Crossposted at CT Local Politics: Our Primaries are better than yours!
Connecticut is allocated 60 delegates to the Democratic National Convention - 48 of which are pledged to candidates based on the result of Tuesday's priamry (the other 12 are Super-Delegates who are free to vote for whomever they want at the Convention. TrueBlueCT helpfully provided an accounting of these delegates the other day: Obama leads Clinton 5-1 with 6 delegates uncommitted (and, it should be noted, the commitments can change at anytime).
Of those 48 pledged delegates, 31 are assigned to particular Congressional Districts (and are pledged based on the proportional results in that CD) as follows:
* CD 1: 7
* CD 2: 6
* CD 3: 7
* CD 4: 5
* CD 5: 6
The remaining 17 delegates are statewide delegates and are pledged proportionately based on the state wide results.
Given that the primary is expected to be a close one, you can essentially throw out the 2nd and 5th CDs - because they have an even number of delegates, one of the candidates would have to win that CD by a large margin in order to avoid an even delegate split (a 66 2/3% - 33 1/3% split would be necessary in either district to produce a 4-2 split).
Likewise, again assuming a close total vote result, the results of the delegate primary will be decided by the results in the 1st, 3rd, and 4th CDs (not so coincidently, those CDs have hosted the vast majority, if not all, of the campaign events in the state). Whichever candidate wins those districts will receive an extra pledged delegate.
Statewide, the 17 delegates are likely to be split 9-8 with the extra delegate going to the statewide winner. In order to result in a 10-7 split, the final statewide result would need to be at least as wide as 58.820% - 41.174% - an unlikely outcome given the most recent polls (but certainly possible given how bad the primary polling has been and the impossibility of predicting turnout).
Turning to my crystal ball, it looks to me like the election will be fairly close (certainly resulting in a 9-8 statewide split) and that Obama will win statewide. Likewise, it is unlikely that any one district will have so wide a split in results that anything other than an even-split or an even-split+1 delegate count will result. I think Obama has an advantage in each of the three contestable CDs and should win all three. Obviously, reasonable people can disagree - put your predictions or any questions about how the delegates are apportioned in comments...
Crossposted at CT Local Politics: Our Primaries are better than yours!