Voters in three states cast their ballots for the Democratic presidential nomination yesterday, and former Vice President Joe Biden easily won in Florida (62-23%) and Illinois (59-26%), while his victory percentage dipped to 44-31% in Arizona. On the delegate count, largely because of his huge landslide in Florida, Mr. Biden captured approximately 66% of the available delegates last night, putting him on a clear course to win the party nomination on the first ballot at the Democratic National Convention in July. Ohio, which was also supposed to vote yesterday, postponed its primary because of COVID-19 precautions. It will likely now be scheduled for June 2nd.
Current polling from three of the four states holding primaries tomorrow find former Vice President Joe Biden poised to effectively and easily clinch the Democratic presidential nomination. In Arizona, Latino Decisions (3/6-11; 541 AZ likely Democratic primary voters) gives Biden a 57-38% lead over Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT).
Even better Biden results come from the Gravis Marketing surveys conducted in Illinois and Florida. The Land of Lincoln result (3/10-12; 549 IL likely Democratic primary voters) posts a 63-25% Biden advantage, while the organization’s Sunshine State survey (3/10-12; 516 FL likely Democratic primary voters) sees a 66-25% split. Should these numbers hold in the three states, Biden’s delegate take would be approximately 310 of the available 441 bound first ballot delegates from the three places. Ohio, the other March 17th primary state, is not reporting recent polling data. The March 17th primary day features electorates in four key states voting, Arizona, Florida, Illinois, and Ohio. Former Vice President Joe Biden is opening up large leads in all four, as the latest released survey suggests. The University of Northern Florida (3/5-10; 1,502 FL likely Democratic primary voters) projects Mr. Biden to be holding a huge 66-22 lead over Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT). It is clear that Mr. Biden will unofficially clinch the party nomination on Tuesday night.
Two Florida Democratic voters, who a Democratic former circuit judge represents, have filed suit to remove Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) from the Florida Democratic primary ballot and not count any Sanders vote that has already been cast in the early voting process. State election authorities report more than 244,000 ballots have already been cast. The lawsuit argues that Sen. Sanders, who is not a registered Democrat, fails to qualify as a partisan candidate in a state with a closed primary. The suit is not likely to gain legs because precedent has allowed the political parties leeway in determining who is placed on their primary ballot. The Florida Democratic Party opposes the suit.
With 219 first ballot delegates to be decided in the March 17th Florida primary, the Sunshine State will be a major factor ending the first set of primaries. When voting concludes on that day, 57.5% of the first ballot delegates will be locked, and we should be able to tell if an initial roll call nominee will emerge or if the convention is headed to multiple ballots.
Regardless of the national standing, the new St. Pete Polls survey (1/27-28; 2,590 likely FL Democratic primary voters; online) again finds former Vice President Joe Biden dominating the field. The results project him holding a support figure of 41%, with former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg in second position with 17%. Here, and for the first time since polling began in earnest, both Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) drop into single digits. The new YouGov Florida poll (1/26-28; 591 likely FL Democratic primary voters), however, see things radically differently. YouGov projects Mr. Biden to only a two-point lead, 26-24% over Sen. Sanders, with Sen. Warren trailing with 20%. This poll is consistent with other nationally released data, while St. Pete’s latest offering is not. Cuban-born Miami-Dade County Mayor Carlos Gimenez (R), while endorsing Hillary Clinton in 2016, announced with the Republican establishment’s blessing that he will challenge Rep. Debbie Mucarsel-Powell (D-Miami) later this year. Two Republicans are already in the race, including former Fire Fighters Union president Omar Blanco, but the nomination appears to be Mr. Gimenez’s to lose.
Carlos Gimenez was elected Miami-Dade Mayor in a 2011 election as a result of recalling then-Mayor Carlos Alvarez and re-elected in 2016 after raising over $7 million for the race. Rep. Mucarsel-Powell was first elected in 2018, unseating incumbent Republican Carlos Curbelo, 51-49%. The 26th District was drawn as a Democratic seat but elects a number of Republicans in races within its boundaries. Clearly, Mayor Gimenez is the type of candidate who could win the seat back for the GOP. We can expect this campaign to become a top national target. Former Vice President Joe Biden may be seeing his strongest polling lead in the country from a new Florida Atlantic University survey of the Sunshine State Democratic electorate (1/9-12; 494 FL likely Democratic primary voters). The FAU results find Mr. Biden holding a 42-16-10-7-6-5% margin over Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), and businessman Andrew Yang, respectively. Here, ex-South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg drops all the way down to also-ran status with 3% support.
If this type of ratio were to hold for Mr. Biden, the delegate apportionment would only include he and Sen. Sanders, with the former Vice President clinching almost three-quarters of the state’s major 219 member delegation at the Democratic National Convention. The US Census Bureau officers released their latest population projections in order to measure national population growth for the period between July 1, 2018 and July 1, 2019. The results find the national rate of growth slowing to 0.5%, mostly as a result of decreased immigration. The peak period for the decade came during the July 1, 2014 – July 1, 2015 period when the growth rate registered 0.73%.
With these numbers come the ability to project which states will gain and lose congressional seats in 2020 reapportionment. The national reapportionment will be calculated and announced after the 2020 census is completed. The states will receive their congressional seat quota a year from now, with a release typically coming during the period between Christmas and New Year’s. If current projections prove correct, Texas looks to gain three seats, Florida two, with Arizona, Colorado, Montana, North Carolina, and Oregon each slated to gain one. The losing states look to be Alabama, California, Illinois, Michigan, Minnesota, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and West Virginia. If these projections prove true, California will lose a seat for the first time in history. It’s also realistic that the actual totals could yield a two-seat loss for Illinois or New York, and possibly both. Right now, it appears ten congressional seats will change states, but that number could grow. Usually, the actual numbers tend to differ slightly from the early published projections. As has been the case since the turn of the century, the state of Florida is one of the nation’s bellwether political domains. Therefore, the new Mason-Dixon survey (12/11-16; 625 FL registered voters) about how Sunshine State voters feel about the impeachment process is worthy of notice. A bare majority, 50%, oppose President Trump’s impeachment according to this mid-December data cell. A total of 46% support the impeachment, which is yet another issue over which the Florida electorate splits virtually in half.
A couple of the sample segments are interesting. Voters in all geographic regions of the state generally oppose impeachment, except for those in Southeast Florida, which would support the process by a 56-38% count. Stark differences are present within the genders. Florida women support impeachment, 53-44%, but men oppose, 38-57%. When north Florida GOP candidate Ted Yoho was first running for Congress in 2012, he made a pledge to serve only eight years if elected. Yesterday, on a local radio program, Rep. Yoho announced that he is keeping his pledge and will not seek re-election next year. His move means that now 37 US House seats are open for their next election, 26 currently in the Republican column.
Florida’s 3rd District, anchored in the city of Gainesville, is safely Republican with Rep. Yoho averaging just over 57% of the vote in his two elections within this current district configuration. Republican presidential nominees Donald Trump, Mitt Romney, and John McCain all finished between 54.6 and 56.6% of the vote illustrating very consistent voting patterns. Therefore, the eventual August 25th Republican primary winner will have the inside track toward clinching the general election. |
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