Headed Toward a Delegate Deadlock?

29.01.2008

One of Andrew Sullivan's readers points out that despite Hillary's big lead in New York, she won't get anywhere near all the state's delegates:

The point is this. Using the numbers in the poll you cite, and the conservative assumptions that Hillary wins every single district out of the city, that Obama everywhere garners at least 30%, and that Edwards doesn't meet the threshold anywhere, the pledged delegate tallies for New York State would be: Hillary 132, Obama 100. You can knock one delegate off of Hillary's total for every upstate CD in which Edwards cracks 15%; if he breaks that statewide, subtract another 6 from Hillary and 4 from Obama.

The point is this. Hillary's strategy is built on the assumption that she can leverage huge leads in NY, NJ, and CA to compensate for her losses in the south and midwest. And in the last week, that strategy has gone up in smoke. She's finished; if our national media wasn't innumerate, it would have noticed by now.

The first part of this analysis might be right, but the second part is dead wrong. What's true of Hillary in New York is true of Obama in his strong states like Illinois and Georgia: she's going to end up getting a lot of delegates there. This points toward a larger reality: much as everyone decries a system of front-loaded primaries, the Democratic delegate-allocation process is designed with the expectation that some candidate will gain so much momentum in the early states as to become the presumptive nominee. It isn't well suited to deciding a situation in which you have two strong candidates with enduring bases of support.

Granted, it's probably still relatively unlikely that Obama and Clinton will both continue to score in the high thirties and forties everywhere through February, March, and April--but if they do, it's almost assured that no candidate will gain a majority of delegates (which makes John Edwards very, very happy). Because all the delegates up for grabs are allocated proportionally (both at the statewide and congressional-district level), and no bonus is given for winning a plurality of the vote in a state, it winds up being all but impossible to rack up a delegate majority. In retrospect it seems like maybe you should get extra delegates for winning a state, but this situation comes up so rarely (it may not even happen this year) that it's easy to overlook this aspect of the system.

--Josh Patashnik

Posted: Tuesday, January 29, 2008 5:36 PM with 5 comment(s)

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virginiacentrist said:

Ugh. The idea of John Edwards deciding this thing makes my stomach turn. The guy has no principles whatsoever. If Mitt Romney wasn't in the race, the media would be focusing on Edwards's sharp ideological turn...

January 29, 2008 7:11 PM

lymon1 said:

Edwards has run a clean and positive race (I'd argue more so than Obama), and he doesn't have iron control over what happens to his delagates, does he? What if Edwards pledged to...Al Gore? I'm all for an open convention -- the party is bitterly divided and I'm not sure if it can unite in the fall.

January 29, 2008 7:21 PM

clifton said:

Isn't this this best possible outcome for the democratic party? A riveting race that slowly sucks in the entire nation's attention, and which is still undecided as the convention begins. 100 million people could watch the convention. It would be like billions of dollars of free advertising. Normally people are undecided right up to election day because they haven't started paying attention. But this year, everyone may begin paying attention by watching the convention. Will people even notice the existence of the Republican nominee? Who knows? Certainly no one will be listening to him

If the Democratic Party had any sense (too much to hope for, I know) the leadership wouldn't be wondering how to stop this from happening again, but working to insure that is happens at least once a decade or so. Getting rid of super delegates, for instance.

January 29, 2008 7:38 PM

JSmith125 said:

I don't understand this part of the post:

<i>much as everyone decries a system of front-loaded primaries, the Democratic delegate-allocation process is designed with the expectation that some candidate will gain so much momentum in the early states as to become the presumptive nominee. It isn't well suited to deciding a situation in which you have two strong candidates with enduring bases of support. </i>

What's the point of having numerous discrete state primaries scattered over a period of time if the "expectation" is that most of the later ones will be effectively moot? If the system isn't suited to deciding between two strong candidates, what the hell is it for? Put another way, isn't the very existence of the primary system based on a different expectation, i.e. that voters in later states will be able to cast votes that are still meaningful, i.e. that will play a role in deciding between more-or-less strong candidates? Or are all but the first five or six primaries "expected" to be merely ratification votes on a decision already reached?

And what the f..... You can't preview comments anymore before posting them? Who did this ridiculous site redesign anyway?

January 29, 2008 10:13 PM

sdemuth said:

Clifton -

No, it's not a good outcome for the party, if the nominee is not decided until the convention in late August, but the Republicans crown McCain or Romney by April via the primaries. That gives the Republican candidate 4 or 5 months to raise money and organize, while the Democrats are in disarray.

The whole system is stupid. If you're going to have your convention in August, you oght to have your primaries in June and July, not January and February.

January 30, 2008 4:43 AM