As of May 4, 2016, 28 states have held popular-vote primaries; nine states and one territory have conducted caucus contests, where both parties participated. Two states held mixed elections, where one party conducted a popular vote; the other a caucus. Thus far, the Democrats have participated in 12 caucus contests; the Republicans, 10.
To summarize: A total of 39 states and one territory have completed their 2016 primary process.
After the Indiana primary, the popular vote totals in the 28 voting primaries are:
Clinton 12,242,884 14 wins / 7 seconds
Trump 10,329,397 6 wins / 11 seconds
Sanders 8,955,271 6 wins / 6 seconds
Cruz 6,673,520 1 win / 4 seconds
Kasich 3,649,845 1 win / 0 seconds
Rubio 3,168,147 0 wins / 0 seconds
Caucus state elections work differently than simple popular vote elections, which makes comparing the performance of GOP vs. Democrats in caucus states a little like comparing apples to oranges; the comparisons are not very useful and can be misleading.
For what it’s worth, Bernie Sanders has won 9 Democratic caucus states; Hillary Clinton, 3. On the GOP side, Ted Cruz has won 6 caucus states; Donald Trump, 3; Marco Rubio, 1.
After the Indiana primary yesterday, Ted Cruz and John Kasich dropped out of the race to make Donald Trump the lone candidate for the GOP nomination. Barring an unusual event, Trump will be the GOP candidate in November. He said today that he will pick a Washington insider with close ties to Congress for VP; he says he wants to be able to move legislation through Congress.
Hillary Clinton has not said who she will choose for VP. It is known that she likes Elizabeth Warren, who our Editorial Board has advocated for and endorsed.
Is Trump going to be president of the United States in January? The results so far say no, because Hillary Clinton has demonstrated that she can outperform Trump with those sectors of the electorate essential to victory in past elections.
Some people on the left hope that Bernie Sanders will overtake Clinton and become the nominee, but his numbers show that the electorate is not ready to elect a socialist over a business leader; he can’t win a general election against Donald Trump, not in the United States.
This liability is one reason why 522 of the 561 party-appointed delegates support Clinton. Another, perhaps more important reason, is that Bernie Sanders is a junior senator from a small state (Vermont) who didn’t join the Democratic Party until 2015; he was an independent in Congress, though he tended to vote with Democrats on most issues.
Some party leaders believe he joined the Party for the simple reason that he wanted to run for president; it may have been more personal ambition than love of Party that motivated him. Who knows? He may decide to run as a third party candidate to help Trump defeat Hillary, if he gets angry enough. Then again, he might think he can win a three-way race against the two of them. Stranger things have happened in politics.
Anyway, Donald Trump is an extremely attractive candidate for an electorate that worships celebrity. He is like the poison apple in the garden of Eden. Many Americans—like Eve—may be unable to stop themselves from taking their first bite. As the story in Genesis reveals, that first bite can start a cascade of events, which could ruin America.
Billionaires, like the Bush family, already have too much influence; worse, they live in a bubble, which renders their decision-making into a game by blind-fools. The Bush family, for sure, loves America, but they nearly destroyed it; they certainly unraveled the Middle East and precipitated the financial collapse of 2008.
Trump is surrounded by yes-people; let’s admit the obvious; he doesn’t tolerate dissenting voices very well. When Trump starts making foolish decisions—as he most certainly will—he will have to suppress dissent to carry his asinine visions to fruition. It won’t be a good time for people who think for themselves; it won’t be a good time for diversity. Donald Trump strongly advocates the use of harsh techniques against enemies. Should he turn his contempt on free-speaking Americans who oppose him, we could be in for a rough ride.
If history serves as a reliable guide, one component of the electorate Donald Trump can count on will be the evangelicals. Since they became an organized voting block in the 1970s, right-wing evangelical voters seem to have voted against self-identified Christian candidates more times than not. They opposed Jimmy Carter; they united against Barack Obama; and they are fighting against Hillary Clinton, who stood by her husband after he betrayed her; she continued to love him—something Jesus admonished Christians to do.
Some evangelical voters tend to be legalists; many care nothing about love, forgiveness, charity, or non-violence. They pay lip-service to those qualities, but only when it serves their legalistic views; some could care less. And they will be voting for Trump in droves. Trump says he is honored by the evangelical support he is getting.
From where I’m sitting, Donald Trump seems to represent the New Confederacy. Some of his supporters who I’ve met paste Confederate flags on the back of their trucks and display Old Dixie in their living rooms. I can foresee a time under a Trump presidency (I would say it’s already started) when Americans aren’t going to see black faces on television anymore. We won’t be watching street demonstrations or riots or anything else that might threaten the social fabric on television, either. The technology of suppression is simply too advanced. Trump won’t hesitate to use it.
For people who aren’t directly involved; who watch television and live inside their own bubbles of safety, the world is going to seem like a pretty good place, at first, under a Trump presidency. The droning insects of right-wing media will stop flapping their angry wings; optimism will be projected from every billionaire-controlled media outlet; sighs of relief will be heard throughout the land; and once again the exhilarating drums of war will beat hypnotically as we take on the stragglers around the world who refuse to follow our vision; who refuse to dance in lock-step to our new tune.
It will be an exciting time to be alive, especially for those billionaires who own defense-industry businesses; for those who have a talent for building walls; for those who enjoy controlling and manipulating large groups of (sometimes non-cooperative) people. But will anyone permit me to interrupt this wonderful dream for a reality check?
Bad things happened under similar presidents, like Reagan and the Bushes. Reagan entrenched the power of billionaire families by changing the tax codes; he allowed the wealthy to earn unlimited incomes for the first time; the middle class hasn’t had a raise in pay since, because the wealthy keep the excess profits for themselves.
The wealthy have no tax write-off advantages or other financial incentives to encourage them to invest in their workers; in fact, it’s the opposite. Since the rich are no longer taxed at 92% on the unreasonable part of their unreasonably high incomes, they set aside their windfalls for their own families instead of upgrading their company infrastructures and raising the standard of living for their work-forces; neither do they pay the taxes that would solve so many of our internal problems—like the deterioration of our roads and bridges, our power grids, and the quality of education.
The Bush family took us into wars, which history shows were completely avoidable. The First Gulf War was a living nightmare, in case anyone has forgot. Remember the oil-well fires? They were terrifying. Remember our troops donning gas masks and hazmat suits during the Second Gulf War?
The wealthy refused to pay for these insane escapades, which is why our country can’t shake off its huge debt. We got into these predicaments, because our wealthy folks seem to be out of touch, arrogant, and financially tied to companies who do business with the military. It’s pretty simple, when anyone takes the time to think about it.
Donald Trump has devoted his life to building safe spaces where the wealthy can live large, play hard, gamble, and entertain their friends; nothing is so terribly wrong or unusual about that. But he lives in a part of America that 99.9% of Americans know little or nothing about. He isn’t one of us. He never will be.
We are a freedom loving people who can take care of ourselves. We don’t need billionaire baby-sitters to tell us where to sit and when to use the bathroom. We can fix our country by ourselves, thank you, and we have Mama Clinton to help us do it. She is one of us. She was raised poor and will never be a billionaire.
A billion is one-thousand millions, for anyone not good at math. It is a ridiculous amount of money. Were it a felony to possess a billion dollars, many of the problems caused by greed in this world would disappear over-night. Think about it.
I’m praying that the Good Lord will keep Hillary Clinton safe. I pray for all the candidates; that they and their families will be protected from all harm. It is a courageous act to run for president. Every single candidate has been threatened at one time or another.
Most qualified people won’t run for president. It’s good that a few capable people dare to step up to lead the fight for freedom and fairness. Hillary Clinton is one of those heroic people. She isn’t just another pretty face.
Billy Lee
