Hillary Clinton won tonight’s popular vote in Texas, but it appears as though Barack Obama will win the most delegates from Texas.
The best primary delegate analysis I've seen is this spreadsheet, being updated live by the Burnt Orange Report crew. As it stands, at 1:00am, Clinton is up by only 1 delegate, despite being over 100k votes ahead. (By the percentages, this would put her at a 6 delegate lead).
And then, thanks to that crazy Texas Two Step, there are the caucuses, which Obama should win handily. Follow me under the fold for more details.
So how is this all possible? In Texas, and most other states, delegates are apportioned on a district-by district basis. In a district with 8 delegates (such as Austin), a candidate needs a little more than 6 additional percentage points in order to gain an extra delegate. Going from 50 to 56 percent, or even to 62 percent is certainly reasonable.
However, in many smaller districts, with only 4 delegates, either Clinton or Obama would need 75% of the vote to get an extra delegate. In a race this close, that’s, for all intents and purposes, impossible.
So if we go back to the spreadsheet, we see that Obama performed much better in urban areas, which are also high-delegate districts. Much of Clinton’s strong support came from west and southwest Texas, which is more rural and contains fewer delegates per district. For example, Obama is winning Senate District 13 (Houston area) with nearly 75% of the vote, giving him a 5-2 delegate split there.
So, the delegate numbers from the primary will be very close, with Clinton likely to win by just a few delegates. The deciding factor will be the 67 delegates apportioned by the TX caucuses, where Obama leads by 12 points, with 22% of districts reporting. If this holds (and it’s expected to), Obama will pick up something in the neighborhood of 7 or 8 delegates, which should be enough to put him over the top.
I’ll leave it to the reader to decide whether this system is fair, but I will say that it’s every bit as fair as the electoral college. Just ask Al Gore.