Day Three of the Republican National Convention

To quote Chuck Todd "This convention is a mess." 

Senator Ted Cruz carefully neglected to endorse Donald Trump during his speech at this night's convention effectively taking the momentum out of Vice Presidential Nominee Mike Pence's speech which occurred later on in the night. It was a bold move for Senator Cruz to do so so late in the game when all of the other Republican Primary candidates had already committed to endorsing whichever candidate was eventually chosen by their party. In essence, Cruz stuck to his classic filibuster style and boycotted what he disapproved of. Will this hurt the Trump campaign? Well if we look back in history to nights one and two of this convention, it seems as if these speakers can and will say anything and get away with very little damage done to their own public image or the image of Trump and his campaign. However, the bigger question seems to be 'why did the Trump campaign let Cruz speak for so long if they knew how long he was going to speak for as well as the fact that he would not be directly endorsing Trump anywhere in the speech?' Does this mean Cruz really does not believe that Trump should be the next President of the United States? Or is Cruz simply trying to set up his candidacy in 2020?

Meanwhile Governor Chris Christie's speech from the second night of the convention gained steam during the news cycle on Wednesday for his strong critique of everything Hillary Clinton handled during her tenure as Secretary of State. Some have been saying that this was his audition to be Trump's pick for Attorney General or even a potential nomination to the Supreme Court for Antonin Scalia's absent seat. The 30 second clip that has been circulating from Christie's speech is most notably when he asked the audience on the convention floor if Hillary was "Guilty or Not Guilty?" To which the audience began to chant back "Lock her up! Lock her up!" This clip and many more from Mike Pence's first national speech as the Vice Presidential Nominee will obviously make their rounds on the upcoming news cycles, but rather than go into more detail on those slightly more serious issues let's take a look at this...

Saturday Night Live's Weekend Update anchors Colin Jost and Michael Che did a special edition of Weekend Update tonight with the only and only Notorious RBG: Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg! If you didn't stay up until 12:00 EST check back in a few hours where I will try to put up a link to this hilarious clip. Plus, stay tuned for next week's Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia when they will produce a second special edition of Weekend Update! 

Politics Took a Holiday

Or more accurately, I took a holiday from politics for the past few months. But that holiday has come to an end because America is embarking on a grand political adventure over the next two weeks.....

The Republican and Democratic Conventions!

These conventions will work to nominate Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton as the Republican and Democratic runners for president, respectively. Thousands of delegates, reporters, politicians, and who knows who else will descend upon Cleveland and Philadelphia to participate in this uniquely American political process. And I'll observe all of the madness from a comfortable distance in Upstate New York.

Hillary Clinton's Bases of Support

Defining a candidate's bases of support are one of the most important parts of a campaign because these groups of people are the ones that the candidate can rely on to vote for them during an election. Each candidate has a different base of support based on that candidate's views on policies, social problems, and their background. Normally, each party also has distinct coalition that will vote for any candidate in their respective Republican and Democratic Parties. For instance the Republican Party coalition has traditionally been composed of Southern whites, Evangelicals, Veterans, men, married women, voters who are older, and voters who live in the Central Plains region of the United States. On the Democratic side, minorities such as African Americans and Hispanics, secular voters, members of the LGBT community, single women, voters who are younger, and voters who live on the East and West Coasts of the United States. While these demographics are changing with every election, for the most part these coalitions have remained the same for this year's Presidential Election.

As a candidate running on the Democratic Party ticket, Hillary Clinton is tapping in to these traditional bases of support to strengthen her run for the presidency as well as show that she has the ability to attract voters from all across the country and from a variety of backgrounds. One statement that she has continuously made regarding this idea in recent weeks is that "I've gotten more votes than anybody running on either side" from a "wide, broad base" as she recently announced on CBS's Face the Nation with John Dickerson. By stating these claims, Clinton hopes to continue to add to her supporters as voters realize that she will likely be the Democratic Nominee and potentially the next President of the United States.

According to exit polls from CNN Politics and the most recent New York Primary held on April 19th, this "wide, broad base" of supporters comes from women, voters over the age of 30, and voters who identify with the Democratic Party. While the New York Primary is a closed primary, meaning that only people who have registered with a political party prior to the election can vote, there is still a substantial amount of data that can be gathered from these polls. For instance, Clinton won the women's vote 67% compared to Sanders 37%; the African American vote 75% to 25%; and the Latino vote 64% to 36%. However, when it came to education and income levels, voters were almost evenly split between the two candidates with Clinton beating Sanders in these areas by an average of 10 points rather than something more drastic like 20 or 30 points.

The large margin that Clinton has been able to secure among minority voters echoes the large bases of support that President Obama achieved when he ran for president in both 2008 and 2012. Obama's coalition was made up of younger voters who may have never voted before and minority voters who tended to be overshadowed by other candidates in the race. Clinton has latched on to this idea by promoting her campaign as a continuation of Obama's presidency in some ways, in order to gain support from his supporters.

However, Clinton has had trouble gaining support from specific groups during this election cycle, most notably younger voters under the age of 30. These voters are the voters that helped push Obama to his wins in 2008 and 2012 because they had never voted before and were excited to become a part of the political process and use new technologies such as Twitter to get their opinions heard. These voters tend to overwhelmingly support Sanders as can be seen in many exit polls where Sanders has beaten Clinton by over 30 points when it comes to voters under 30. Clinton has also struggled to gain support from white, rural men and may also be struggling to get votes from unions. Unions are traditionally a large part of the Democratic base, and still are, they just tend to favor Sanders over Clinton in certain cases. One of Sanders' key issues has been income inequality which many unions face as they negotiate contracts for their workers in order to raise wages so that their workers can support themselves. While Sanders has said that he strongly supports the $15 minimum wage movement, Clinton has said that she supports a movement to raise the minimum wage to $12, a number not quite as extreme as $15. Though these positions seem similar to the outside eye, Clinton may need to strengthen her support of an increase in minimum wage as it gets closer to the general election so she can gain support from Sanders' supporters if he does not get the nomination in July.

Clinton will need to continue to work on gaining support from Sanders' voters in the coming months in order to ensure that they vote for her rather than voting for the Republican Nominee or not voting at all. The following image is from NBC News as part of their coverage after the New York Primary which shows what voters under 30, some of Sanders strongest supporters, would do if Clinton was the Democratic Nominee. While it is a great sign that 45% would definitely vote for her, Clinton must work to gain support from those who say they would probably vote for her and those who would not vote for her. Gaining support from these voters means that there is a smaller chance for Trump to convert these voters to his campaign and lose the race for the Democrats. To do this Clinton must continue to tout her leadership experience and showcase how her qualities would make her the best fit to be the next president. She will also need to make sure to avoid any gaffes and work on the character that her campaign gives off so that voters can see she is more honest and trustworthy than the media tends to portray her as.

Cadidate Standings in Terms of Delegates and Polls

After 33 primaries and caucuses in the 2016 Presidential Election, the race to the nomination is more than halfway done. Leading on the Republican side is Donald Trump with 743 delegates, followed by Ted Cruz with 517, and John Kasich with 143. On the Democratic side Hillary Clinton leads with 1,749 while Bernie Sanders has 1,061 delegates. With just 882 delegates left for the Republicans to distribute and 1,955 delegates for the Democrats, there is still a fair amount of uncertainty surrounding who the nominees will be for each party.

On the Republican side, the nominee must claim 1,237 delegates in order to win on the first ballot. While Trump has been the front runner for most of the race, it is unclear whether he will reach the 1,237 benchmark before the nominating convention in July. As more candidates on the Republican side have dropped out, support for Cruz has increased and so has the number of delegates he has been receiving. Cruz now has the possibility to unseat Trump and claim the nomination for himself if he continues to gain momentum as the last few states vote in the primaries. Cruz's commanding win in Wisconsin on Tuesday showed that he has the capability to handily defeat Trump; in fact, he is the only candidate who has repeatedly been able to do this. Polls from Real Clear Politics show that Trump is beating Cruz by just 5 points nationwide 40% to 35% respectively, while Kasich is in a distant third with 20% (McClatchy/Marist). Kasich has not given up hope on the possibility that he could be the next Republican nominee however. If neither Trump nor Cruz have reached the 1,237 delegates by the convention, Kasich could have the opportunity to win the nomination after the first round of voting at the convention. Though Trump, Cruz, and other leaders in the Republican party have called for Kasich to resign from the race, he continues to stay in, most likely as to counter their extreme ideologies to his more traditional, moderate ones.

On the Democratic side, the nominating process has also stayed competitive long after many political pundits thought it would. Sanders has been able to rise from an unknown candidate to one of the most prominent political figures in just 11 months after announcing his bid for the presidency. While it seemed that Clinton would easily defeat Sanders in the first few races, she has not been able to compete with the amount of grassroots support that young Americans have been showing Sanders. The most recent poll from McClatchy/Marist shows that Sanders is leading Clinton by 2 points, 49% to 47%, respectively. However, other polls show that Clinton is still leading the race over Sanders, anywhere from 6 points to 18 points ahead (Pew Research, Public Policy Polling). While the tightening of polls increases the confidence of Sanders supporters, it is still highly unlikely that he will be able to gain the Democratic nomination before the convention. He trails Clinton by almost 700 delegates with 400 or so of those delegates being Super Delegates. These Super Delegates are leaders of the Democratic party and include representatives from Congress who are likely to continue to support Clinton because she is the establishment candidate on the Democratic side. For Sanders to convince these Super Delegates to shift their support from Clinton he would need a win from a major Democratic state such as New York, which could potentially happen, to show these Super Delegates he has what it takes to win.

Looking forward to the end of the Presidential Primary season it is incredible to see how much has changed since the first votes were cast in Iowa in February. Both fields of candidates have been narrowed down considerably, though it is still unclear who each party's nominee will be. While Trump and Clinton still hold leads over their rivals, the commanding lead they once had has almost evaporated. Polls are ever changing and known to inaccurately predict winners, like Sanders victory in Michigan in March, so they must be carefully analyzed and taken with a grain of salt as the campaigns march forward to the conventions and general election.