The Last March Primaries

Tuesday, March 22 and Saturday, March 26 mark the last primaries for the month of March. The Republicans have two while the Democrats have six.

First, a little house cleaning. The vote has finally come in from Democrats Abroad and Bernie Sanders has his most decisive win yet. He won the vote 69-31% with Bernie picking up 9 delegates to Clinton's 4.

The overall delegate count now stands at Clinton 1,143 to Bernie 834.

On to the primaries. For the Republicans, the have Arizona and Utah. This will be the first true test for Trump after Rubio left the campaign last week becoming the first major vote getter to drop out.

In Arizona it looks like the candidate that benefited the most from Rubio's exit was actually Kasich. The average shows Trump with a lead over Cruz and Kasich 37-20-16. In the last poll, Kasich was up to 17 which is the highest he has polled in Arizona. Just a few weeks ago he was in the single digits.

In Utah, both Cruz and Kasich were the benefactors while Trump was actually hurt. In the average Cruz leads Trump and Kasich 53-12-4. However, in the last poll to come out before the vote and after Rubio left the race Cruz leads Kasich in second and then Trump 53-29-11. In the last poll before Rubio left the race Cruz was in first but Trump was in second followed by Rubio and Kasich 42-21-17-13. I am hopeful that we get a new poll during the day tomorrow from Dan Jones and Associates as they have done the most polling. I wonder if a new poll from them would line up with the most recent poll out. We will either find out if they release a poll or find out after the caucus.

There are a total of 98 delegates at stake Arizona's 58 delegates being winner take all. The polls in Arizona have all shown a comfortable lead for Trump in most polls and I expect that to be the case in the primary. There has been no clear cut leader in Utah so there is really no telling how that will come out.

On the Democratic side we will see Arizona, Idaho, and Utah on Tuesday and Alaska, Hawaii, and Washington on Saturday.

In Arizona, Clinton leads Bernie 50-24 in the average. However, most polls have shown a very high number of undecided voters including 26% in the last poll. Arizona is a closed primary so there will be no Democrats casting votes on the Republican side as we saw in Ohio.

In Idaho, there has been a grand total of one poll done in the state and it had Sanders up 47-45 last month. Idaho is a caucus state so expect a very close result.

In Utah, Sanders currently has a lead of 52-44. This is a complete reversal from a month ago when Clinton led 51-44. The same pollster has done the polling in this state but it has been pretty far apart. Utah is another caucus state so we will probably not have a victor decided until late Tuesday night.

The Saturday contests are all caucuses with late closes, one being in Pacific time zone (Washington) Alaskan time and Hawaii time.

In Washington, the last poll was done in May of last year when Elizabeth Warren's name was still being floated so there is absolutely no indication on how this race will fare.

There has been no polling in Hawaii, so again no indication of how the race may turn out.

In Alaska one poll has been performed in January with Clinton holding a 44-41 lead.

The Saturday caucuses will be very interesting to see the results.

There are a total of 321 delegates. Certainly enough for either Sanders to close the gap or make it that much easier for Clinton to declare the race to be over.

UPDATE 10:21 PM:

Donald Trump has been declared the winner of Arizona claiming all 58 delegates. No winner has been declared on the Democratic side but Hillary is up about 60-37%.

UPDATE 10:32 PM:

Hillary Clinton has been declared the winner in Arizona. I will not have an update on delegates until tomorrow.

UPDATE 12:37 AM:

Bernie Sanders has been declared the winner in Utah. Right now he is up huge 75-24%. Ted Cruz is also up big in Utah over Kasich and Trump (though the race has not been called), 59-22-19%. Right now the main question is whether or not Cruz will be able to stay above that 50%+1 threshold to take all the delegates.

It should also be noted that the Idaho results have not been released as there are caucus sites still voting. However, the county that Boise is in has reported their results and Bernie Sanders has won that county 80-20%.

The Idaho Democratic Chair said shortly after midnight that they would not release official results for possibly two hours. I am not staying up that late so I will report the rest of the results in the morning with an update on delegates.

UPDATE 9:30 AM:

Bernie Sanders ended up winning Idaho as well last night. The most updated results show that Bernie won Utah by a 80-20% and Idaho by a 78-21% margin.

Cruz also won Utah and more than cleared the 50%+1 threshold taking a lot of the wind out of the sails for Donald Trump last night, taking all 40 delegates.

DELEGATE UPDFATE:

Republicans - 58 delegates

Trump - 47%

58 delegates

Cruz - 25%

Kasich - 10%

Democrats - 75 delegates

Clinton - 58%

41 delegates (45 delegates)

44 delegates (48 delegates)

Sanders - 40%

26 delegates (37 delegates)

30 delegates (41 delegates

Others - 2%

8 delegates unassigned

1 delegates unassigned

UTAH:

Republicans - 40 delegates

Cruz - 69%

40 delegates (40 delegates)

Kasich - 17%

Trump - 14%

(58 delegates)

Democrats - 33 delegates

Sanders - 80%

24 delegates (59 delegates)

26 delegates (67 delegates)

Clinton - 20%

5 delegates (50 delegates)

6 delegates (54 delegates)

Others - 4%

4 delegates unassigned

1 delegate unassigned

Idaho:

Democrats - 23 delegates

Sanders - 78%

17 delegates (84 delegates)

Clinton - 21%

5 delegates (59 delegates)

Others - 1%

1 delegate unassigned

OVERALL THROUGH 3/23:

Republicans:

Trump - 731 delegates

Cruz - 451 delegates

Others - 184 delegates

Kasich - 143 delegates

Difference between 1st and 2nd - 280

Democrats -

Clinton - 1,198

Sanders - 909

Difference - 289

Delegates left - 2,129

The Republicans are finished the month of May, the Democrats still have Washington, Alaska, and Hawaii on Saturday.

SATURDAY'S CAUCUSES:

There is still virtually no polling coming out of Washington, Alaska, or Hawaii for tomorrow's caucuses. Nothing in Hawaii, the last poll in Alaska was in January showing Hillary with a 4 point lead. Washington is the big surprise as the last poll there was last May and had Elizabeth Warren in second place.

Bernie Sanders is favored in all three. The caucuses are closed and when a primary or caucus is closed it actually tends to favor Hillary. If Sanders is able to win all three, and in significant numbers as Idaho and Utah, it will give him incredible momentum in Wisconsin where Hillary is holding onto a four point lead. If he then goes on to win in Wisconsin then this race that everyone thought was over suddenly becomes extremely competitive.

Remember, all media outlets were predicting that Bernie may win two of three primaries on Tuesday but lose in the delegate count. However, he came out ahead in delegates even after the super delegates (that do not actually count yet) were added in.

UPDATE 4:25 PM:

Bernie Sanders has won the state of Alaska and by a large margin. With 43% reporting his lead is 79-21%. No call has been made in Washington though with 14% Bernie is up on Clinton 74-26%.

What's interesting is that Alaska was just now called for Bernie and they are saying that it is too early to call in Washington. One cannot help but think that if Hillary or Trump had these leads the media would be a little quicker to call these two races.

Voting has not yet started in Hawaii.

UPDATE 5:30 PM:

Bernie Sanders has won Washington. Here is something to keep an eye on. IF Sanders can win 81% of the vote in Washington he will take ALL the delegates. With 31% of the vote counted he is sitting at 76%.

UPDATE 11:20 PM:

Though none of the major outlets are reporting ANY results, Hawaii is reporting that with over 40% of the vote counted Bernie Sanders has won the state leading Hillary Clinton 69-31%. I find it very strange that the state is reporting over 40% of the vote count and none of the major outlets are reporting that anything has been counted. This just gets stranger and stranger. Sanders has won 5 of the 6 states this week and stand to possibly win both primaries next week which would significantly cut into Hillary's lead.

As it stands after this week Bernie will be closer to Clinton than Cruz is to Trump, and yet that race is considered to be competitive while the Democratic race is considered all but over.

UPDATE 12:40 AM:

I am going to go ahead and call it a night with my estimations of the delegate count from today. I will update tomorrow with the rest of the numbers as they become official

ALASKA - 16 delegates:

Sanders - 82%

13 delegates (97 delegates for the week)

Clinton - 18%

3 delegates (62 delegates)

WASHINGTON - 101 delegates:

Sanders - 73%

74 delegates (171 delegates)

Clinton - 27%

27 delegates (89 delegates)

HAWAII - 25 delegates:

Sanders - 69%

17 delegates (188 delegates)

Clinton - 31%

8 delegates (96 delegates)

UNOFFICIAL TOTAL DELEGATES:

Clinton - 1,235 delegates

Sanders - 1,013 delegates

DIFFERENCE - 222 delegates