New Yorkers head to the polls Tuesday to have their say in the presidential primary process. Here’s a breakdown of how the delegates will be distributed once the votes are counted.
All polls close at 9 p.m. ET. The delegates are not awarded in a simple winner-take-all vote: In both party primaries, most of the delegates will be decided based on the votes in New York’s 27 congressional districts. Including the delegates awarded by the statewide vote, it’s almost like 28 small, separate primaries instead of one big state prize.
Republicans
Total delegates: 95 — 8 percent of the delegates required to clinch the GOP nomination.
At-large delegates: 11. Proportional distribution. If a candidate receives more than 50 percent of the statewide vote, they win all 11 at-large delegates plus the three RNC delegates. Candidates must get at least 20 percent statewide to win any at-large delegates.
Congressional district delegates: 81. Proportional distribution. New York has 27 congressional districts. Each district gets three delegates. If a candidate gets more than 50 percent in a district, he gets all three delegates. Otherwise, the leading candidate gets two delegates and the runner-up gets one.
In every state and territory, three of the total delegates are RNC delegates: The national committeeman, the national committeewoman and the chairman of the state party. These delegates are tied to a specific candidate, they are not allowed to choose whomever they want like superdelegates can on the Democratic side. In New York, they will be allocated according to the statewide vote.
Right now, it looks like polls are predicting Trump will get a slight majority of the statewide vote, with Kasich edging Cruz by several percentage points. Both Kasich and Cruz are in danger are falling below the statewide 20 percent threshold required to earn delegates.
Let’s say Trump wins a majority of the statewide vote and gets majorities in half of the congressional districts. We’ll pretend Trump wins the rest of the congressional districts, and that Cruz and Kasich split second place. If that’s what happens, here’s how the delegate count would look:
Trump: 82 delegates from New York, 826 total (67 percent to clinching the nomination)
Cruz: 6 delegates from New York, 565 total (46 percent to clinching the nomination)
Kasich: 7 delegates from New York, 151 total (12 percent to clinching the nomination)
Democrats
Total delegates: 291 — 6 percent of the delegates required to clinch the Democratic nomination.
Superdelegates: 44. Thirty-nine are already committed to Clinton.
Other delegates: 247. Proportional distribution. Candidates must get 15 percent to earn any delegates statewide or in a congressional district. One-hundred-sixty-three will be distributed according to the results in each of the 27 congressional districts. The remaining 84 delegates will be distributed based on the statewide vote.
Most polls have Clinton getting a slight majority, with Bernie Sanders getting about 40 percent of the vote. Given the proportionality of the system, let’s say Clinton gets 57 percent of non-superdelegates to Sanders’ 43 percent. Here’s how the delegate count would look:
Clinton: 141 delegates from New York, 1,899 total (80 percent to clinching the nomination)
Sanders: 106 delegates from New York, 1,182 total (50 percent to clinching the nomination)
Jason Russell is a commentary writer for the Washington Examiner.
