Surprisingly competitive races for the Republican and Democratic presidential nominations could turn Pennsylvania into a nominating player for both parties for the first time.
The odds aren’t great that Pennsylvania’s April 26 primary election matters in picking both nominees — but they’re better than ever before.
“It such a strange cycle right now, the political winds and currents,” said Chris Borick, Ph.D., a political science professor and director of the polling institute at Muhlenberg College. “I just wouldn’t be shocked if we are relevant this time and maybe really relevant. ... It could really be pivotal, not only meaningful, but pivotal, given our size and our fairly late date if these things carry on that far.”
Pennsylvania usually matters little in nominating presidential candidates because its primary happens so late in the process. Often, one candidate in both parties has piled up such a huge delegate lead by the time Pennsylvania’s primary happens that the state’s primary only confirms the leader’s inevitable nomination.
The last two presidential elections altered the pattern.
In 2008, then-U.S. Sen. Barack Obama had a narrow and ultimately durable lead in delegates, but still too few to sew up the Democratic presidential nomination by the time the state’s primary rolled around. He and then-U.S. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton spent six weeks criss-crossing the state. Clinton eventually won here rather easily, but Obama won the nomination.
In 2012, the state’s Republican primary almost mattered. Pennsylvania’s former U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum stayed competitive into April, but ended his candidacy two weeks before the state’s primary when polls here showed him in a virtual tie with former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, who easily won the state’s primary and the nomination.
Never has Pennsylvania’s presidential primary mattered for both parties at the same time.
Democrats
For 2016 to make history, a whole lot has to happen.
Both parties decide their nominations based on who gains a majority of the delegates who will vote at their nominating conventions.
Democrats still haven’t settled on exactly how many delegates they will have, but the national party’s estimate as of Friday was 4,763, which means a candidate needs 2,382 delegates to win the nomination. By Pennsylvania, Democratic voters in states allocated almost 3,000 delegates will have voted on a nominee so someone could clinch or come close to clinching.
Most conventional wisdom has Clinton, the former secretary of state, dispatching Vermont U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders rather quickly, either piling up an insurmountable delegate lead or earning the majority necessary to clinch well before Pennsylvania.
Supporters of Sanders have two major reasons for optimism: Iowa and New Hampshire.
Just days before Christmas, Sanders trailed Clinton in Iowa by 18 percentage points. In the most recent Des Moines Register/Bloomberg News poll, taken between Jan. 7 and Sunday Jan. 10, Clinton led by only 2 points. In New Hampshire, polls generally have Sanders up, though one recent poll had Clinton ahead.
If he wins both, Sanders heads into Nevada on Feb. 20 and South Carolina on Feb. 27 with real momentum.
Winning Iowa and New Hampshire eventually turned then-U.S. Sen. John Kerry into the Democratic nominee in 2004, but in 2008 Obama won Iowa and Clinton won New Hampshire. Other states made Obama the nominee.
G. Terry Madonna, Ph.D., the pollster and political analyst at Franklin & Marshall College, expects other states to make the difference again, this time for Clinton.
Because Democrats allocate delegates in all state by proportion of a candidate’s vote, “there’s an outside chance” Sanders can keep the race competitive, but he must prove he’s competitive beyond Iowa and New Hampshire.
On March 1, known as Super Tuesday, 13 states or territories with 1,034 delegates — many in the South — have Democratic primaries or caucuses. It was Super Tuesday that Obama seized his ultimately indestructible lead in the 2008 primaries. This time, Clinton is better positioned to open up the big lead, Madonna said.
“Once you go to the South, do you really think southern primaries and caucuses are going to be kind to Bernie Sanders?” Madonna said. “I don’t think so.”
He and Borick agree Clinton’s superior standing with black and Latino voters gives her a huge advantage in southern states.
If Sanders starts winning in the South, look out.
“If he wins there, all bets are off,” Borick said. “We’re in a different dynamic all together and she’s in a world of trouble.”
Pennsylvania becomes more than an afterthought.
Republicans
“I think the Republican side holds the greatest potential for a really engaging and meaningful primary,” Borick said.
The Republican nominee must obtain 1,237 of 2,472 available delegates. By the Pennsylvania primary, 1,686 Republican delegates will be decided, again more than enough to win the nomination.
Businessman Donald Trump and Texas U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz are locked in a tight battle in Iowa. Trump continues to dominate in New Hampshire and most other states. A lot depends on what happens March 15.
Under Republican rules, the 25 primaries and caucuses before then must allocate their delegates proportionally, which means allocation based on vote totals in each state. Assuming 12 Republican candidates remain in the race — a huge assumption — all the candidates could gain some delegates, preventing the frontrunner from winning enough to clinch. So the race could still be unsettled on March 15.
That day, six states have primaries, including winner-takes-all-the-delegate primaries in Ohio, home of candidate Gov. John Kasich, and Florida, home of U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio. The winner-take-all states mean someone could open a huge lead.
“The real situation is the crowded field. If Trump can’t get more than 35 percent, ... if they (the other candidates) hang in and chew up 3 and 4 percent, six, seven candidates, you’ve got a situation where they could end up with Pennsylvania (having) an outside chance (of being relevant),” Madonna said. “Do I think it’s likely to happen, no. Could it happen? Yes.”
Anti-Trump sentiment could mix “with lots of energy for Trump” and extend the Republican race, Borick said.
“And if it did, my gosh, what a interesting April it would be in the commonwealth,” he said. “If that show came to town, with Pennsylvania’s fairly large number of delegates and competition, it would be spectacular from an electoral perspective.”
State Republican Party chairman Rob Gleason, who attended the latest debate in South Carolina on Thursday, said most Republicans there think the fight will end before Pennsylvania.
“But who knows?” he said. “If all these candidates, they all stay in it until the end, there’s no way that anyone is probably going to have enough ... We could matter, absolutely.”