Volume: 59 Issue: 18
MARCH 9, 2016
driftwood.uno.edu
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State primary aligns with national trend BY CHARLES NICHOLSON Managing Editor The voters of Louisiana have made their voices heard for this primary election and the results are as many have predicted, for the most part. GOP-frontrunner, Donald J. Trump, got off an easy victory, claiming 41.44 percent of the vote. While Trump’s win did seem inevitable, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) had a surprising turnaround after the call was made. Cruz ended up shrinking his gap with Trump with 37.84 percent of the vote. In third place came Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Florida) managing 11.22 percent and behind him Gov. John Kasich (R-Ohio) with only 6.43 percent. On the democratic side, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton swept up easily with 71.12 percent. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) didn’t fare as well with only 23.18 percent. The real battle, however, was
for the delegates, which the candidates need to win their respective nomination. Clinton won 37 delegates over Sanders’ 14. Trump and Cruz came dead even with 18 delegates each, Rubio with 5 and Kasich with none. “If we’re looking at the Democratic Party, we have to say that Hillary Clinton has the distinct advantage. Not only is she winning, but she’s winning by large margins, meaning that she’s getting a larger proportion of the delegates,” said Dr. Ed Chervenak, director of the Survey Research Center, which conducts statewide surveys, hosted at UNO. “It’s going to be tough for Bernie Sanders to overcome that fact. Also, she’s got a larger number of superdelegates that are committed to her.” For those that are unsure of the difference in delegates, regular or pledge delegates are decided by the primary vote. Superdelegates, however, aren’t pledged and can choose which candidate they can support. Chervenak said that even with
the uprising of Bernie Sanders and his appeal to millennials, it’s still hard to accumulate a larger youth voter turnout. “Young people don’t turn out at the same rate as their parents and grandparents,” said Chervenak. “Once people become married, buy a house [and] start raising children, they become concerned about the larger community and that’s when they start voting. When people are young they’re not rooted in the community yet.” Preceding the primary were some last minute campaigning efforts on both sides of the alley. Former president Bill Clinton held a rally in Baton Rouge for his wife Hillary on Thursday, March 3, while Trump and Cruz’s rallies that Friday. While there are still many states left in the primaries, current results and opinion polls have continued to make the likely nominees more evident. Although Sen. Sanders has a powerful following as a social democrat, he continues to trail behind Clinton. On the Republican side, Trump
still leads the pack, but Cruz is playing catch-up as the only realistic chance the GOP has to topple Trump. “The [GOP] establishment would like to is coalesce around a single candidate, a single alternative, to try and keep Trump from getting 1,237 delegates. They would probably like John Kasich to get out and they can’t decide between Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz in terms of who would be more attractive to take enough delegates from Trump.” Chervenak also said that they could change the rules of awarding delegates when the rules committee meets before the Republican National Convention, though he said that it would be “very controversial.” “The other thing they could do is decide to run a third party candidate. Conservative republicans are investigating what it would take to get a third-party conservative on the ballot in a number of states, because you have to meet all of these additional requirements. So, there’s different
options and different alternatives that they’re looking at.” With the recent nomination of John Bel Edwards, a democrat, as governor, it brings to question whether or not the democratic nominee has a shot at winning the state during the general election. Dr. Chervenak thought not. “This is a ruby-red republican state. We’ve elected a conservative democrat who was fortunate in his opposition,” said Chervenak. “David Vitter was a very flawed candidate, in addition people were very unhappy with Bobby Jindal and the direction he’d taken the state.” Chervenak is sure that Louisiana will vote for the republican nominee. Both the democratic and republican conventions are set for July, and in between then and now, there’s still time for major upsets in what has become one of the most sensationalized elections in U.S. history.