by Sandy » Mon Apr 25, 2016 9:15 pm
The primary in Pennsylvania is tomorrow, and I will vote for Bernie Sanders. Well, I will vote for the delegates who are pledged to vote for Bernie Sanders. On the Democratic side, the ballot at least identifies who these individuals are, and they are assigned based on how the vote comes out, for the most part.
Pennsylvania's Republican primary is mostly a beauty contest. The primary voters get to choose up to three delegates from among the hundreds who are running for about 50 spaces at the national convention. About a third are allocated to the candidates based on the vote total in the congressional districts where they ran. The other two thirds can vote for whoever they want to. So while Trump will probably get as much as 45% of the vote in PA tomorrow, he'll probably only pick up about 10 out of the 50 delegates, because the other two candidates have in-state campaign workers, and the delegates that get elected are either Cruz or Kasich supporters.
It is looking more like Hillary will win the nomination. And honestly, realistically, I don't see any path to a Republican victory in November. Perhaps there's an outside chance, but if one of the three still in the primaries winds up with the nomination, they'll lose a landslide. Hillary will adopt a lot of Sanders' idealism, and some of his agenda, and will, as Obama did in 2008, be able to absorb the majority of his followers. Sanders will triumph with influence, and perhaps with a cabinet post, perhaps Treasury secretary.
If Trump is on the ballot, Hillary will have a mandate, and most likely a two to four seat majority in the senate. That would be a satisfactory ending to all of this.