Tennessee, Too, Could Flummox Delegate Allocaters

In Tennessee, too, the Democratic winner of the popular vote could wind up receiving the second largest number of delegates.

From campaigndiaries.com:

* The 9th district which is 59.7% black (which means an even higher proportion of Democratic primary voters). It is also a 6 delegate district, and Obama should be able to break the 59% he needs for a 4-2 split. * The first, second and third districts all allocate four delegates. And while Clinton is likely to win big in all of them, she needs to break 62.5%. That will obviously be very hard for her to accomplish, especially given that Obama can count on a minimal black base in all those places, so that she could be forced to come out of these 3 districts with a 6-6 split. * The 5th district is 23% black and has 6 delegates. Obama is likely to win there, and he could be forced to split the delegates. But he is more likely to break 59% than Clinton is to break 62% in the first 3 districts. * That leaves Clinton with the 4th, 6th, 7th districts to get any sort of delegate lead. All of these have 5 delegates, which makes it near impossible for her to win by a big enough landslide to get a 4-1 edge (once again, the black vote should provide Obama with a strong base). In other words, these three districts combined could give Clinton a 3 delegate lead -- one each. * Finally, the 8th district looks to be more disputed between the candidates. It is a 5 delegate district, so that the winner will get an extra delegate even if he only wins by a vote. * The bottom line: Obama could lose the state by 15% or more but tie Clinton on the district delegate count. By opening up a 2 delegate margin in the 9th and perhaps the 5th district while forcing Clinton to split the delegates in her own strongholds (the first 3 districts), Obama would at worst trail Clinton by 1-2 delegates, at best lead her by as much. And all of this while losing the popular vote by 15%

Comments

Tennessee also has 15 at large delegates apportioned by statewide vote. A 15 point win would give her a 9-6 margin on those.

Posted by John | February 5, 2008 2:13 PM

Maybe this delegate math was the reason that Obama did not even bother to go to TN. He might have made the calculation that he would be able to keep the delegate numbers close with paid media alone.

Posted by RKA | February 5, 2008 2:21 PM

Completely unscientific analysis, but I voted in the 9th this morning and it was 100% white. Me and a very tired looking medical resident...

Also, my polling suggests that Obama is getting at least 50% of the early morning white vote in the 9th district.

Posted by RM | February 5, 2008 2:45 PM

So blacks are voting for Obama because he's black. Yet just a few weeks ago blacks were voting for Clinton because blacks just love them some Clintons.

Phooey! A lot of blacks I know here in Atlanta were trending toward Clinton because of a conventional wisdom I have never understood. They started noticing and talking to me about Obama only in the last week or so. It wasn't because he was black. It was for the same reasons that white voters started talking about Obama. They started paying attention. The Clintons started acting all crazy. And the general Obama momo and excitement started grabbing them. Black and white, goofus.

And Bill's MLK snooze, covered extensively on our local stations didn't help Hillary either. Though it was entirely understandable with his schedule, it still left quite an image.

Posted by tribalecho | February 5, 2008 3:07 PM

No complaints from this East Tennessee (2nd District) Obama voter. We rarely get our way in the state out here in GOP land. We're slowly building up the party in these parts but we've got a long way to go. I'd rather see Memphis have more influence than us.

Posted by Elrod | February 5, 2008 4:21 PM

This is insulting, inferior "logic" on so many levels.

The majority of America is white. The country is approximately 50% female. If men and women vote in roughly equal measures, according to this logic, Hillary should've been a runaway winner from the beginning of the process as the only white female running. And Richardson should've been able to count on all the Latino support, right? After all, blacks only vote for blacks, women only vote for women, latinos only vote for...

Wait, what?
What do you mean 'no'?
What do you mean 'that's not how it works'?

Wait, you mean black people are actually free to vote for Clinton or Obama or a Republican or whoever the hell they want? That's insane. When did that happen?

Somebody is going to have to wake me up when they can square away this outdated, "black people all vote this way, white people all vote this way" logic with Barack Obama winning in almost exclusively white Iowa...

Posted by Aaron | February 5, 2008 4:25 PM