The coin flip nonsense.

Although we will get to our thoughts on Iowa in our next blog, we wanted to discuss briefly the coin flip nonsense circulating everywhere. Before we get to that, a small correction. In making the pre-Iowa argument that the Democratic race would be a tie in terms of delegates to the National Convention in August, we relied on the state party’s delegate allocation of 46 delegates, an even number that could result in a tie. Evidently, the allocation plan changed, dropping to 44 delegates, one fewer in a district and one fewer at-large. Once the county and state conventions take place, Clinton will likely win in the now seven-delegate 3^rd district and thus garner four delegates to Sander’s three. This prediction has to be somewhat tentative because, while the precinct totals are solid, the statewide margin is so close that it’s not clear how it will translate as we move to the county and then the state conventions. As things stand Clinton will win by two delegate, one from the third and other from the statewide margin.

And now for the coin flip “controversy.” Watching the national media coverage of the caucuses the other night was maddening. Most journalists did not bother to figure out how the process works and thus spewed incredible amounts of misinformation that spread like wildfire on the Internet and often created a narrative that couldn’t be contained. It got so bad that there’s now a belief in some quarters that the entire race on the Democratic side was decided by a few coin flips. That wasn’t enough for some people, who further claimed that said coin flips were rigged. This has mostly been debunked. Here’s a good example of the debunking.

What follows is what the media should have understood about the process to keep this runaway train from ever leaving the station.

In Iowa on Monday night, delegates on the Democratic side were elected to county conventions from the precinct caucus. There are 11,605 county convention delegates. Those 11,605 county convention delegates then elect either 1405 or 1406 delegates to the state convention. (The discrepancy is due to the uncertainties of the winnowing process.) State convention delegates also need to break up into congressional districts because only residents of a congressional district can elect delegates from those districts to the national convention. The infamous coin flips occurred in precincts where there was an actual tie (pretty rare) or a constructive tie because, on the second vote after reapportioning delegates who didn’t reach viability, some of the original caucus goers weren’t there. In other words, in the face of chaos and a close race, some precincts resorted to a coin flip. Here’s the key point that was overlooked in the conspiracy mongering: the coin flips benefited both candidates and only decided a tiny number of the 11,605 to the county convention. There is only one state delegate for roughly every eight precinct level delegates. That means there’s an inevitable winnowing process from one convention to the next that inevitably involves rounding, especially in a close race. Beyond that, the “state level equivalence” at this point has to be based on estimates of that rounding, not the rounding itself, until the state convention takes place.

Regardless, coin flips had no real role in determining the winner because they were only used to decide races for a very small number of the 11,605 county delegates, not for any of the 1405 state delegates (as it was reported by some news outlets). This craziness has spread so far and fast that it crowded out the real stakes. All this squabbling has been about maybe one delegate of the 4764 delegates to the national convention. The focus should be on winning the majority of those delegates. The nonsense about the coin flips needs to end now. Tomorrow, we’ll have thoughts on Iowa and the path forward.