| Ed. note: Earlier this morning, we at Burnt Orange Report endorsed Senator Barack Obama. Read our endorsement here, or on Senator Obama's home page (check the latest news section). Part of our reasons for our endorsement stems from the analysis below.
Key Point: Senator Obama can win Texas if he can hold his own on March 4 with the 126 Delegates that will be allocated based on the votes in Texas' 31 Senate Districts, and then do well (as he has in the past) with the 67 delegates in the caucus-system that will fully be realized at the Texas Democratic Party Convention in June.
My analysis is based on the distribution of delegates in the Texas primary system. If you aren't familiar with how the Texas primary works, here are two posts I've done to tell you everything you need:
The first thing that should be understood is that while Senator Clinton does have strong support in the Latino community, Latinos will not decide the Texas primary alone. In order for Senator Clinton to win in Texas, she will need a dramatic majority in the South Texas Senate Districts in order to actually gain a delegate advantage in that region -- and doing that is harder than it looks.
As I briefly discussed in my original analysis, there are 6 Senate Districts that are in South Texas and/or on the Mexican border. The key to remember, though, is that 4 of those 6 Senate Districts -- including the Laredo and San Antonio districts, the two cities with the largest bloc of Hispanic voters -- only have 4 delegates apiece. If a District only has 4 delegates, a candidate must win enough of a vote so that "rounding up" will get them 75% of the delegates.
Imagine there's a Senate District with 4 delegates. Here's how many delegates a candidate would get, based on voting percentages:
Voting % -- # of Delegates
0.00 - 14.99% -- 0 delegates
15.0% - 37.5% -- 1 delegate
37.51% - 62.5% -- 2 delegates
62.51% - 87.5% -- 3 delegates
87.51% - 100% -- 4 delegates
Key Point: Unless Senator Clinton can gain 62.51% of the vote in the four biggest South Texas Districts, she and Senator Obama will split most of the South Texas (largely Latino) vote.
Considering that the Latino vote in Arizona split 55%-45% for Senator Clinton, and taking into account that Senator Obama has much, much more time and resources to dedicate to Texas for the March 4 primary than he did for Super Tuesday (when 22 states were in play, including California, New Mexico, and Arizona), Senator Obama has an opportunity to keep Senator Clinton's margin of victory under the 62.51% threshold that would be required for her to do anything more than tie in most of South Texas.
That's the numbers -- but Senator Obama must get it done. He's off to got a good start.
Senator Obama has the endorsement of Congressman Charlie Gonzalez, a popular San Antonio Congressman who has an active base. His Texas Field Director, Adrian Saenz, has served as Chief of Staff and Campaign Manager for Congressman Ciro Rodriguez. There's one other factor of interest: Latinos normally vote in high turnout in the primary race. There's a question right now as to how much (and for which candidate) beyond normally high Democratic-primary turnout there will be in this area of the state. Are Clinton's voters going to be those that normally vote all the time in the Democratic primary in South Texas (which is consistent with her supporter's argument that she has strong name ID), so that a vast majority of "new voters" may, in fact, be Latinos for Obama? We can't be sure. All we know is that these factors combined should make pundits think twice about Senator Clinton's alleged "lock" on the Latino vote.
Key Point: Playing strong in South Texas will only prevent Senator Obama from defeat. In order to win, he must perform exceedingly well across the three major TX markets: Austin, Houston, and Dallas.
Voter turnout is expected to be off-the-charts throughout most of Texas, which could play very well for Obama. There are many, many districts that can go different ways on March 4. But the three largest districts -- one each in Houston, Austin, and Dallas -- each have one of the largest delegate blocks the primary. A quick note on those 3 districts: - Austin (SD 14) - With 8 delegates all its own, it's the biggest district. The University of Texas at Austin's precincts recorded 99.58% turnout in 2004, and they registered 2,600 voters in a single day on the last day to register to vote. It's extremely likely that Senator Obama wins this 5-3, and not beyond the realm of possibility that he finishes 6-2 here.
- Houston (SD 13) - With 7 delegates, one campaign will win this district, and it will probably be Senator Obama. All of the local elected officials -- almost all of whom are African-American -- have endorsed Obama, and their campaign has opened up a campaign headquarters that is in the heart of the district. Additionally, there is a very large LGBT community in this district that is very active politically. A 4-3 split for Senator Obama is very likely, and I wouldn't be surprised if it went 5-2, Obama.
- Dallas (SD 23) - With 6 delegates, this is the same story as the Houston district. In 2006, Democrats swept over local 40 Dallas County races that were on the ballot. Turnout will be incredibly high, which could favor a 4-2 Obama split.
Of course, this discussion has only focused on the "primary" portion of Texas' primary/caucus system. Texas' caucuses begin at 7:15 PM after the polls close on Election Day, March 4th. Texas caucuses are an entirely separate election process for determining an entirely separate portion of national delegates. A candidate could win the primary but lose the caucuses to a better organized opponent.
Key Point: The Texas caucus system awards the candidate with the most active voters who return to vote a second time at 7:15 PM on Election Day, and there's absolutely no question that Senator Obama is absolutely dominating the caucuses.
Senator Obama could come close to Senator Clinton in the "primary" portion and dominate the "caucus" portion --- the only catch is that those 67 votes that come from the "caucus" system won't be known until June and the Texas Democratic Party Convention.
If the expectations are that Senator Clinton will win and perhaps even dominate in Texas, then even Senator Obama finishing close on Election Day -- with an understanding that he will do well in the future caucuses -- could be enough to count as a win for Senator Obama. |
