What You Need to Know Before Next Week’s Primary
Hillary Clinton will take her sizable lead over Bernie Sanders to New York next week, where 291 delegates are up for grabs.
April 12, 2016
Political candidates from both sides of the aisle continued to aggressively canvass New York State this week, signaling the impending presidential primary. Whether you feel the Bern or want to make America great again, here’s what you need to know before heading to the polls.
1. The New York State Primary election will be held Tuesday, April 19. The deadline for registering to vote was March 25, so you if you forgot to register (like Donald Trump’s children), you’re out of luck.
2. New York State is a closed primary, which means voters can only place ballots for candidates within their declared party. This may hurt Bernie Sanders, whose voter base includes many independents not affiliated with Democratic or Republican parties.
3. For the GOP, 95 delegates are up for grabs, with 81 allocated in a winner-take-all manner by district. Eleven delegates are known as “at-large delegates,” who are all awarded to the statewide winner along with the remaining three “automatic” delegates if the candidate wins a statewide majority.
Meanwhile, 291 delegates are available to the Democratic Party candidates. A total of 163 delegates will be allocated by district winner, while an additional 84 will be granted to the overall state winner. The remaining 44 delegates are known as “superdelegates,” and they endorse a specific candidate regardless of the primary outcome.
4. Donald Trump is the clear front-runner in the Republican field, with a total of 743 delegates going into the New York primary. As 1,237 are needed to secure the nomination, Trump is in a strategic position to continue pulling away from the other two candidates if he does well in his home state. As New York offers the second-largest delegate share of the remaining 16 states to hold primaries, securing as many delegates as possible will be paramount for Ted Cruz’s and John Kasich’s campaigns.
The Democratic candidates are locked in a tighter race, as Sanders’ delegate count is holding steady at 1,037 compared to Hillary Clinton’s 1,287. However, Clinton has already secured the majority of superdelegates with 469 and counting, out of the possible 712. As 2,382 delegates are needed to secure the Democratic nomination, Sanders may have a shot at closing the delegate gap in the upcoming primary.
5. Candidates from both parties have drawn criticism in their attempts to appeal to New Yorkers. Ted Cruz’s previous comments dismissing “New York values” seem to be coming back to bite him, while Sanders and Clinton had blunders of their own last week.Trump will host two more events in New York in Albany and Rome before heading to Pennsylvania, while Sanders will come to Washington Square Park on Wednesday afternoon.
Email Anne Cruz and Lexi Faunce at [email protected]
Gary2278 • Apr 13, 2016 at 7:07 am
Here’s a video from a Colorado Trump delegate ejected from the process…
https://www.facebook.com/larry.lindseyphd/videos/10206019645066642/
Gary2278 • Apr 12, 2016 at 9:52 pm
One of the reasons I support Trump is in the hopes that Americans become more privy to the corruption we have. When party activists in Colorado can choose delegates without any input from the voters, and those activists are establishment supporters, there is nothing that will persuade those activists to pick any delegates who support an insurgent candidate. The entire process is designed to stop insurgent candidates (which is what Trump is).
Of course, the exploiter-funded pundits who call Trump a “whiner” and a “loser” because he didn’t get any of the Colorado delegates fail to mention that Trump never had a chance to get any of them in the first place as an insurgent. The rigged process was put in place to help ensure America’s exploiters maintain power. The exploiter-funded media puppets are saying that what happened was perfectly fine because the committee rules enabled them to cancel their election from the outset and then give the delegates to whomever they wanted (RIP democracy).
If Kasich were the current viable anti-insurgent candidate rather than Cruz, they would have given Kasich all of the Colorado delegates instead of Cruz. Despite that, Cruz is trying to convince people that it was his “superior organization” that deprived Trump and Kasich of getting even a single delegate…LOL. Three cheers for America, our exploiter-controlled media, our rigged election process, our two-faced politicians, and the ignorant people who don’t question any of it!
Gary2278 • Apr 12, 2016 at 9:51 pm
Trump has benefited from a corrupt system and understands what must be done to fix it. It would be far easier for him to just continue buying politicians if he wanted to keep taking advantage rather than running for POTUS. As such, I have to believe he actually wants to help America more than he wants to continue taking advantage. He made his riches and now I think he wants to focus on his legacy, and wants to be remembered for righting America’s ship (who cares if that’s ego driven; I would happily help build him a statue if he succeeds). Consequently, those who want to continue exploiting are scared and doing everything they can to stop him; they are even hiring thugs through craigslist to disrupt his rallies.
Gary2278 • Apr 12, 2016 at 9:50 pm
If you think Trump is a racist who sees any color other than green, you might be a gullible fool subject to exploiter-funded media influence. Take a look at his life and career; he has always hired and worked with people of all walks of life.
If you think Megyn Kelly isn’t an exploiter (establishment) tool who tried to take down Trump, and you think Trump is a misogynist because of the bloodlust comments he made regarding her (while making bloodlust comments about Chris Wallace at the same time) then you might be a gullible fool subject to exploiter-funded media influence. Just like any true capitalist, Trump states “I’m just oblivious to a person’s gender” when dealing with people.
If you think Trump is an isolationist because he wants fair trade, you might be a gullible fool subject to exploiter-funded media influence. “Free-trade” comes at a huge cost to workers in developed countries! The end result is that America will produce nothing and will provide no services outside our borders because services and products will always be cheaper from poorer countries. Anyone who says anything else concerning free-trade is either lying, or is completely clueless!
90% of the cocaine here comes through our southern border; 80% of the meth and heroin here comes through our southern border! If you think Trump, who continually says “I love Mexican people,” is a xenophobe because he wants to secure our southern border, you might be a gullible fool subject to exploiter-funded media influence. Trump’s negative comments were targeted at a subset of illegal immigrants; NOT Mexicans! Illegal immigration is destroying our society (illegal immigrant children are almost always below grade level so teachers have to spend most of their time teaching at that level which hurts our children; illegal immigration keeps wages low; and the drugs from south of our border are ruining our children’s lives).
If you think Trump wants to punish women for having abortions, you might be a gullible fool subject to exploiter-funded media influence. Trump said he made a gaffe during convoluted conversations about hypothetical situations. He has clarified that in the real world he would like to see abortion regulations left up to each state. Making gaffes is human, and having a politician willing to engage in off the cuff conversations without consulting an army of advisers beforehand is refreshing.
If you think Trump is ignorant because he thinks it might be more pragmatic for Japan to have a nuke rather than having 54,000 U.S. troops stationed there at our expense, you might be a gullible fool subject to exploiter-funded media influence. The simple fact is that nothing ensures sovereignty like having a nuke. No country with a nuke has been or ever will be invaded. We would have never invaded Iraq if they had a nuke; in fact, the best evidence that we knew they didn’t really have any WMDs was the fact we invaded them. The 54,000 troops we have in Japan are absolutely no deterrent for North Korea, China, or anyone else; what deters them is the fact we have nukes. Furthermore, what would happen to Japan if they can’t defend themselves and we go bankrupt over the next decade or so?
Gary2278 • Apr 12, 2016 at 9:44 pm
The following message is brought to you by Puppets for the Establishment Parasites (PEP), who want to encourage you to let them finish off America so they can move on to their next host…
“You let us get this far…throw the red pill in the trash; stop trying to struggle against the hypnosis now and let us take the last few drops of blood…it will all be over soon”
“And please remember that free trade helps America; illegal immigration helps America; policing the world is America’s moral obligation; super PACs are free speech to help poor unwitting candidates; there are no paid protesters; the news media we fund is unbiased; lobbyists are good; politicians and bureaucrats cannot be bought; your election process is not rigged; those idiotic concerns about the debt and bubbles are unfounded; our education system is the best; your privacy is always protected; the war in Iraq was necessary; Russia is evil; your government listens to you…anyone who disagrees with this reality is a lying, xenophobic, isolationist, ignorant, fascist, misogynistic, racist, terroristic, nutjob!”
Gary2278 • Apr 12, 2016 at 9:41 pm
Super-PACs MUST be banned! They give a few wealthy exploiters the ability to shape our entire political system; they allow for absurdly unequal representation! The people and corporations funding these PACs have acquired their wealth from selling out America through political favors, endless wars, unfair trade deals, exploiting foreign labor, exploiting illegal labor within our borders, creating insurmountable debt for our children, and maintaining a rigged election process that ensures nothing will change. Super-PACs are a direct conflict of interest and an absolute corrupting force!
In my opinion, any candidate who doesn’t demand their super-PACs disband in the name of democracy and the people is a flat out TRAITOR to America! Exploiter puppets Clinton and Cruz will never do this like Trump and Sanders have; instead, they will continue feigning powerlessness and ignorance regarding super-PACs!
If someone with Trump’s resources can’t run without being shredded by exploiter-funded super-PACs and media pundits, how does someone like me or you have a chance? The answer is that, unless we are lackeys like Clinton and Cruz, whom those same exploiters also fund, we don’t! The process is rigged; you can watch a great example of how the media takes things out of context and falsely demonizes non-controlled candidates like Trump by searching for and viewing “The Untruth about Donald Trump” video.
Richard Geiger • Apr 12, 2016 at 2:15 pm
WHY COLLEGE STUDENTS SHOULD VOTE FOR BERNIE SANDERS
During this political season of 2016, I have lost count of how many times the presidential candidates have referred to the greatness of America. One politician says he wants to make the country “great again”. Another says that the country is great now but that it can be even “greater” if we elect her as President.
Question: How do they define “great”? And great for whom? It was probably a great place to live before the first Europeans “discovered” it. Since then, it has never been as great for the descendants of the original Americans*. Was it ever great for the kidnapped Africans brought here as slaves? Is it great for their descendants such as the non-Hispanic Black males who were “incarcerated at a rate more than 6 times higher than white non-Hispanic males” in 2009? “One in every 300 black females was incarcerated compared to about 1 in every 1,099 white females…”* Is the country “great” for them? Is it great for those hundreds of thousands of children* who will be victims of abuse this year?
The politicians that refer to the “greatness” of America are not referring to those Americans that have been and are being abused and disadvantaged. They are most likely referring to the economy. A great economy, in their view, is one in which the top 1% of earners continue to get a larger piece of the pie. For them, making the country “great again” means a return to the robber baron period* in which there were fewer limits on how much money the wealthiest could accumulate. To make a great country even “greater” is a recognition that the top 1% are increasing their wealth, but that it could be happening even faster. If you are not a member of that 1%, you may not care for the politicians’ concept of national greatness.
So what is true greatness? Our country consists of 300+ million four-legged stools-one stool possessed by every American citizen from birth. Each of the four legs of every stool represents an individual right, namely the rights to life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness, and benefiting from the Common Good (see definition below). Although the legs of each citizen’s stool are the same length, some are stronger than others. The strength of each person’s stool legs depends on whether the citizens’ inalienable rights opportunities, that is, the actualization of their rights, are being threatened or prohibited.
If a country needs to be strong in order to be great; if greatness demands justice and freedom from abuse, then every one of the 1200+ million stool legs must be strong in order for the United States to be truly great.
Which presidential nominee would be most likely to make America greater? What do they bring to the table? Clinton and Cruz offer business as usual, pro-Wall Street, non-substantive promises of “improvements” and claims that they would be better than Sanders or Trump. Trump, while non-traditional, brings a bulldozer. To get the bulldozer to the table, it will have to demolish the building in which the table rests. I would describe these presidential contenders’ concept of American greatness as a strong pillar supporting the oversized stool of the top 1% of earners.
Bernie Sanders brings a peaceful revolution to the table. I see Bernie as the only hope for the survival of the Republic*. If Trump gets elected, the Plutocrats will put the final nail in the coffin holding the American Republic. If Cruz or Clinton wins, the demise of the Republic, while more subtle, will still be inevitable. That is why, if one cares about the country as a whole, it makes no sense to vote for anyone other than Bernie. If Sanders doesn’t win, the American people will have surrendered complete control of their lives to the large corporations and the wealthiest Americans. Please give your vote and endorsement to Bernie.
*For fact sources and definitions of terms, go to http://www.gobernie.blogspot.com.
Thank you,
Richard W. Geiger
[email protected]