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Question for discussion as a thought exercise. Kasich was already eleminated from the 1,237 delegates needed for a first round nomination. Most voters already knew this. So why did 25% of NY vote for him?

For the record...

New York City Comptroller Scott Stringer has declared that he will conduct an official audit of the New York City Board of Elections in response to many claims of polling irregularities and errors throughout the city’s primary voting system Tuesday.

It’s primary day in New York and as many voters scramble to cast their ballots before, during, and after work, some are also running into unfortunate circumstances. It’s not often that New Yorkers’ votes are pivotal in a presidential primary and many at polling places across the state are determined to make their’s count.... At one polling site at Carlton Avenue and Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn, the site coordinator didn’t even bother to show up and it took about an hour-and-a-half to find a replacement so the poll could open. Television and radio contributor John Burnett took to Twitter to...

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) on Tuesday comforted an independent voter who can't cast a ballot in New York's Democratic primary. “Right now I’m doing everything I can to get my vote casted for him,” the man told ABC News upon encountering Sanders in New York City’s Times Square. I can sign a court order, an affidavit, whatever I need to do, and I’m going to do that. But it shouldn’t be this hard to vote.” Sanders then patted his supporter’s shoulder before agreeing that the Empire State’s primary rules are shutting out voters. “Today, three million people in the state...

“I don’t know,” Donald Trump told the Washington Post about whether he’d try to push Reince Priebus out at the convention, “I haven’t made that determination.” .....It goes right to the heart of the role of any party chair, this one in particular, and the way in which Priebus just might be the key in any scenario that produces a Trump general-election victory.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - He’s a successful businessman making his first foray into politics. He wants to secure the southern border with Mexico and dump global trade deals. And like Donald Trump, he wants to be the Republican establishment's worst nightmare. He’s Paul Nehlen, who has emerged as a Republican rival to Paul Ryan, the speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, in his home district in Wisconsin. Ryan, the most powerful elected Republican in the country, is the epitome of that establishment.

It is a presidential election year, but do not expect that candidates will come a-wooing to Ithaca this fall. For decades, ours has been a reliably Democratic city in a reliably Democratic state.... The joke has always been that Ithaca is “centrally isolated.” We are not really on the way to anywhere else, and candidates in the heat of battle put their time and money into swing communities in swing counties in swing states. It was not always so, though, and Ithaca has seen its share of supplicants over the years. Presidential election campaigning—as we have known it since the...

House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) has spent a lot of time denying any interest in the presidency. Out out a 43-second video, the Drudge Report tweeted an all-caps siren reading “Paul Ryan launches first campaign ad?” Despite the video so resembling a campaign ad that even NPR’s Steve Inskeep joked this morning that he got choked up by the swelling music, Mr. Ryan’s people have aggressively swatted down speculation that the Congressman and unsuccessful 2012 vice presidential candidate was indeed waiting in the wings to be drafted should a consensus not be reached on any of the candidates who have...

Have you heard the rumors? Donald Trump’s presidential campaign is collapsing, and Ted Cruz is failing to garner significant support from the party establishment. Therefore, it’s virtually certain that neither man will become the GOP nominee. Instead, expect John Kasich and Marco Rubio to ride to the rescue, form a center-right “unity” ticket, and salvage the GOP’s hopes of beating Hillary Clinton in November. That’s the news from some quarters of the GOP who still can’t stand the thought that Trump or Cruz is the likely Republican nominee. But now even the left-wing Huffington Post is joining the Trump-is-Dead chorus....

Imagine, if you will, that your house is on fire. The conflagration has spread from the kitchen downstairs to engulf the hallway outside your bedroom upstairs. So you remain in your room, with a window open and a damp cloth over your mouth, under your bed. As you lay there terrified, eyes and throat burning from noxious fumes, a fireman bursts through the door. He sees you under the bed, a look of frenzied hope in your eyes that help has finally arrived. The fireman walks over to the window, shuts it, and then exits the room closing the door...

This is #16 in a series that examines the Republican delegate allocation rules by state. The main goal is to assess the rules for 2016 -- relative to 2012 -- in order to gauge the potential impact the changes to the rules along the W-T-A/proportionality spectrum... The RNC recalibrated its rules, cutting the proportionality window in half, but tightening proportionality rules. Those alterations will trigger subtle reactions, other rules changes, particularly the new binding requirement, will be more noticeable.... ...Changes since 2012: As FHQ argued at the outset of the... plan to allocate delegates for 2016, there are only so...

In the Republican presidential primary in New York, the Sun urges a vote for Senator Ted Cruz. It hasn’t been our normal practice to endorse in the primaries, but this year the vote, set for Tuesday, will take on outsized importance as we career toward a contested convention. The junior senator from Texas has emerged from a crowded field by dint of his fidelity to principles — limited, constitutional government, sound money, free markets, and a strong foreign policy — that couldn’t be at higher premium. They are the true New York Values.

New York, the home state of GOP frontrunner Donald Trump, is the next state on the Republican primary calendar. According to a round of recent polls, Trump is on the verge of doing something he hasn’t yet accomplished this primary campaign; win an outright majority of the votes cast in the Republican nomination.

Will these whispers turn to shouts? The word behind the word is that Paul Manafort is already earning his keep BIG TIME as he moves to deliver a stunning blow to the Cruz campaign a source describes as a potential “punch to the face” that involves the number 172. Here is a brief summary of what will simply be called the “172 Plan” : **Talks are ongoing and more numerous between Team Trump and a second party over the last 48-hours. **If these talks lead to an agreement, it will be a game-changer in the 2016 Republican nomination process. **Manafort...

REGIONAL BREAKDOWNS: SoCal is head over heels for Trump (Trump 49 percent; Cruz 34, Kasich 13) , Central Valley leans Trump (Trump 39, Cruz 26, Kasich 18), and Inland Empire for Cruz (Cruz, 43, Trump 30, Kasich, 9). Silicon Valley and the Bay Area? Kasich trounces Trump 43-36, with Cruz at 14.

House Speaker Paul Ryan is being challenged in the Republican primary by a Wisconsin businessman who says he once volunteered for the congressman but now feels betrayed. Paul Nehlen, of Delavan, Wisconsin, launched his underdog campaign last week. Nehlen says Ryan is an “establishment politician” who supports out-of-control spending and “dangerous immigration policies.” Ryan’s campaign spokesman Zack Roday declined comment. …

When a political party picks one candidate over another, the party signals to the broader electorate what it represents. If the Republican Party nominates Ted Cruz instead of Donald Trump, it will represent one of the greatest practical and moral victories in the Republican Party’s noble history. Cruz’s enormous victory in Wisconsin this week makes it more probable than not that Donald Trump falls short of the required 1,237 delegates – 50 percent plus one of the 2,472 total delegates to the convention – to cinch the nomination on the first ballot. Combined with savvy delegate recruitment and a mounting...

"And the Northern girls with the way they kiss. They keep their boyfriends warm at night. I wish they all could be California. I wish they all could be California. I wish they all could be California Girls"- (And guy Cali delegates, too.) A big WOW from Cali! Dude, the candidate chooses his/her own delegates!!! LOYALTY matters. Whether it be in business, politics, or friendships, we all desire and respect loyalty. Let's consider the 172 member California Republican Delegation that will be seated in Cleveland for the RNC: "The selection of Presidential Nominating Convention Delegates to the Republican National Convention...

Donald Trump has 39 percent of the vote in our Pennsylvania polling average, 37 percent in California, and 39 percent in Maryland. If this were February or early March, that would leave him without much to worry about. Even if Trump picked up zero undecided voters, he’d be pretty much guaranteed a win with the rest of the vote divided between a half-dozen opponents. But those days are over. In Wisconsin on Tuesday, Trump had 35 percent of the vote — the same share that allowed him to win New Hampshire easily in February, and a larger percentage than he...