Doing math on delegates refigures presidential race

This is a presidential political season for all players.

The idealistic can dive into issues from health care to tax relief. If you prefer political bombast over substance, Donald Trump is sure to entertain. There are as many angles as there are Republicans running for president.

But what if you just want the hard numbers, no polling projections, no pundit speculation or tempered analysis — just the facts?

What you want are delegate counts. Consider this a stripped-down primer on what it takes to win a presidential nomination.

Without the numbers upfront, it can get confusing.

For instance, after reading the political stories coming from the Iowa caucus, it would be easy to think Texas Sen. Ted Cruz cleaned up and smashed both Trump and Florida Republican Sen. Marco Rubio.

Nope, The Associated Press delegate count coming out of Iowa is Cruz with eight delegates, Trump and Rubio are one back, tied with seven delegates each.

Republican presidential candidates need 1,237 delegate votes out of 2,472 to win the nomination at the convention this summer in Cleveland. Democrats need 2,382 out of 4,763 to win in Philadelphia.

To complicate matters, the Democrats have delegates and superdelegates casting national convention ballots.

Delegates are selected at the party caucus; superdelegates are Democratic governors, U.S. senators and House members, plus each state’s national committee members and “distinguished party leaders.”

According to tallies from the AP and the FiveThirty Eight delegate tracker, Hillary Clinton has picked up 380 superdelegate votes along with her 23 delegate votes from the Iowa caucus, giving her an estimated grand total of 403 delegates. Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders has an estimated 11 superdelegates along with his 21 Iowa votes.

The moral of the superdelegate story is that after being secretary of state, a New York U.S. senator, first lady of the United States and wife of the governor of Arkansas, you do collect some favors from the rich, powerful and superdelegates.

Hawaii’s exercise in presidential politics happens in March. The GOP caucus is first. On March 8, 16 of Hawaii’s 19 GOP delegates will be pledged to candidates according to the votes from the precinct caucuses. Only GOP party members may vote. Hawaii’s GOP national committee members and the party chairman also go to the convention as unpledged delegates.

The Democrats meet on March 26 and will decide on 25 of its 34 delegates at their statewide caucus. The remaining nine delegates are officially unpledged, although they are free to endorse before the caucus. Hawaii’s four-person congressional delegation, for instance, is unpledged with three of the four saying they will support Clinton. Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, because of her position as a vice chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee is bound by DNC rules to remain impartial until Democrats select a nominee.

So by carefully reading just delegate counts, you can make a good argument that despite Trump’s domination in the polls, the GOP presidential race is still up for grabs; and while Hillary and Bernie appear to be battling for every percentage point, Clinton is close to locking up the nomination.

Correction: U.S. Rep. Tulsi Gabbard has not said who she supports for the Democratic presidential nomination. An earlier version of this story and in the Feb. 7 print edition reported that all four members of the Hawaii congressional delegation had said they would support Hillary Clinton.

Richard Borreca writes on politics on Sundays, Tuesdays and Fridays. Reach him at rborreca@staradvertiser.com.