Saturday's Contest for S. Carolina's Pledged Delegates

In the wake of the pitched battle here on Saturday night over who won Nevada, and in light of the renewed discussion of the scenario--mentioned here, and favored by most DKos users--in which Edwards will pick up delegates in almost every state from here to the Convention, making him and his supporters the "kingmakers," I thought to write a little diary on how the pledged delegates are chosen in primaries.  This diary is based mainly on this source on the S.C. Dem. Party website.

I hope this explanation will help everyone make a little more sense of what happens not only on Saturday but also in their own state on Feb. 5 and beyond.

There are 7 contests taking place on Saturday.  The statewide contest and the contest in each Congressional District.  Eight distinct sets of delegates will be awarded to the candidates:

Statewide A. Pledged Party Leaders and Elected Officials (PLEO): 6 delegates.
Statewide B. At-Large Delegates: 10 delegates.
CD 1: 4 delegates; CD 2: 5; CD 3: 4; CD 4: 4; CD 5: 6; CD 6: 6.

Each set of delegates is split proportionately among the viable candidates, that is, the candidates getting 15% or more of the vote.

The wikipedia page on all six of South Carolina's CDs, including maps, is here.

No polling has been done with crosstabs on the candidates' support in each Congressional District.  And that's a shame.  Just as an exercise, I'll go through the delegate calculation on the patently incorrect assumption that each of the three candidates has the same support in each CD.

Using an average of the five most recent polls, if the undecideds break evenly among the 3 candidates, the results will be roughly

Obama 45.53%
Clinton 32.33%
Edwards 22.13%.

I think the methodology of the polls I am using (unlike that of the Clemson poll, which I leave out only because it's too dated) underestimate the number of undecideds.  And it could be that all the undecideds will break for Edwards.  Who knows?  Maybe they will break for Obama or Clinton.  But let's just take those numbers above and work with them.

Assuming the counterfactual that the geographical distribution of support is uniform, the rest is just caucus math.  Because all three candidates receive greater than 15%, all three will get at least one delegate from each pot.

Statewide A:  Obama 3, Clinton 2, Edwards 1.
Statewide B:  Obama 5, Clinton 3, Edwards 2.
CD 1:  Obama 2, Clinton 1, Edwards 1.
CD 2:  Obama 2, Clinton 2, Edwards 1.
CD 3:  Obama 2, Clinton 1, Edwards 1.
CD 4:  Obama 2, Clinton 1, Edwards 1.
CD 5:  Obama 3, Clinton 2, Edwards 1.
CD 6:  Obama 3, Clinton 2, Edwards 1.

Obama would get 22 out of the 45 delegates at stake (49%).
Clinton would get 14 (31%).
Edwards would get 9 (20%).

As you can see, there would be some discrepancy between delegate results and the popular vote, as there was in Nevada (although there the numbers labeled by the Clinton campaign as the "popular vote" were already removed from the popular will by one layer of caucus math).

How does the caucus math affect things?

First, in each district with just 4 delegates to award, provided that all three candidates take more than 15% of the vote, the winner of a plurality of the vote automatically gets 2 delegates.  So in a three-way race, those 4 delegate districts become more important, in a sense, for the frontrunners--a one-vote victory in the primary means a one delegate advantage, and these delegates can add up.

Second, in any district with 5 delegates to award, the presence of a viable third candidate makes it easier for a trailing candidate to win just as many delegates as the 1st place winner.  In our example, South Carolina's 2d CD, Clinton gets her 2d delegate the following way.
Delegate scores:  Obama 45.53/20 = 2.28; Clinton = 1.62; Edwards = 1.11.  First, truncate those scores to award as many delegates as possible (Obama 2, Clinton 1, Edwards 1).  Then, the fifth and final delegate is awarded to the candidate with the highest remainder, i.e., Clinton because Clinton's .62 is greater than Obama's .28 and Edwards' .11.

I note that nationally, in CDs with 5 delegates, if Edwards can pull exactly 15%, Obama does not need to be all that close to Clinton in order to split the 4 remaining delegates 2 and 2 with Clinton.  Remarkably, in a 5-delegate CD, if the results are Clinton 52.4%, Obama 32.6% and Edwards 15%, the delegate split will be 2-2-1.

The bottom line, which I won't belabor, is that luck plays a significant role in who gets how many delegates.  But delegates are the name of the game, particularly if Edwards remains viable (i.e. above 15%).  If the results modeled above were replicated across the country (but with Obama in Clinton's shoes, and vice versa), Clinton would be just short of a majority of pledged delegates.  It would then be up to Edwards and Obama to convince enough superdelegates to join with them to keep Clinton from winning at the Convention.

•  I won't dispute your work at all

  since it is strong and interesting but I would argue that if Hillary had a significant number of delegates and was a good distance higher than Obama even without the magic number enough super delegates would go her way for her to win.  In that case though, and possibly even without that, she needs to figure out a way to get someone like if not Obama himself on her ticket.

  by EricRSINY on Fri Jan 25, 2008 at 04:55:41 PM PDT

  •  I pray Senator Obama will not stoop

    to the level of being on the ticket with Hillary.

    by Blogvirgin on Fri Jan 25, 2008 at 04:58:44 PM PDT

    •  I still

      I still won't vote for Clinton.

      by discocarp on Fri Jan 25, 2008 at 05:21:49 PM PDT

•  D@^^= good analysis!

  Post a tip jar!

  by Blogvirgin on Fri Jan 25, 2008 at 04:57:25 PM PDT

•  Thanks!

  It is fun to do the math on this, isn't it?  

  Whats most interesting to me about this is that if Edwards remains viable I think that simply because of the math there will be a level of forced civility injected into this race.  If it becomes increasingly clear that a brokered convention is a true possibility - everyone is going to have to play nice nice down the stretch.  Which is something that I look forward to with all the sniping thats been going on.

  by oaktav on Fri Jan 25, 2008 at 05:01:08 PM PDT

•  They are not going to be uniform

  among districts, because of race.

  The split will be more like

  CD 1: C-2 O-1 E-1 (20% black registration)
  CD 2: O-2 C-2 E-1 (25% black registration)
  CD 3- C-2 O-1 E-1 (18%)
  CD 4- C-2 O-1 E-1 (20%)
  CD 5- O-3 C-2 E-1 (30%)
  CD 6- O-4 C-2     (57%)

  Totals: O-12 C-12 E-5
  Statewide O-8 C-6 E-2
  Final Totals: O-20 C-18 E-7

  With Edwards surging, I can see him winning CD 3 and 4, and getting 2 instead of 1.  I can also possibly see him finishing ahead of Clinton in CD-5, although that would be tough.

  by IhateBush on Fri Jan 25, 2008 at 05:34:08 PM PDT

•  Nice illustration. Add'l notes:

  Your work assumes the percentages are evenly distributed statewide -- which they never are. It's a good loose guess that Obama and Clinton will flip positions in at least one CD -- cutting Obama's margin by 2 seats.

  If Edwards falls below threshold in one or more districts, that gives somebody an additional delegate -- usually the 2nd-place finisher in even (4 or 6-seat)  districts, and the leader in odd (5-seat districts).

  Very small states can give the leader bigger delegate margins than biggerws states. ND, for instance, has a single CD. For caucus purposes, it is divided into eight 1-delegate districts. If Obama leads the field uniformly in ND, he'll pick up 8 district delegates. He'll also get 2 of 3 statewide at-large delegates, plus the "unpledged" add-on.

  Thus ND's 21-delegate derby could give him a 10-delegate margin ... where a similar performance in SC's 54-delegate contest gives him only an 8-delegate margin.

  A handy summary of all state delegate selection plans can be found at
  http://www.TheGreenPapers.com/

  by RonK Seattle on Fri Jan 25, 2008 at 05:55:15 PM PDT

  •  that is fascinating

    I didn't know that about North Dakota.  They have drawn up their delegate selection plan to be functionally a winner-take-all state, by having so many one-delegate winner-take-all districts.

    by nieman on Sat Jan 26, 2008 at 09:17:44 AM PDT