Pennsylvania by the Numbers

The people on this blog/e-mail list live in 16 American states, and 3 foreign countries. But the majority of recipients (who I assume are also readers) live in Pennsylvania. So, since we have the next primary, and since I have gotten a lot of questions over the past months as to how Democratic primaries actually work, we’re going to use PA as an example, and then go into the national numbers.

Let’s start with how we allocate delegates here.

There are 19 Congressional districts, and they are allocated delegates based on a formula related to population and registration. In some states, there is a skew for previous participation, but I can’t find any documentation that we do that here. (I COULD be wrong, but I couldn’t find it, and I looked…)

If you want to see the Congressional districts in graphical form, use this link: http://nationalatlas.gov/printable/congress.html#pa This is the site of the National Atlas, and you can view/print any state, and any specific district. The fun part is the Southeastern part of the state, one of the “best” examples of gerrymandering since the term was coined. Think interwoven snakes. These 19 districts will produce from the primary 103 District-level delegates, allocated in the following manner:

District 1	7	District 11	5
District 2	9	District 12	5
District 3	5	District 13	7
District 4	5	District 14	7
District 5	4	District 15	5
District 6	6	District 16	4
District 7	7	District 17	4
District 8	7	District 18	5
District 9	3	District 19	4
District 10	4

Note the following: Districts 1 and 2 include the city of Philadelphia (and environs), and the rest of the southeast is comprised of all or part of districts 6,7,8,13,15 and 19. District 5 is comprised of all or part of 14 counties in the north central part of the state. Check the map….it’s really interesting. Therefore, when they talk of Philadelphia and “the counties” deciding this election, they’re talking about half the pledged district-level delegates (52).

The delegates will be assigned proportionately to all candidates winning at least 15% of the vote. This is how people the delegate counts come out so close in a lot of races. For example, if there are 4 delegates in a district, and someone wins 65% of the vote, and the other person wins 35%, they’re each getting 2 delegates. In a 4-delegate district, one would have to win 75% of the vote to make the split 3-1.

In addition, there are 35 At-Large delegates who will represent the statewide totals, also proportionally.

Then, there are the others -- 49 “unpledged” or “Super” delegates. They are comprised of the elected Congressional/Senatorial Democratic delegation, members of the DNC from Pennsylvania, and what’s known as “add-on’s”. (Don’t ask, you don’t want to know).

Below is a list of the known SuperDelegates, broken out by endorsement:

For Clinton:

Governor Ed Rendell

Rep John Murtha

Rep Joe Sestak

Rep Allyson Schwartz

Rep Paul Kanjorski

DNC Members: Rooney, Baumgartner, Groen, Milko, Richardson, McEntee, Rudy and Murray.

For Obama:

Rep Pat Murphy

Rep Chaka Fattah

DNC Campbell and Lynch

Have Not Endorsed:

Sen Bob Casey

Reps Brady, Altmire, Carney, Holden, and Doyle

DNC Donatucci, George and Masloff.

But let’s get back to the numbers.

I could go through the demographics of each district, but the likelihood after all is said and done, Clinton picks up +15 of the pledged delegates (District plus statewide). In context, this doesn’t really matter, because it’s a drop in the bucket of the 150 delegates Obama is ahead.

And then there is the popular vote. It is conceivable that 2 MILLION people could vote in the PA primary. When all the counting is done, Clinton could pick up 150,000 votes -- which would still leave her trailing by 550,000 votes since Obama is currently 700,000 votes ahead in the popular count.

Which brings me to the full numbers deal.

In the past week I’ve spoken to 6 people here in Pennsylvania who have not yet made up their minds about who to vote for in the 22 April primary. Not just any people -- good friends of mine. People who read, and consider. They fall into two camps: “I want to vote for the person with the best chance of beating McCain in November” and “I just plain don’t know which one to choose.”

Now, I’ve also spoken to a lot of people I didn’t know, while working voter registration drives. Including a rabid dittohead. (And I confess that while I would NEVER EVER pull a registration form and drop it into the trash because that would be immoral, unethical, and illegal -- I still hope they charge that @#(&$%#^ with voter fraud….but I digress….)

I wrote a long blog on why I’m voting for Obama, but neither published nor emailed it. That’s just personal opinion. Well-written, but it doesn’t count for much, because as I keep telling you, it is ALL about the numbers.

After PA, there are 408 pledged delegates available. The breakdown (in date order) Guam - 4, Indiana - 72, North Carolina - 115, West Virginia - 28, Kentucky - 51, Oregon - 52, Puerto Rico - 55, Montana - 16, South Dakota - 15. The projections indicate that some will split, Obama will “take” Indiana, North Carolina and Oregon, and Clinton will take West Virginia and Kentucky. It had looked like Clinton would take Puerto Rico once they shifted from a caucus to a primary, but the effect of Bill Richardson’s endorsement on Puerto Rico is unknown. (As an aside, the embeds are pissed that Puerto Rico moved up its date, since they had hoped it would be the last one, and they could spend the following week there.)

Because of the population of the races remaining after Pennsylvania, even given historic turnout, there are not enough physical human bodies to switch the popular vote total from Obama to Clinton. To overtake him in the popular vote, Clinton would have to see huge turnout AND win EVERY remaining race by capturing 75% of the popular vote -- NOT going to happen.

Come June 4^th, Obama will have a popular lead of a minimum of 500,000 in the popular vote, and a minimum of 120 in the pledged delegate lead. That’s the deal. It might even be a bigger spread since most caucus states don’t report turnout numbers (which would give him a bigger spread since he virtually swept the caucuses (except Nevada) and as the caucus system progresses up from district to county to state level, he’ll pick up more votes, as happened in Iowa. (Note to the Clinton campaign -- if you’re going to denigrate the caucus system in loud and vulgar ways -- next time, wait until the votes are OVER.)

It will then be up to the unpledged SuperDelegates, and the uncommitted pledged delegates to put either Obama or Clinton over the magic number (which varies but will be somewhere between 2024 and 2208 depending on deaths, special elections, governors losing their standing due to sex scandals and whatever becomes of Michigan and Florida).

Phil Bresden, an uncommitted Super and governor of Tennessee put out a post that he believes all uncommitteds should commit ON June 4^th, so that we can regroup over the summer, and not have that obnoxious 3 month wait for the outcome. We’ll see what he does. Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the House and Chair of the Convention, has said that the Supers should vote the will of the people. Whether she meant that state-by-state or nationally was not made clear.

So that’s where we stand this morning. Please let me know if you have any questions.