Projection: Obama will win the most delegates in Texas

Hillary Clinton won tonight’s popular vote in Texas, but it appears as though Barack Obama will win the most delegates from Texas.

The best primary delegate analysis is this spreadsheet, being updated live by the Burnt Orange Report crew. As it stands, at 1:00, Clinton is up by only 1 delegate, despite being over 100k votes ahead. By the percentages, this would put her at a 6 delegate lead.

So how is this possible? In Texas, and most other states, delegates are apportioned on a district-by district basis. In a district with 8 delegates (such as Austin), a candidate needs about 6 additional percentage points in order to gain an extra delegate. Going from 50 to 56 percent, or even to 62 percent is certainly reasonable.

However, in many smaller districts, with only 4 delegates, either Clinton or Obama would need 75% of the vote to get an extra delegate. In a race this close, that’s, for all intents and purposes, impossible.

So if we go back to the spreadsheet, we see that Obama performed much better in urban areas, which are also high-delegate districts. Much of Clinton’s strong support came from west and southwest Texas, which is more rural and contains fewer delegates per district. For example, Obama is winning Senate District 13 (Houston area) with nearly 75% of the vote, giving him a 5-2 delegate split there.

So, the delegate numbers from the primary will be very close, with Clinton likely to win by just a few delegates. The deciding factor will be the 67 delegates apportioned by the TX caucuses, where Obama leads by 12 points, with 22% of districts reporting. If this holds (and it’s expected to), Obama will pick up something in the neighborhood of 7 or 8 delegates, which should be enough to put him over the top.

I’ll leave it to the reader to decide whether this system is fair, but I will say that it’s every bit as fair as the electoral college. Just ask Al Gore.

A huge assumption about this delegate projection is the 12 point lead Obama is supposed to maintain. Now we only have 36% of the caucuses reporting in as of today (3/5), but that is already been reduced to a 4 point Obama lead.

I doubt that this is an accurate assumption. As the totals come in I think the caucuses are going to be more reflective of the primaries and they will be much closer than a 12 point spread - more likely a 5 point spread. Which is to say that Obama will not win the most delegates in Texas. That is my projection.

Well, with 40% of caucus returns in, Obama is still up 12%. It looks like both CNN and Burnt Orange have given her a 4-delegate lead from the primaries. At best, I’d say she may be able to squeak out a one-or two delegate margin, if everything goes her way in the caucus returns. (What’s taking so long, anyway?)

I still think Obama has a better-than even chance of winning the delegate count.

I think I misread the primary tallies in lieu of the caucus tallies. It was never changed from 12 pt difference. Although, I would note that I still think that difference will diminish significantly. The reason it is taking so long is because all of the Obama and Hillary volunteers who ran the caucuses are still counting for accuracy, before they send out the numbers.

That’s really too bad. The people should decide, not fuzzy math equations. Everybody’s vote should have equal importance.

[...] had hoped for, but it wasn’t all bad, either. Especially when you consider that Obama is likely to win the most delegates in Texas, despite losing the popular vote. In a situation reminiscent of Nevada, he’s won the caucuses [...]

The Latin Community wants a change, now that Obama is the presidential candidate and a minority, most of the hispanic will vote for him. I believe most of the big states like California, Texas, New York, and Florida will be a big factor for Obama to win this election.