.") He now works out of a small office in a strip mall, trying to recoup his campaign debt. The guy should have just retired comfortably and privately.
Lawrence Lessig Age: 63 Academic and political activist Dropped out 2 November 2015	Advantages: Campaigning on taking big money out of politics, which red and blue states can get behind. He later decided to run for a full term for the Presidency, with an actual platform to boot: These ideas include humanitarian aid to the Syrian refugees, the ending of the War on Drugs, detente with Russia, support for the Cuban Thaw and Iran Deal, a public option for healthcare, and downsizing the military industrial complex. He would steal 18 votes from Bernie Sanders. Golf clap.
	Disadvantages: Jumping into the campaign relatively late wasn't gonna help him. Saying he'd resign immediately after enacting his reforms was a head-scratcher. Later clarified to Bill Maher that he would not resign, which makes his candidacy even stranger.
Martin O'Malley Age: 61 Former Maryland Governor Dropped out 1 February 2016	Advantages: The 'Young Gun' of the DMC. Said to be Obama's pick for successor, though this is unlikely, since Obama has not given any statements supporting O'Malley. Advocates for renewable energy over fossil fuels. Prefers a "cooperative" foreign policy, as opposed to unilateralism or humanitarian intervention. Wants Glass-Steagall reinstated. Possibly the most effective administrator in this race. The only person in the race who has been a Democrat throughout his life, as opposed to running for office as an independent (Bernie), or joining a Republican youth group (Hillary). What has this party come to?
	Disadvantages: His policies as Mayor of Baltimore would ultimately lead to the police murder of Freddie Gray. As anyone who's watched The Wire would understand, O'Malley implemented ridiculously tough anti-crime initiatives, empowered the police in their general thuggery, and cooked the books on gun crimes to make crimes in Baltimore 'disappear', thereby juking the stats on crime. WSJ had a picture of Clinton, Sanders, and O'Malley with a caption reading, "Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, and an unidentified man..." Really summed up all of O'Malley's problems this year. Any hopes he had of waging a successful insurgency on Capitol Hill were snuffed out by Sanders. Has the all-important endorsement of...Lyndon LaRouche.
Bernie Sanders Age: 83 Vermont Senator	Advantages: Attracts young voters in a manner similar to you-know-who. Considerable crossover appeal with the Paulbots and even some Trumpets. Supports universal health care, universal voter registration, New Deal-style reform, justice reform, free (or highly subsidized) tertiary education, environmental protection, renewable energy development, and modernization of infrastructure. Sanders out-fundraising Hillary is like watching Seabiscuit beat War Admiral. Doesn't accept money (or, rather, doesn't accept much money) from PACs—and thus gets to hammer Clinton with it in every speech and debate. He can play the Washington outsider card pretty well for a senator: While he hasn't passed much legislation, he passed more amendments than almost anyone else, earning the nickname of "amendment king". Sanders earned a reputation of a bipartisan deal maker as Veterans Affairs Committe Chairman. Also, he's a Jewish socialist and former carpenter!
	Disadvantages: Hired Tad Devine as his strategist. Let's have a look at his electoral victories. Well, that was a short list. Hold my beer while I fly to Rome days before the single most important primary to crash the Pope's breakfast. While Sanders is certainly popular on the Internet, this may not reflect reality. City slickers will be slow to forgive him for opposing the Brady Bill. He split the Latino vote, but Hillary has the black vote. Honeymooned (literally) in the USSR, though that wasn't the point of the trip. (Speaking of which, Gallup polls indicate that people would more rather elect an LGBT person, a Muslim, or an Atheist for president over a self-described Socialist.) As laudable as his economic plan is, voters are skeptical over its feasibility. Worse yet, there's not enough party dissatisfaction to vote for a protest candidate. When Ralph Nader is accusing you of not being pragmatic enough... Also, he's over 2000 years old.
Jim Webb Age: 78 Former Senator from Virginia Dropped out 20 October 2015 and will maybe run as an Independent	Advantages: Has fought for reform on drug sentencing, doesn't like Wall Street, prefers a non-interventionist foreign policy, and actually switched parties over the Iraq War.
	Disadvantages: Besides trying to bring a loaded gun into the U.S. Senate? Stating that his career highlight was killing a guy in Vietnam? (Webb: I NEED MORE TIME. Moderator: Very well, Mr. Webb, what would you like to say? Webb: I KILLED A MAN.) Keeping the Confederate battle flag flying on State House grounds? A blue dog on gun control, affirmative action, immigration, and environmental issues.

Looked like they were going to run, but declined

Joe Biden Age: 82 Current President, former Senator from Delaware Dropped out on October 21st	Advantages: A street fighter, he's entertaining, if gaffe prone. A wealth of domestic and foreign policy experience alternating as chairman of the powerful Senate Foreign Relations and Judiciary Committees over many decades. Kept Robert Bork off the high bench. Engineered the Clarence Thomas-Anita Hill hearings. Authored the Violence Against Women Act. His credentials as a confirmed feminist are equal to or rival Hillary Clinton. Awesome in debate, e.g. the 2012 VP debate. Hello, 911? There's an old man here beating the crap out of a kid.
	Disadvantages: 72 and not getting any younger. He's kinda insane (on a personal level, not on a policy level) and has a case of "foot-in-mouth" syndrome. Biden is a statesman's statesman but even he brings 40+ years of baggage (plagiarism, etc.), which is why Obama went with Hillary over him. Maybe he picked the wrong successor. Joe's further to the right on criminal justice than Hillary, and like her, voted for the Iraq War as a Senator, both of which would have given Bernie more to attack on. Biden was also the senator from Delaware, the state where all US shell companies are incorporated. He's defended this.
Andrew Cuomo Age: 67 Governor of New York	Advantages: Banned fracking and legalized same-sex marriage in New York, but only to score political points.
	Disadvantages: His corruption is unbelievably transparent. He set up an anti-corruption committee that would investigate and report all forms of conflicts of interest, like an actual anti-corruption committee… but when they started investigating his actions, he promptly disbanded the committee. Many of his actions as Governor of New York also call into question his party allegiance; he's been a staunch supporter of the Independent Democratic Conference (IDC), a group of Democratic New York State Senators that caucus with the Republicans, thereby resulting in GOP control of the New York Senate (conveniently preventing any of the progressive legislation that Cuomo claims to support from making it to his desk, where he would have to either sign it and infuriate his donors, or veto it and infuriate his voters) and in his first year as Governor, he signed off on a gerrymandered map favoring Republican candidates put forth by the State Senate. If you think Clinton's main problem was not being friendly enough with Wall Street, boy is Cuomo the candidate for you!
Elizabeth Warren Age: 74 Senator from Massachusetts, former Harvard Law Professor	Advantages: A born fighter, Warren's an economic progressive, championing New Deal-style reforms to combat income inequality and rein in Wall Street. Was essentially the key architect behind the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. She's folksy and down-to-earth, unlike Clinton who often comes across as inauthentic at best. She'd be able to effectively generate crossover appeal between Clinton and Sanders supporters, by virtue of being a populist who happens to be a woman.
	Disadvantages: A bit untested at actual governing; she's a freshman Senator, and had only held elected office for 2 years of her life by the time campaigning began. She underperformed in her 2012 Senate race, winning by only 4% points, despite running in a Presidential Election year in one of the bluest states in the country. A faux-controversy could easily be manufactured around her claimed Cherokee descent, in a similar manner as Clinton's e-mail scandal.

Perennial candidates

Jeff Boss Age: 61 Perennial candidate and crank	Advantages: President Boss. Otherwise, beats me.
	Disadvantages: President Boss lacks the ring of President Supreme. Even Wikipedia calls him a conspiracy theorist. (He's a truther.)
Vermin Supreme Age: 55-56 Performance artist and perennial candidate	Advantages: Would create the interesting situation of having a "President Supreme". Glitter bombing Randall Terry. If he gets elected he has promised free ponies for all Americans.
	Disadvantages: Basically a sort of U.S. parallel to these British guys.
Robby Wells Age: 56 Former college football coach	Advantages: Presumably knows something about American football, I guess.
	Disadvantages: Robby who? Also, switching from trying to run as an independent to taking a shot at the Democratic nomination might not be the ideal start on ingratiating yourself to the party faithful. Not to mention his history of "party shopping" in 2012 where he bounced around from initially wanting to run as an independent, then shacking up with the Reform Party, before jumping ship and trying for the Constitution Party nomination (which he lost to some other guy you've probably never heard of either). If you're bereft of some interesting reading you can always look at his Eaglenomics "plan".

Democratic primary polls

“”Everything that has transpired has done so according to my design. Your Bernie Bros out there on the internet are walking into a trap, as is your Millennial fleet. It was I who allowed Sanders to tie me in Iowa. My campaign is quite safe from your pitiful little band. An entire legion of my best troops awaits them on Super Tuesday. Oh, I'm afraid my Firewall will be quite operational when your friends arrive.

—Clinton

Clinton v. Sanders was hardly comparable at all to the narrow, bitter fight of 2008. The extent of the attacks was probably the gun control issue. Bernie came up short by 12 points and basically just outperformed in caucus states for his wins, which why the black caucus and Hispanic caucus opposed him. Many of his supporters are new primary voters likely would not have voted if he had not entered the race, meaning he brought many new voters into the democratic process. Many voted for Johnson or Stein as alternatives and a small number voted for Trump himself.

• Senior citizens prefer to use the early voting process. They were confirmed to be Hillary's secret weapon the moment she stepped into this race. (It's just a matter of Clinton's voters being older and harder to motivate to go spend hours standing around at a caucus.) That gave Bern an advantage in the caucus format, since the lack of the youth vote in 2010 has been cited as a major reason Dems lost the house. But equally, his base is far more impacted by flaws in voter registration.
• Hillary has never done particularly well in the West: she was shut out of Bernie's home state and spent literally $0.00 in Utah and Idaho. Whistle-stops only. She was conserving resources for the general election. Meanwhile, Sanders, who already had a "home court advantage" of sorts, spent plenty of time and money in the area.
• As Hawaii goes, so goes...uh, we dunno. Hawaii has high populations of Pacific Islanders and Asian Americans, two demographics that haven't voted in large numbers yet. That's why the results of Hawaii were kind of unpredictable.

Did you ever hear of the tragedy of McGovern the Wise?

Nevada was a garbage fire. The state cut funding for elections, which caused huge lines due to inadequate polling stations. Those glitches hurt Hillary and Bernie both, but since a majority of Clinton supporters chose to vote early, she still won by a large margin; this didn't sit right with Bernie's supporters. Voters in Arizona have a legitimate claim, and lawsuits have been filed to address this concern.

Everything seemed to fall apart in New York. Looking back, Bernie's design flaw was his misunderstanding of the media; each time he had a chance to strike gold, he missed and went for copper.

• Sanders waited days to respond after Nevada, even running away from reporters (!) while campaigning in Puerto Rico, before releasing his statement: In it, he concentrated on self-congratulatory stump speeches, and again reiterated allegations of voter suppression.
• When given a softball question which fits perfectly with his campaign (he was asked to name a specific instance where Hillary changed her vote based on campaign contributions), Bernie whiffed.
• After coming off his winning streak into the must-win state of NY, his pope "visit" was overshadowed both by his NYPD interview and "Clinton is unqualified" comment, which was a response to what Clinton said on a similar question; he walked back from it, but he fell into that media trap easily.
• In the weeks leading up to California, Hillary's emails should have been at the forefront, but instead Bernie tried to get Trump to debate him.
• The hiring of Comic Book Guy was especially obnoxious, as his attack dog persona and Bernie's "fun grandpa" schtick were oddly mismatched. Had Sanders taken the deal Harry Reid offered him, he could've been the most powerful man in the Senate, but Jeff Weaver flushed that idea. What's left? A quixotic quest to be mildly annoying to Democrats for a month.

Most of Sanders' staff were let go after his New York loss; they basically had a skeleton crew in California only. All this combative talk implied that Sanders would to do what he promised: have a contested convention in Philadelphia. For a while the candidates were caught in this awkward dance where they couldn't not show solidarity while simultaneously withholding any official endorsement. Sanders wanted to cash in his leverage for some party reforms, but that market had already crashed. Nevertheless, Hillary was forced to make some concessions: The DNC Chair (Wasserman-Schultz) usually appoints all 15 members of the platform committee. Instead she picked four, while Bernie picked five.

As of May, there weren't enough delegates left for Sanders to reach the magic number 2383, the minimum required to win the nomination. He waited so long to concede that the DNC was plagued by protests and booing from the Bernie delegation for 4 nights straight.

Accusations of bias

The DNC claimed to be neutral, while pressuring media surrogates to boost her image with favorable stories while ignoring Sanders.

But the bigger story was how they pressured state-level Democrats to host "joint fundraising events" with the DNC and Hillary, ostensibly to benefit those downticket state races. Campaign finance records show that they raised tens of millions in those events, deposited into the coffers of local committees in compliance with laws noted above. But those deposits were subsequently transferred directly to Hillary's campaign within a day. 99% of the $61 million raised at those events ended up in Hillary's "Victory fund". It was blatant circumvention of campaign finance law. And those wealthy donors were then "maxed out", meaning that they couldn't contribute to state Democrats in the general election. When Bernie cried foul, they even went as far as calling attention to the fact that Bernie was not Christian prior to key Bible-belt primaries. When all this came to light, staffers took the fall and Wasserman-Shultz took a cushy job on Hillary's campaign staff.

Delegates won thus far

As of May, there simply were not enough delegates left for Sanders to reach the magic number 2383, the minimum required in order for a candidate to earn the Democratic Party's nomination. He would have had to gain the support of superdelegates, which was going to be difficult, as he had called them undemocratic for supporting Clinton "against the will of the people". For quite some time, despite mounting pressure for him to drop out, Sanders refused to concede and used his remaining leverage to influence the Democratic Party's platform and legislative agenda, arguing that defeating Trump should not be their only goal at this point.

At last count, Hillary Clinton had 2220 pledged delegates while Bernie Sanders has 1831. (These numbers do not count superdelegates as they will not vote until the convention in July, though neither do the pledged delegates.) Note that neither candidate can officially declare the defeat of the other without help from superdelegates. On June 12, Bernie Sanders endorsed Hillary Clinton for the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election.

Conspiracy theories

Throughout the course of the 2016 democratic presidential primary, some Sanders supporters claimed that Democratic Party actors preferred Hillary Clinton over Bernie Sanders. While this is a perfectly valid and accurate claim, some took the claim too far, theorizing that the Democratic Party establishment and/or the Clinton campaign rigged the primary in favor of Hillary over Bernie. This belief become so popular among the left that now some Democratic Party activists, along with many conservatives, believe the conspiracy theory that the Democratic Party rigged their presidential primary.

Voter fraud

Some conspiracy theorists claim that Clinton campaign operatives and Democratic insiders engaged in election fraud, ballot manipulation, and literal election rigging.

The American election system is a mess. It’s handled locally, it’s extremely complex, and it’s grossly underfunded. As a result, the election system is prone to mishaps and errors on behalf of local election officials. These routine snafus are commonplace throughout the electoral system, and they aren’t really evidence of rigging – it’s evidence that the way America conducts its elections is incompetent. With regard to the 2016 primary, there’s simply no evidence that these local election officials were Clinton plants or Democratic Party operatives who intentionally sought to engage in voter fraud in order to help Clinton and disadvantage Sanders.

Exit polls

According to Nate Cohn, conspiracy theorists claim that early exits showing Sanders winning states, and the subsequent results showing Clinton winning, was proof that Clinton rigged the primary. Conspiracy theorists believe that exit polls are usually accurate, and cherry pick instances in which the exit polls correctly predicted the winner to bolster their assertion. The problem lies with the assumption that early exit polls are usually good. In fact, early exits are not a great predictor of the final vote count. Nate Cohn writes that when it comes to exits, there are a lot of sources of polling error – even more than a regular poll. According to Cohn, it’s not clear as why the early exits were off, but the most likely reason is that early exits oversampled Sanders voters because younger voters are more likely to fill out exit polls. Since young voters are an overwhelmingly pro-Sanders constituency, exit polls would be biased in favor of Sanders. Thus, part of the systemic polling error originates from an oversampling of younger voters.

Frontloading

A disproportionate number of southern states had their primary contests take place near the beginning of the 2016 presidential primary. Since Hillary's strongest support came from southern states, Bernie Sanders supporters claimed that the DNC had deliberately placed these southern states at the beginning of the primary calendar in order to give her an advantage over Bernie Sanders. Bernie Sanders himself criticized the frontloading of southern states.

The main problem with this claim is that the DNC did not, and does not have the ability to change the primary calendar. State legislatures have the power to change the primary calendar. In preparation for the 2016 presidential primary, many southern states wanted to place their primaries near the beginning of the primary so they would have more sway in determining the nominee. As a result, southern state legislatures passed legislation moving their state primaries closer to the beginning of the year. These southern state legislatures were dominated by Republicans when they passed this legislation, so if you're going to blame anybody for frontloading the southern states, you'd have to blame GOP-controlled state legislatures, not the Democratic Party.

Brooklyn voter purge

Over a hundred thousand Brooklyn voters were purged right before the New York primary. On one hand, voters are generally purged for inactivity. However, purging lots of voters right before a primary is considered unusual, since voter purges generally happen well ahead of voting. In addition, many active voters were improperly purged. AJ Vicens wrote that the purge “handed Hillary Clinton a much-needed win over Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders.”

• Hillary’s margin of victory was larger than the number of Brooklyn voters who were purged from the rolls. Even if we assume all the purged voters voted for Sanders, Hillary still would’ve won the primary.

• The victims of the voter purge were more likely to be pro-Clinton than pro-Sanders. The type of voters who get purged are inactive voters. Inactive voters are voters who haven’t voted within the last two presidential elections. Since Sanders’ base is predominantly young voters, his supporters are less likely to be affected by the purge, since much of his base’s voters haven’t been voting long enough to skip voting in the last two presidential elections. The demographic composition of inactive voters skews towards older voters, who are more likely to be pro-Clinton. Thus, the voters most likely to be hurt by the purge would be voters who supported Clinton.

• A WNYC report found that the victims of the purge were predominantly Hispanic, a pro-Clinton constituency. Thus, the purge hurt Hillary more than Bernie.

• Brooklyn was pro-Clinton in the primary, so letting more Brooklyn voters vote would’ve helped Clinton.

In sum, the Brooklyn voter purge probably depressed potential turnout in favor of Clinton, which actually helped Sanders.

Arizona

In the Arizona presidential primary, there were egregiously long lines at the polling places. These long lines dissuaded some voters from voting. According to RoseAnn DeMoro, a Sanders supporter, long lines in Arizona was evidence of rigging.

• Latino voters in Maricopa County, AZ, who were most likely to experience long lines, were an HRC-friendly demographic. Why would Dems disenfranchise their own voters?

• The DNC doesn’t have any control over the polling stations. The state’s secretary of state does. The Republican Secretary of State of Arizona cut the number of polling places in the state, which directly led to long lines.

• There's no evidence that voters dissuaded from long lines would’ve given Sanders a victory in Arizona.

Closed primaries

Closed primaries are primaries in which only voters who are registered in a political party are allowed to vote in that primary. In closed primaries during the 2016 democratic presidential primary, registered Democrats were more likely to be pro-Clinton, while independents – who are either affiliated with a minor party, or no party – were more likely to back Sanders. As a result, closed primaries were more friendly to HRC throughout the primary. RoseAnn Demoro, writing for Salon, listed closed primaries as one of the ten reasons why the Democratic Party’s 2016 presidential primary was rigged. But it was known well ahead of time that these states had closed primaries, and there’s just no evidence that the Democratic party coordinated to make more closed primaries to shut out Sanders voters during the primary without giving Sanders voters enough time to adjust to the rules change.

Debate scheduling

Sanders supporters claim that the DNC scheduled the Democratic debates at times that would elicit low ratings. Bernie Sanders' former presidential campaign manager Jeff Weaver claimed in an interview that the debate schedule was rigged. Political scientist Boris Heersink writes that while it’s possible that DNC staffers scheduled the primary debates with the intention of helping Clinton, there’s no evidence for this claim. In addition, Heersink writes that there’s no evidence that Hillary’s vote margin in the presidential primary can be explained by the timing of the debates.

External links

• Nice bit of Lefty unity happening of late; we can all agree one on thing. - Wait, they're naming the university after her? Because she has "Welsh roots"?

See also

• 2016 Republican Party presidential nomination - 2016 truly is sui generis.

References

2016 United States presidential election articles on RationalWiki

Topics: Affordable Care Act - Citizens United v. FEC - DAESH - Gun control - Illegal immigration - Koch Industries - United States Electoral College - Trump's Wall
Parties: Democratic Party (primaries) - Green Party of the United States - Libertarian Party - Republican Party (primaries • Convention • Tea Party)
Candidates: Bush (R) - Carson (R) - Christie (R) - Clinton (D) - Cruz (R) - Huckabee (R) - Jindal (R) - Johnson (Lib) - Kasich (R) - Paul (R) - Perry (R) - Rubio (R) - Sanders (D) - Stein (Green) - Trump (R) - Walker (R) - Webb (D) • Running mates: Kaine (D) - Pence (R)
Winner: Donald Trump