Clinton, Texas and Obama – Final Results

I first created this post back in February and predicted that Hillary Clinton would lose Texas. I was wrong and I was right. It depends on what the meaning of ‘lose’ is. Hillary won the primary and therefore won the state, but Obama received more delegates and delegates are what you need to win the race. So we have two winners and perhaps no real losers. Regardless, here are what appear to be the ‘final’  results from Texas:

Final Texas Results (estimated) as of 3/12/08 on AOL:

Obama: 61 delegates from the popular vote + 38 delegates from caucuses = 99 delegates.

Clinton: 65 delegates from the popular vote + 29 delegates from Caucuses = 94 delegates.

Yeehaw.

And, According to The Dallas Morning News:

The last reported results – from 41 percent of the precinct caucuses – show Barack Obama leading Hillary Rodham Clinton 56 percent to 44 percent.

If that holds up through the next several steps, he’d take 37 of the caucus delegates to 30 for Mrs. Clinton. Combined with delegates from the popular vote, won by Mrs. Clinton, that would give Mr. Obama a 98-95 edge.

CNN and others have reported that Hillary ‘won’ Texas, but Obama left with more delegates.

10:46pm PST 3/4/2008 – in LA

And Hillary has won the popular vote in the state of Texas, as well as Ohio and RI. The final numbers will be very close and Obama may still wind up with as many or more delegates even before the caucus is factored in. The final results will be interesting in terms of whether she was able to make up any ground in terms of delegates. The conventional wisdom is that she has made up little to none.

All that being said, Hillary did win Texas. Latinos came on strong for her and, something that should disturb Obama supporters, people making their decision in the last three days continue to break strongly for Clinton.

Original Post Follows:

It’s a bold statement for me to come right out and say – Hillary Clinton will lose Texas to Barack Obama.

Why would Texas be any different from the other big states Hillary has won?

The way Texas is set up, with a combined primary and caucus, takes away some of the big state advantage we have seen with Clinton’s army. Moreover, the way delegates are assigned hinders her Latino base and heavily favors the support Barack will receive from urban areas. With white voters increasingly split between the candidates, and African-American support keeping pace with the hindered Latino votes, the overall primary should lean slightly to Obama’s corner. Add to this, the fact that Hillary never had a plan for Texas and is still learning how the primary works and she is headed for disaster.

The caucus then comes into play as an X factor and Obama has demonstrated a much better feel for how to win caucuses. If that pattern holds, Hillary will lose Texas.

That is the what, now comes the how.

Texas has a total available 228 delegates and it is pure hell trying to figure out where they are coming from and to whom they are going. As I mentioned earlier, the entire thing is a bit of a hybrid. It is set up in two parts: a primary and a caucus held on the same day.

Everyone heads to the polls on the morning of March 4th to start voting in the Texas Primary that will determine 126 delegates. Immediately after the primary is over, a strange and confusing caucus will determine the remaining 67 delegates up for grabs. Of these 67 delegates, only 42 are at-large and available in the caucus system. The other 25 will be Pledged Super Delegates who are determined along the same lines as the delegates attending the convention and in proportion to each candidate. So, a candidate performing well in the caucuses will be gaining at-large delegates and Pledged Super Delegates. Then there are another 35 Unpledged Super Delegates as well.

Let’s quickly delve into the caucus and get it out of the way so that we can break down some of the primary’s nuances. The caucusing begins the moment the polls close in the March 4th Primary. Success in the Texas caucuses will go to whichever campaign can get their people organized and in attendance once the primary polls close – whoever has the most supporters show up wins. If you are reading this, then you probably know Clinton has performed poorly in every caucus except New Mexico. She performs so badly in them, she has taken to disparaging them and ignoring the states that hold them, to her own detriment.

Caucuses are won by having a strong ground game and an efficient grassroots network. I was a part of that effort in California and it was amazing. Even though we did not win the state, we were able to make inroads for Obama in a big state primary, and this will be even more effective in the Texas caucus.

Below is a nice example of how the caucuses will distribute the 42 at-large delegates, again from Burnt Orange Report:

The allocation of these 42 delegates (by candidate preference) is based on the presidential preference expressed state convention delegates (who are chosen at their precinct and county conventions) when they sign in at the state convention June 6.

Let’s do an example: 100 people attend a precinct convention (which is held 15 minutes after the polls close). 80 of those attending the precinct convention support Obama, and 20 support Clinton. Let’s assume your precinct gets to select 5 delegates to the County Convention. 4 of those Delegates would be “pledged” to Obama, and 1 would be “pledged” to Clinton. Those 5 people go to the County Convention.

At the County Convention, the same process is repeated. Let’s say there are 100 people at the County Convention — these are the 100 delegates that were chosen at all of the precinct conventions around the County. At the County Convention, let’s say 75 are “Obama precinct convention” delegates and 25 are “Clinton precinct convention” delegates. Based on the county strength — the percentage of statewide Democratic votes that came from your county — let’s say your County gets to send 4 delegates to the State Convention. 3 of those delegates would be “pledged” to Obama, and 1 would be “pledged” to Clinton.

The identical process is followed at the State convention. Let’s say 100 delegates go to the State Convention — these are the 100 delegates that were chosen to represent their candidate at the County Convention. Of these 100 delegates at the State Convention, 66 (2/3) vote for Obama and 34 (1/3) vote for Clinton. The 42 at-large delegates are split along this percentage division — so Obama would have an additional 28 delegates (2/3 of 42) attend the DNC Convention, while Clinton would have 14 delegates (1/3 of 42) attend the DNC Convention.

I grossly under-represented the numbers at every convention level for illustrative purposes; if you can follow this logic (and I’ve tried as best I could to help you), you’ll understand the main point: this process awards whichever campaign has the best grassroots effort to get their voters to stay after the polls close and attend the precinct convention. This is truly a process where the numbers build up — and yes, it’s crazy. But we’re Texas — what would we be if we weren’t at least a little crazy.

Therefore, roughly a third of the available delegates will be distributed in a caucus, the bane of Hillary Clinton. With Clinton’s blue collar workers less likely to have the time to caucus late in the evening, you can expect Obama’s wealthier and younger base to carry the day.

The bad news for Clinton is that the primary will also play to Obama’s strengths.

During the March 4th Texas Primary, 126 delegates will be distributed proportionally to how well each candidate performs in the vote. “These 126 delegates are divided based on the voting strength of each candidate in the 31 State Senate Districts across Texas.”

So far, so good – but here’s the first curve ball team Clinton is just now discovering. The number of delegates allocated to these districts will be determined by how well the Democratic Presidential Nominee and Gubernatorial Nominee performed in each particular district in the last elections. So, delegate counts are dependent on how well John Kerry performed in each district and the districts that performed well essentially receive bonus delegates. Many of the strong Latino districts did not come forward in large numbers for John Kerry in 2004 and so they will not receive a large number of delegates. In contrast, inner-city areas in Houston and Dallas had good showings and will be awarded more delegates, up to three and four times as many as the previously mentioned Latino districts. Clinton’s team has just realized they could win the popular vote in the primary but come out of the contest with fewer delegates than Obama.

For the Texas primary, the areas that will have the most delegates available will be Austin, Houston and Dallas. These do not represent her traditional base and should be big wins for Obama.

Austin is home to The University of Texas, an extremely large and liberal college body of young politically active students. According to the Burnt Orange Report, 2600 new voters were registered on the UT Campus on the LAST DAY to register for voting in the primary. 2600 New Voters Registered in ONE DAY! Clinton has all but ceded the youth vote to Barack, despite the number of speeches Chelsea makes to young people. Expect Austin to go for Obama in a very big way.

Houston will be a problem for Clinton because it contains one of the most heavily African-American communities in the state and Obama, unlike Clinton, has had field operations in place there for some time. Likewise, Dallas, which offers the third most delegates, contains a strong inner-city presence in which African-Americans outnumber Latinos and is home to one of two black senators in Texas, Senator Royce West, an Obama supporter. Dallas and Houston will be the biggest prizes on March 4th and will go strongly for Obama.

All these facts in much more detail can be found on the Burnt Orange Report.

The Houston-Galveston area is the most delegate rich in the state and my good friend, Aaron, is heading up the important Obama field operations there. He was one of the most competent and dedicated people I worked alongside here in California on Obama’s campaign and is tireless when it comes to reaching out to voters. I am looking to join his team towards the end of Feb. Barack should pick up the greatest number of delegates here. This is a good segue into the next big reason Hillary is going to struggle in Texas – she did not plan on having to fight there.

Clinton believed she would have the nomination wrapped up after Super Tuesday. As a result of her horrible planning, there was nothing in place for states such as Texas and Ohio. Furthermore, Texans were convinced their primary was not going to matter and so they were not keeping up with the contest, this according to Rep. Chet Edwards (D-TX). Clinton lacked a plan for Texas and was late to the game in getting field offices set up there. Texas, in turn, is tuning into a race in which Obama seems to be running away with it and Texans like being associated with winning teams – not losers.

How badly has Clinton miscalculated in Texas? Whoa Nellie – real bad. According to this Washington Post article, Clinton’s team has just recently learned how the Texas system works, how delegates will be determined and how it will most impact Latino votes. Yesterday she complained to the press that her team was still trying to figure it out. Now her camp is ringing alarm bells because the heavily Latino districts are watered down and will not have much of an impact versus urban areas in Houston and Dallas, which will likely go to Obama, and “could yield three or four times as many delegates.” It is a political campaign blunder of Giuliani proportions.

It makes one wonder, if she cannot even plan a competent campaign is she really ready to lead on day one?

With delegate rich areas going strongly for Obama and many of the Latino areas not being a significant advantage to Clinton, white voters will be very important to any type of success she hopes to have. Most pundits agree, she will continue seeing strong support from white women. This is her rock. White men are another story. White men have been breaking for Obama in state after state and, often times, by large margins. If this trend continues, Clinton and Obama could split the white vote, as anticipated by Marc Ambinder in The Atlantic.

If the white vote is even close, you can expect Obama to sweep up all of Dallas, Houston and Austin and thus potentially win a tremendous advantage in the delegates in these areas. The Potomac Primaries saw Latinos trending away from Clinton, with some of the public turmoil and resulting consternation from prominent Latinos in how the Clinton camp handled Patti Solis Doyle’s stepping down, her base could be eroding. If this limits Clinton’s margins of victory in the already diluted South Texas Precincts – then the primary could swing to Obama.

Assuming the caucus trend continues, and we have no reason to believe it will not especially in light of her lack of planning, Hillary will suffer significant losses and the majority of those delegates would then go to Barack Obama. At that point, Texas goes to Obama.

There is obviously a lot of conjecture here, but it is conjecture based upon trends, demographics and facts we know about campaign planning and operations. The Prima-caucus mitigates Clinton’s strength of pure name recognition. The number of delegates assigned to each district heavily favors urban areas with strong African-American populations. White voters are increasingly split between the two candidates and you can expect more white men to break for Obama than in any contest thus far. (ok, that’s my own conjecture) This will result in a very close primary and then in the caucus, the edge goes to Obama and the state will follow.

Here’s the recap of delegate distribution, compliments of the folks at Burnt Orange Report:

• 126 “primary-chosen” delegates – Likely to be split
• 42 at-large, “caucus-chosen” delegates – Likely to go to Obama
• 25 pledged “party delegates” – Likely Obama
• 35 unpledged “super delegates” – SD’s will start going the way of the states and the polls

And that is how Hillary Clinton will lose Texas to Barack Obama…and, according to her husband, the whole enchilada.

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