Black voters showed up in historically large numbers in 2008 and 2012 to help elect Barack Obama to the White House. Will that trend continue in 2016? If early voting numbers are any indication, black turnout will be a bit lower than in the previous two elections. And on Wednesday, President Obama, in an interview with radio host Tom Joyner, said African-American turnout is “not as solid as it needs to be,” for his preferred successor, Hillary Clinton.

“I need everybody to understand that everything we’ve done is dependent on me being able to pass the baton to somebody who believes in the same things I believe in,” he said, noting that Trump might even rip up Michelle Obama’s vegetable gardens.

Obama has been pushing this message in the weeks leading up to Election Day, and in the midst of the early voting period, when compared to 2012 numbers, the number of black voters casting ballots early has dipped slightly. For instance, in North Carolina, blacks have cast 23 percent of the state’s early votes, 111,000 less than at this point in 2012, when they made up 28 percent of early voters. Clinton is failing to muster Obama-level enthusiasm among black voters in Florida as well.

Republican lawmakers in North Carolina tried to change the state’s voting laws, but a federal court struck down the measure because it “targeted black voters with surgical precision.” Obama told the audience at a rally in Chapel Hill on Wednesday as much, adding that it is now “easier to vote than ever” in North Carolina. “What’s our excuse?” he added.

Obama is not the only Clinton acolyte making an 11th hour pitch to black voters. Bill Clinton visited Detroit on Wednesday and met with black ministers. But Obama–who captured 95 percent of the black vote in 2008 and 93 percent in 2012–is Clinton’s most valuable and vocal supporter in the waning days of the election.

He warned voters on Wednesday of the implication a Trump White House could have on his legacy: “If we let this thing slip and I’ve got a situation where my last two months in office are preparing for a transition to Donald Trump, whose staff people have said that their primary agenda is to have him in the first couple of weeks sitting in the Oval Office and reverse every single thing that we’ve done.” 

Alec Siegel

Alec Siegel is a staff writer at Law Street Media. When he’s not working at Law Street he’s either cooking a mediocre tofu dish or enjoying a run in the woods. His passions include: gooey chocolate chips, black coffee, mountains, the Animal Kingdom in general, and John Lennon. Baklava is his achilles heel. Contact Alec at ASiegel@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Obama Says Black Turnout “Not as Solid as it Needs to Be” appeared first on Law Street.

While it feels like the presidential campaign started ages ago, and in many ways it has, a relatively small number of primaries and caucuses have actually taken place. But all of that is soon to change–Super Tuesday is here.

What is Super Tuesday?

Tuesday, March 1 gets this fun-sounding name because it is the day when more states hold primaries and caucuses than any other day in the primary season. While the race has been going at full steam for the past several months, only a small number of the total delegates have been formally awarded. So far, about 5 percent of the total delegates have been awarded for Republicans and less than 4 percent for Democrats. But that will change very quickly in the month of March. On Super Tuesday, there are 865 delegates up for grabs for the Democrats and 595 for Republicans. At the end of the day, 24 percent of the total delegates for Democrats will be awarded and about 30 percent for Republicans.

So Who Votes?

Both parties will hold caucuses or primaries in Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, Vermont, and Virginia. Republicans will also hold a caucus in Alaska and Democrats will caucus in American Samoa and Colorado. Additionally, Democrats abroad will vote in sites across 40 different countries until March 8.

What to Expect: Democrats

While this election has been as unpredictable as ever, recent polls do give us some clues as to what we can expect on Tuesday. As it currently stands, the two frontrunners will seem positioned to build on their lead.

Hillary Clinton is coming off of two recent victories in Nevada and South Carolina, the latter of which she won by nearly 75 percent of the vote. While Sanders has proven to be a much stronger candidate than many anticipated, particularly when it comes to fundraising, Clinton still has a commanding lead when you look at pledged delegates and superdelegates.

The Super Tuesday electorate is also particularly favorable for Clinton. With an endorsement from the Congressional Black Caucus and high favorability ratings from black voters, we can expect a high turnout among black voters in many Super Tuesday states, where they make up a large percentage of Democratic voters. NPR has a nice illustration of Clinton’s advantage in its discussion of the ideal outcomes for both of the Democratic Candidates. According to NPR, an ideal scenario for Sanders would leave him up by just one delegate at the end of the day. But for Clinton, an ideal outcome would be leading by more than 150 of the Super Tuesday delegates. Put simply, if everything goes well for Sanders his campaign’s best hope is, essentially, to break even. It’s also important to note that Democrats allocate delegates proportionally based on the share of the popular vote or caucus precinct outcomes, which gives Sanders more opportunities to win delegates.

What to Expect: Republicans

On the Republican side, polls suggest that frontrunner Donald Trump will come away with a pretty significant victory. FiveThirtyEight has a rundown of the polls in Super Tuesday states, but Trump is generally the favorite in most states. One important exception is Texas, as Ted Cruz has managed to maintain a significant lead in his home state despite Trump’s nationwide surge.

Texas also has the most delegates up for grabs on Tuesday, as 108 of the state’s 155 delegates will go to the winners of its 35 Congressional districts while 47 of the state’s at-large delegates will be spread out among the top vote earners depending on their margin of victory. While a win in Texas would certainly be a big boost for Cruz, he has an uphill battle in most states.

While the delegate rules vary widely by state on Super Tuesday, there are more opportunities for Republicans to earn large chunks of delegates in one victory compared to the Democrat’s more proportional system. While that may not mean much, the important thing to take away is that the Republican frontrunner after Super Tuesday could come away with a pretty sizable lead.

Kevin Rizzo

Kevin Rizzo is the Crime in America Editor at Law Street Media. An Ohio Native, the George Washington University graduate is a founding member of the company. Contact Kevin at krizzo@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Super Tuesday 2016: What to Expect appeared first on Law Street.

America’s grandma is at it again. And like most of our grandmas, she also doesn’t know how to effectively communicate over email.

It seems she has found herself in a bit of a conundrum yet again.

A woman named Maddi has taken the Internet by storm this week after posting an aggressive, yet intimate email she claims she was sent by Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign. The email said,

After tonight’s results roll in, keep this in mind: most of the country casts their primary ballots by the middle of March. We absolutely, critically need to make sure Hillary comes out on top in the states that lie ahead.

Okay, so not too bad. Not too aggressive…yet. And then,

Julia Bryant

Julia Bryant is an Editorial Senior Fellow at Law Street from Howard County, Maryland. She is a junior at the University of Maryland, College Park, pursuing a Bachelor’s degree in Journalism and Economics. You can contact Julia at JBryant@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post #ImNotKiddingMaddi: Read My Article Now appeared first on Law Street.

Lawrence Lessig, a famous Harvard Law School professor and presidential candidate, announced that he is no longer pursuing the Democratic Party’s nomination because the Party recently changed the requirements to participate in the November 14 debate.

Lawrence Lessig announced his candidacy for president in early September, meeting a self-set goal of raising over $1 million in small donations. A well-known campaign finance advocate, Lessig sought to run for president in order to enact electoral reform, which he thought would increase political responsiveness and ensure everyone’s “equal right to vote.” His campaign was unique from the outset, but the support that he did have was vocal and polls suggest that campaign finance is an important issue to many. However, aside from being a longshot in the presidential race, his campaign encountered several additional obstacles.

“It is now clear that the Party won’t let me be a candidate,” Lessig said in a video (below) released on Monday. According to Lessig and his advisors, a subtle change in the debate criteria has made it impossible for him to participate in the upcoming debate. When the Democratic National Committee (DNC) initially announced the debate schedule back in August, the rules stated that participating candidates must receive, “at least 1 percent in three national polls, conducted by credible news organizations and polling organizations, in the six weeks prior to the debate.”

But recently, according to Lessig, the DNC tweaked these requirements ever so slightly in a way that precludes Lessig from participating. A memo from the DNC changed the wording from “in the six weeks prior to the debate” to “at least six weeks prior to the event,” meaning that participating candidates need to have met the threshold six weeks ahead of time, rather than in the period leading up to the debate. According to Lessig, “Under the new rule, unless we can time travel, there is no way that I can qualify.”

If what Lessig says is true, this change would exclude him from a debate that he would otherwise be participating in. One of the most significant challenges faced by the Lessig campaign is the fact that his name is not included in many national polls, but recently, he has hit the 1 percent threshold several times–meaning that he would likely qualify under the initial rules. Under the rule change, he would have already needed to qualify at the beginning of October.

Outside of polling, but also related, are Lessig’s challenges with the Democratic Party. Last month, he wrote an article for Politico Magazine titled, “I’m Trying to Run for President, But Democrats Won’t Let Me.” In the article, he outlined the challenges facing his campaign, and the unwillingness of the Democratic Party to accept him as a candidate. He argues that Party leaders don’t really view him as a legitimate candidate–noting that DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz had not yet taken the time to even speak with him.

It’s worth noting that even if Lessig was openly welcomed by the Democratic Party, his chances of receiving the Democratic nomination were extremely slim. While he would likely qualify for the upcoming debate if the rules did not change, polling at 1 percent isn’t necessarily impressive. Granted, if he was listed as an option in every poll he might rank a little higher, but it still wouldn’t materially change much.

The fact is, his candidacy is pretty peculiar–he even started out saying that, if elected, he would only serve as president until he could implement electoral reform, after which point he would resign. While he has since dropped the idea of being a “referendum president,” his nearly exclusive focus on a narrow reform agenda can limit the extent of his support. But that perspective might also miss Lessig’s point.

Sure, the best way for him to enact electoral reform would probably be to actually get elected, but it also seems like he simply wants to elevate the issue to a much higher level in the United States, particularly among policymakers. Were he able to attend the upcoming Democratic debate, he may have been able to do just that by demanding that the other candidates address the issue. Instead, he has been excluded from the debate and, as a result, the Democratic Party.

So what’s next for Lessig? He hasn’t announced whether he will pursue the presidency as an independent candidate, but in an email to the Washington Post he noted, “nothing (legal) is ruled out.” Lessig has made some unorthodox attempts to address the issue of campaign finance in the past, so we may want to keep an eye out for his next move.

Kevin Rizzo

Kevin Rizzo is the Crime in America Editor at Law Street Media. An Ohio Native, the George Washington University graduate is a founding member of the company. Contact Kevin at krizzo@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Democrats Squeeze Lawrence Lessig Out of Presidential Race appeared first on Law Street.