Legal Commentary

Texas May Be Hillary's Last Chance

By Jeralyn

ABC News has a pretty thorough analysis of the status of things in Texas, and which way different demographics are breaking.

There's three problems for Hillary in Texas, and they don't sound small.

• 1/3 of the delegates will be awarded based on a caucus held at the conclusion of the primary.

• Delegates are apportioned partially by Democratic voter turnout in prior elections

• The primary is open to Independents

The significance: Obama does better in caucuses and primaries where Independents can vote.

The places with the greater amount of liberal and African American voters (Dallas, Houston, Austin) had greater voter turnout than the Latino communities in prior years, so even if Hillary gets a great Latino turnout, she won't score as many delegates. [More...]

For instance, voters in three urban state senate districts — overwhelmingly black districts in Dallas and Houston, and a white liberal enclave of Austin — will choose 21 convention delegates between them.

But because of low Latino turnout for Democrats in the 2004 and 2006 elections, some state senate districts choose as few as two delegates each.

Latinos are expected to account for 1/3 of primary voters. Hillary may get the number up to 40%. It's expected she will win 2/3 of those votes. African American voters make up 1/4 of the primary vote, and Obama can be expected to get 85 to 90% of it.

Bottom line: Hillary could win the popular vote in Texas but lose the delegate race. Texas has 193 delegates. She may need a blow-out in the state to make up for these Texas-size peculiarities.

Full post as published by TalkLeft on February 20, 2008 (boomark / email).