Mark Skogman Senior Reporter Spectrum 360 Media
’16 May 18 Wen. E. D. T. 06:05
The primary election cycle has reached the states of Kentucky and Oregon today and voters have been going to the polls in these two states. The Kentucky primary is Democrat only because the Republican primary election in Kentucky was conducted on Saturday, 05 March. Oregon is a vote by mail state and both states voting today are closed primary states, meaning that a voter is required to be a registered member of a political party to vote in that party’s primary election.
All evening, as polls closed and reported election results in Kentucky, the lead in the Democrat primary election for President was too close to call with the lead being traded back and forth between Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton. Back and forth, back and forth. Sixty delegates are at stake in this election.
At 9:24PM E. D. T., MSNBC decided to call the election and announced that Hillary Clinton is the apparent winner in the Kentucky primary election. Of course, the apparent winner is not a definitive determination of an actual winner but this result is not likely to change. There were actually 4 U. S. Presidential candidates on the ballot in Kentucky with Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders getting the vast majority of the votes.
As of 10:00PM E. D. T., the state of Kentucky is reporting that Hillary Clinton received 46.74% of the vote with 212,319 votes and Bernie Sanders received 46.34% of the vote with 210,505 votes. Uncommitted votes were at 24,099 and this amounted to 5.31% of the votes cast. The difference in the vote between the major candidates in this election amounted to just 1814 votes. Close? Yes.
Later on, at 11:26PM E. D. T., the state of Oregon was called by MSNBC for Bernie Sanders. At that time the results indicated that Bernie Sanders got 196,553 votes and 51.87% of the vote with Hillary Clinton garnering 175,503 votes and 46.31% of the votes. There are 77 delegates in play in Oregon.
The net results of all this process….. the advertising, the canvassing, the telephoning, the voting….. is that Bernie Sanders with the “political revolution” and Hillary Clinton with the “establishment” split the decisions. The delegate count stands at Hillary Clinton with 2291 and Bernie Sanders with 1529. Again….. this is how you care to count them and whether you include the super delegates in the equation…… or not! This is a matter of contention in itself in an atmosphere of increasing conflict between the candidates, their voters and the Democratic Party. This was especially evident after the events in Nevada at the Nevada Democratic Party State Convention just last weekend.
And so it goes….. After today, there are nine states and the District of Columbia left to vote in the primary election process.
Copyright © 2016 Mark A. Skogman http://www.spectrum360media.com