2016 Primaries: Oregon and Kentucky

Next up in the race to the Summer conventions are Oregon and Kentucky. The primary in Kentucky is for Democrats only and is a closed primary, you must be a Democrat to vote, which gives a slight advantage to Hillary Clinton. It is, however, a tough race to call because a lack of polling.

Donald Gross, professor and chair of Kentucky University’s Department of Political Science, believes the state favors Clinton, but sees areas where Sanders could gain an edge.

“It’s going to be sort of interesting,” Gross said by phone. “By traditional standards, Hillary and Bill Clinton have always done really well in Kentucky.”

A big advantage for Clinton is the closed Kentucky primary, a scenario that has so far boosted the establishment candidate’s chances by depressing pro-Sanders independents.

That said, Clinton is on the wrong side of several highly charged issues in Kentucky.

There are 55 delegates up for grabs. Polls are open from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. local time, and Kentucky is split between Central and Eastern time zones.

The Republicans held their caucus on March 5th which was handily won by real estate mogul Donald Trump with Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) a close second.

Out on the West Coast in Oregon, Democratic and Republican voters have already started to vote by mail, the deadline for that passed Oregonians automatically register to vote when they apply for a drivers license.

Oregon Figured Out Its Voting Problem by Asking One Simple Question
Charles Pierce, Esquire Politics

In 1998, by overwhelming margin, the voters of Oregon adopted vote-by-mail. Opponents charged that vote-by-mail would lead to—you guessed it, you clever sods—massive voter fraud. It passed with 69 percent of the vote. A year ago in March, the state adopted automatic voter registration. Now, in Oregon, as soon as you apply for, or renew, your driver’s license, you also are registered to vote. (Yes, freedom lovers, there’s an opt-out option.) And, as the invaluable Liz Kennedy, now doing god’s own work at the Center For American Progress, points out, the results have been a stunning success.

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As Kennedy points out, the Oregon program shifts the basic question from, “Do you want to register to vote?” to “Do you not want to register to vote?” which seems to make all the difference.

The only disadvantage is that voters cannot declare a party affiliation when they register. The state legislature is working to fix that glitch. But, since Oregon is a closed primary, there may be some surprised voters when they go to drop off the ballot. Not surprising is that voter turn out is really large, even in non-presidential elections.

By the time voting started on Tuesday morning, more than 36 percent of eligible Oregonians – 834,798 people – had already cast their vote, according to the Secretary of State’s office.

The Secretary of State’s Office says that as of the end of Monday, 445,242 Democrats – or 46.8 percent of those eligible had voted – and 284,872 Republicans – or 41.7 percent – had voted.

If you still want to vote you’ll have to drop off your ballot.

The Oregon Secretary of State’s office has a website where you can just put your address in and it will tell you where the nearest dropbox is.

Polling in Oregon has been more extensive than in Kentucky. The latest polling has Secretary Clinton with a 15 point lead. Mr. Trump is expected to win since all his opponents have dropped out of the race. There are 74 delegates to be divided for the Democrats and 28 for the Republicans. Polls opened at 8 AM PT and close at 8 PM PT. So this will be a late night for results.

Up Date 20:55 ET:
If you’re tired of the same old on politics from the cable news, here is the live YouTube telecast from Young Turks with Cenk Uygur and the gang.

Up Date 21:22 ET:

NBC News has declared Hillary Clinton the “apparent” winner of the Kentucky primary.

Up Date 23:07 ET:

Donald Trump is the projected winner of the GOP Oregon as per NBC News and The Guardian

Up Date 23:43 ET:

The NYT, The Guardian and NBC News have declared Bernie Sanders the winner of the Oregon Democratic Primary