The Florida Democratic Party Delegate Caucuses: What are your chances

On May 7th, Democrats across Florida will be able to go to caucus sites in their congressional districts to cast ballots for delegates to go to the Democratic National Convention this summer.   The caucus system is open for any registered Democrat to vote in.   Individuals have applied to be either Clinton or Sander delegates.  After the deadline for submissions, the two campaigns went through the applications and released a list of those they approved to be voted on.   The official list of delegates for each district can be found here.   When voters go to cast ballots, they must chose either the Clinton or Sanders side and we will be selecting delegates for male and female slots.  If a voter opts to pick his/her choice for Sanders delegates, then they cannot vote for their choices for Clinton delegates as well, and vice-versa.  People may then chose to vote on the side where they have friends running, rather than the candidate they support.   I myself, a strong Clinton backer, will be voting on the Sanders side to support Leon Committeewoman Tabitha Frazier as a Sanders delegate.

Unlike Iowa or Nevada, these results will have NO BEARING on the delegate allocation to Clinton or Sanders from Florida.  The total pledged delegates to Clinton and Sanders is set in stone.   Clinton won a majority of delegates in 25 of the 27 districts, tying in districts 3 and 4.

2016 Dem PPP Congress

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CD Delegates

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So if you are a  delegate running for one of these congressional slots, what are your chances of winning on May 7th?   Well, I took the official list of approved delegate applicants and compared it with the slots available.  The most slots available in any congressional district is the 20th and 24th, where Clinton has six slots (3 men, 3 women) to fill.   In many districts, Sanders only has one delegate to slot to fill, and if your not the right gender (in some districts its a male slot, in some its female) then you are out of luck.  The chart below shows the approved applications for each candidate and the slots available.  I included an applicant per slot section for each candidate.

Delegate Breakdown

The best chance anyone has of becoming a delegate is the Clinton male delegate side in districts 15 and 16.  Both have 2 male slots to fill and 3 candidates for each, creating a slots-per-applicant of 1.5.   The worst odds are male Sanders delegates in district 2, where there are 17 men fighting for 1 slot.  There were more statewide applications approved for the Clinton side than the Sanders side, though in several districts Sanders had more applicants listed than Clinton.  However, it is worth remembering these numbers are of applicants approved by the campaigns to represent them, so it very well could be many more applied but where rejected to even stand as a delegate.

Overall, who has the best chance of winning a delegate slot for the national convention?  Male Hillary delegates.   Thanks to Clinton’s larger number of slots available, a Hillary delegate applicant is often competing for more slots, despite there being more overall competition.  For Sanders applicants, the problem is too few slots available, making for tough chances even in districts with few Sander’s applicants. Meanwhile, on the male Clinton delegate side, 14 of the 27 congressional districts have less than 5 applicants per slot.

So how do you vote?  The official list of caucus sites is here.   Some districts will have early voting on May 5th, but most districts will have voting exclusively on May 7th.  Several sites will be used for more than one Congressional District, while several districts will have multiple locations.   The google map below shows all the May 7th voting sites.