Anyone still reading this?
If you are, go ahead and comment here, I guess.
Updates will be sparse today (Monday, March 31), but I'll add in the newest numbers I see are up on Burnt Orange Report.
I. Latest Numbers
Update 16, 2:21 p.m. CDT Monday: Burnt Orange Report now shows 93.32% of the vote and 70.07% of conventions in, and they project Obama to finish with a +7 net delegate haul from the Texas caucuses. I'm much farther away from the subject, but I suspect they're right.
| CDels | ODels | C+O | Conv. |
Reporting | 3,181 | 3,973 | 7,154 | 199 |
Pct. | 44.46% | 55.54% | 93.32% | 70.07% |
TX Total | | | 7,666 | 284 |
Here are the DNC Delegate Projections based on the current results:
Candidate | ProjDels | Net | INF+2N* |
Obama | 37 | +7 | +6.38% |
Clinton | 30 | -7 | +23.11% |
* INF+2N = Improvement Needed For +2 Net pledged delegates. This measures how easy or difficult it will be from this point forward for a candidate to improve his/her delegate haul for the Texas caucuses. In order to make the next step in pledged delegates (which is two more net delegates), the candidate in question needs the remaining delegates to come in with a larger percentage favoring the candidate than the previous delegates have. The INF+2N measures exactly
how much larger that percentage would have to be. The higher the INF+2N number, the less likely it is that the candidate will be able to pick up two more net delegates.
Additionally, remember that whoever ends up with more state-level delegates at the Texas Democratic Party convention in Austin in June will pick up either +1 or +3 additional net DNC delegates (depending upon whether Texas chooses them proportionally or winner-take-all) when the state convention chooses its three add-on delegates (folks who are technically superdelegates but who aren't likely to act like it).
So if Obama maintains his lead into the state convention in June, he'll pick up a minimum of +1 more net DNC delegate, and potentially +3, from Texas.
Update 15, 1:15 p.m. CDT Monday: Burnt Orange Report has made some interesting revisions to the numbers they had up an hour ago or so. One change was that Clinton's delegate count went down. Obama's lead is now at 12.09%, with the number of delegates remaining out dwindling. Only 709 delegates (9.25%) are still unreported, though those are spread out over 108 conventions (38.03% of the state total). BOR's corrections put Obama in +9 territory, which is encouraging. Clinton needs to win 320 of the remaining 709 delegates (45.13%) to push Obama back to +7.
Update 14, 9:40 p.m. CDT Sunday: I'm not sure when today it happened, but the current results on Burnt Orange Report show that Clinton has pulled Obama back from a net +9 delegate haul to a +7. I suspect that's where this is going to end, now.
While I was away (curses!) having a life today, Obama's lead fell from 12.08% to 11.15%. Remaining delegates are getting scarce; Burnt Orange Report reports that they have reports on 87.70% of the delegates chosen yesterday, though only 58.80% of the conventions have reported in.
Obama's now projecting to pick up +7 net delegates, and he's going to have to get about 59% of the remaining delegates to get back to +9. That's not unthinkable, but given the rural districts that remain unreported, I suspect it's not likely.
Update 13, 11:54 a.m. CDT Sunday: The first set--a fairly large one numerically--of results that Burnt Orange Report has posted today favor Obama, but only just slightly. Obama's lead rose from 12.07% when we last checked at midnight to 12.08% now. But there's been a much bigger movement in the completion numbers: 81.61% of the delegates have now been counted, and we have finally, only just now, crossed the 50% mark in conventions reporting--52.11% of Texas' county and senate district conventions have now reported to BOR.
Obama still projects to gain +9 net DNC pledged delegates, and he's inched away from the threshold for +7. (He's currently at 56.04% of the vote--if he slips below 55.97%, he gets +7 net DNC delegates rather than +9.) Obama's 7.78% number in the INF+2N field is the largest we've seen here; it shows that Obama is increasingly unlikely to make it to the +11 pledged delegate level.
Final Update of Saturday night, 12:30 a.m. CDT -- Clinton is chipping away at the Obama lead in the last batch of results for the night. Obama's lead is down to 12.07%, with 72.47% of the delegates counted, and still only 46.83% of the conventions reporting. Obama still projects to gain +9 net DNC pledged delegates, but he continues to trend downward to +7.
Update 11, 11:49 p.m. CDT -- Clinton continues to hack away in the latest set of results. Obama's lead is down to 12.12%, with 69.71% of the delegates counted, and still only 46.13% of the conventions reporting. Obama still projects to gain +9 net DNC pledged delegates, and he's trending downward to +7.
Update 10, 10:39 p.m. CDT -- Clinton scored a big hit with the El Paso delegates, as revealed in the latest batch of results. Obama's lead has been narrowed to 13.72%, with 64.13% of the delegates counted, and still only 42.96% of the conventions reporting. (We have finally gotten more results from Texas caucuses than the 41% of precincts reporting at which the counting of the March 4 round stopped.) Obama now projects to get +9 net pledged delegates from the Texas caucuses.
Update 9, 9:45 p.m. CDT -- Obama appears to have regained the momentum as the results come in. He leads by 13.93%, with 35.21% of the Texas conventions (and 43.26% of the county/senate district delegates) reporting. That projects to a net +9 in DNC pledged delegates, and he's edging back toward +11.
Update 8, 8:45 p.m. CDT (hey, I haven't had the living-room lights on all day; does that count?) -- After another Obama surge, slight Clinton-positive movement in the numbers has Obama now leading by 16.07%, with 30.63% of the Texas conventions (and 39.63% of the county/senate district delegates) reporting. I suspect that the imbalance on those last two numbers means that the remaining delegates are going to be somewhat more favorable for Clinton, who seems to do well in small counties/districts. The DNC delegates now project to be +11 net for Obama.
Update 7, 7:45 p.m. CDT --Travis County and several other caucuses have come in, powering Obama to a much more sizeable lead; he's now 9.66% ahead, with 26.06% of the Texas conventions (and 31.26% of the county/senate district delegates) reporting. This made a big difference in the DNC delegates: they now project to be +7 net for Obama.
Update 6, 6:45 p.m. CDT -- A new slate of convention results show Obama maintaining a slim lead of 1.94%; that still translates to +1 net DNC delegate for Obama.
Update 5, 5:45 p.m. CDT -- Obama has retaken the lead. He now leads by 1.03%, with 19.01% of the Texas conventions (and 15.17% of the delegates) reporting. He projects to pick up +1 net DNC delegate from the Texas caucuses.
Update 4, 4:50 p.m. CDT -- Results show Clinton taking the lead back from Obama: Clinton now leads by 0.52%, with 16.55% of the Texas conventions (and 12.54% of the delegates) reporting. That projects to +1 net delegate from the Texas caucuses for Clinton.
Update 3, 3:45 p.m. CDT -- Numbers from the BOR results page show Clinton leading by a little over 17 percentage points, with 9.86% of the Texas conventions (and 4.46% of the delegates) reporting. I'll start projecting DNC delegates once the state-delegate proportion gets over 10%--which is coming up soon now.
Update 2, 2:45 p.m. CDT -- Okay, from now on I’ll put Burnt Orange Report’s numbers in table form. And now that the numbers are moving fast, I'm only going to update them here on the quarter-hour.
Burnt Orange Report now has a spreadsheet up on Google Docs showing the delegate counts in each of the county conventions.
Update 1, 1:47 p.m. CDT: Burnt Orange Report is reporting that, with 3.17% of conventions reporting, Clinton leads 54 state delegates to 34, or 61.08% to 38.64%. BOR makes clear that these numbers include the “superdelegates" that will be joining today's pledgees in Austin in June.
Note that, though it's true that 3.17% (9 of 284) of the conventions have reported in, the 88 state delegates recorded at present constitute only 1.15% of the vote--that is, 1.15% of the 7,649 delegates who will be representing Texas Democrats at the state convention. (Clearly the first three conventions that have reported are smaller than average.) Once the votes-in proportion starts getting a little (okay, a lot) bigger, I'll start projecting DNC pledged delegate numbers for the Texas caucuses.
Update 0, 11:42 a.m. CDT: According to the partial and unofficial TDP page mentioned in Section III below, the first caucuses got underway this morning in Kinney, Swisher, and Travis Counties at 7:00 a.m. Central Daylight Time. That schedule testifies that several others have begun since then.
Burnt Orange Report has not yet posted (and presumably has not yet received) any results from today's contests. More bulletins as events warrant!
BOR has stated, on that same open thread, that they won't “start reporting numbers [until] this afternoon." So it appears that there won't be much action on this diary for a while yet. (Maybe I should take a nap.) Please continue rec-ing this up, though.
Burnt Orange Report points out that there will be superdelegates, as well, at the Texas Democratic Party State Convention in June; reportedly they will constitute approximately 5.1% of the state-level delegates. BOR is tracking those delegates (Obama currently leads them 20-13, with the huge majority (~319) undeclared) here.
Going strictly by the incomplete results from the previous round of caucuses in Texas (see Part V, below), Obama currently leads Clinton 56.2% to 43.8%; if these proportions hold up through this weekend, Obama will receive 38 and Clinton 29 of the 67 pledged delegates available in the Texas caucus, which is a haul of +9 net delegates for Obama.
In addition, according to The Green Papers 3 of Texas's 35 unpledged delegates (a.k.a. “superdelegates") are add-on delegates, i.e., people who will be (1) chosen at the state convention in June and (2) pledged delegates in all but name. I don't know if the Texas convention will award the three add-ons on a winner-take-all basis or a proportional one--a distinction that almost certainly carries with it a two-delegate swing.
My (wild) guess is that the three add-ons will be doled out proportionally, which will mean that Clinton will salvage one of Texas's three add-on delegates unless she has a horrendous day in Texas today and gets less than 1/6 of the caucus vote. But as long as Obama stays above 50% of the state convention turnout, the add-ons will still, at worst, give him an additional +1 net delegate from Texas.
II. (No Longer Recent) On-The-Ground Reports
I'm jumping back and forth between MSNBC and CNNHD; neither one is paying attention to the Texas caucus numbers. Oh well--at least CNN is currently showing Obama in a Q&A session in Johnstown, Pennsylvania.
For another take on the proceedings today, here are the recent in-person accounts I've seen (I'll link to Kos diaries and other blogs' posts if I'm made aware of them) from the county/senate district conventions:
When the news starts coming in faster, I doubt I'll be able to link to individual news accounts, but the BOR open thread linked above carries a first-person account from “Travis County's Fiery Death TRAP" (I think that “oakhill," the writer, is an Obama supporter and alternate-delegate, but honestly his/her wording is a little confusing so I'm not positive):
they basically had 25 lines they hundreds of precinct in a tiny fenced in area. some rocket scientist thought that [i]t would be smart to put some of the most active precincts in travis county at the same window. It was madness, but now that I am inside and had a chance to hook up with my neighbors from the caucus all is well. our Clinton precinct head delegate person--- their ring leader gave me her string for my badge because they ran out of string. Our precinct was really cool. We had some pretty strong leaders and even though we are on different sides in the primary, we were a lot more collegial that what I heard at other precincts.
Full account here.
At 10:22 a.m. CDT, kath25 called me directly from the Travis County convention (look, Ma, I'm media!) to report that lines were long and things were moving slowly, but morale is high.
III. No-Longer-So-Urgent Information for Texans
Straight out of the Texas Caucus Results Central Office (Minnesota Branch), in this thread I'm bringing you the up-to-the-minute (well, close) results from the conventions being conducted by voters from Texas's 254 counties this weekend, March 29-30, 2008. (Collin County is holding its county convention on tomorrow, Sunday, the 30th; all other conventions are being held today--Saturday.)
This weekend's caucuses will elect delegates to the Texas Democratic Party Convention in Austin on June 6-7, 2008. That convention, in turn, will elect 67 pledged delegates and 3 unpledged add-ons to the Democratic National Convention in Denver in August.
But first, here's a word from our sponsor, kath25:
IMPORTANT: If there are any problems with your County / State Senate District convention, call the Obama hotline: 512-476-2002. Calm, cool and collected volunteers will be standing by. This is the number for all of Texas. Put it in your cellphone now.
In addition to kath25's diary from Friday, the Obama campaign (for which I have worked as a volunteer canvasser and precinct captain--chiefly because I was bribed years ago)
has several links for Texans looking for information on the caucuses.
Barackobama.com's Texas County Conventions page features a clickable map of Texas counties that leads to specific information about the respective county and senatorial district caucuses. That page provides links to three helpful documents (all PDFs):
The TDP also has put together a ("partial and unofficial") page bearing a table of information--locations and start times--on the conventions. The party has plenty of further information on the caucuses at their website, http://www.txdemocrats.org/.
Quoting kath25 again:
From Texas County Conventions: A How-To Guide
Step-By-Step Guide
1. Find Your Location.
2. Get There Early.
3. Bring Photo ID.
4. Be Prepared to Wait.
5. Ask Your Obama Delegation Chair How To Vote.
6. Vote on State-Level Delegates.
7. Run To Be an At-Large Delegate, If You Want.
8. Go To Your Favorite Bar and Celebrate Democracy.
For more explanation on any of those steps, see the aforelinked diary. There is a metric ton of information in there, so arm yourselves with knowledge tonight.
IMPORTANT: Steven R reminds us that NO CONVENTIONS HAVE BEEN CANCELLED. With the exception of Collin Co., who will convene on Sunday, ALL State Sen. and County Conventions are tomorrow, Saturday, March 29. Find or double-check your location here.
One More Link: dyspeptex reminds us to stick around for the resolutions. There are important measures to be passed tomorrow that will make it to the state Democratic party's platform, including a key anti-discrimination resolution. Please stick around and support the efforts of the activists who got these resolutions up for a vote.
Anyone who would like to keep score the old-fashioned way at home can find a nice, printable B&W county map of Texas here (PDF). More information than you could possibly need about all of those counties is here.
And don't forget the official Obama campaign hotline to call if you encounter problems at your convention: (512) 476-2002.
IV. Background Context--National
According to the delegate counter on barackobama.com, Obama currently leads Clinton 1,380 to 1,222 in pledged delegates, not counting the Texas caucus delegates that are being (further) decided today.
The “magic number" for pledged delegates in the Democratic race (presuming the delegates from Michigan and Florida remain unseated because of those states' DNC rules violations) is 1,627: as soon as either candidate hits 1,627 pledged delegates, he or she is mathematically assured of having the majority of the pledged delegates headed to the national convention in Denver.
Including the 67 pledged delegates at stake this weekend--and the 18 more from Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina that John Edwards can still lay claim to--there are 651 pledged delegates, or just over 20% of the national total, outstanding. On that premise, Obama presently needs 247 more pledged delegates (37.9% of what's left nationwide) in order to clinch the national pledged-delegate win. Clinton, in contrast, needs 405 more pledged delegates (62.2%) to clinch. This is not unrelated to the claims voiced by more than a few people that the nomination race is over.
To the extent that the superdelegate race matters, Democratic Convention Watch currently counts 211 supers committed to Obama, 245 to Clinton, and 337 undeclared. (This is slightly misleading, in that some 70 of the “undeclared"s will be candidate-committed add-on delegates who will be chosen by the state parties of states that have already voted--so they are “undeclared" but not really undecided. DemConWatch is tracking these delegates here.)
All told, based on (1) the Obama camp's pledged-delegate numbers, (2) DemConWatch's superdelegate numbers, and (3) the pretense that the Texas caucuses are entirely undecided (the better to get a “clean" perspective on the effect of today's conventions), Obama leads Clinton in the overall delegate race 1,591 to 1,467. To get to the final DNC “magic number" of 2,023.5 total delegates, Obama needs 432.5 more delegates (43.8% of what's left), while Clinton needs 556.5 (56.3%).
This weekend's results in Texas promise to change those numbers at least a little.
V. Background Context--Texas Caucuses
When we last left off with this soap opera--at the cliffhanger conclusion to the reports from Texas's district caucuses on the evening of March 4--Democrats in the state had selected the 88,074 Texans who would represent them at this weekend's county/senate district conventions. A voluntary results-reporting system instituted by the Texas Democratic Party led to the reporting of some very interesting, but annoyingly unfinished, results of the previous round of caucuses in the Lone Star State.
When the TDP stopped counting (or posting the results--either way), only 41.1% of precincts had reported. For whatever it's worth, a slightly larger proportion (48.3%) of the 88,074 delegates had been awarded to one candidate or the other.
At that point, Obama led Clinton in district delegates 56.2% to 43.7%, which projects to a 38-29 win for Obama in the pledged delegates in the Texas caucuses--i.e., +9 net for Obama.
However, Obama was just barely over the percentage threshold separating a +9 from a +7; over the remaining 58.9% of precincts, Clinton only had to improve her performance by 0.5% to push Obama back to +7 net pledged delegates.
Here's what the suspended district-level results look like, organized (per the TDP results page) by state senate district:
SD | ODels (%) | CDels (%) | OGAP* | %VIn** |
1 | 475 (62.8%) | 281 (37.2%) | +21.3% | 28.4% |
2 | 800 (66.8%) | 398 (33.2%) | +16.5% | 43.1% |
3 | 339 (52.8%) | 303 (47.2%) | +15.8% | 24.2% |
4 | 594 (60.0%) | 396 (40.0%) | +14.3% | 40.1% |
5 | 921 (60.2%) | 609 (39.8%) | +8.6% | 49.4% |
6 | 308 (47.0%) | 348 (53.0%) | +11.4% | 36.9% |
7 | 648 (61.0%) | 415 (39.0%) | +7.1% | 48.4% |
8 | 1,203 (63.5%) | 693 (36.5%) | +7.9% | 62.8% |
9 | 787 (67.0%) | 388 (33.0%) | +9.9% | 53.0% |
10 | 1,163 (64.6%) | 638 (35.4%) | +6.7% | 47.3% |
11 | 645 (58.6%) | 455 (41.4%) | +11.8% | 38.5% |
12 | 847 (54.0%) | 721 (46.0%) | +5.6% | 54.5% |
13 | 1,502 (79.6%) | 383 (20.3%) | +6.1% | 40.8% |
14 | 2,873 (67.4%) | 1,389 (32.6%) | +3.9% | 78.0% |
15 | 617 (68.4%) | 285 (31.6%) | +6.1% | 33.0% |
16 | 1,119 (60.5%) | 732 (39.5%) | +7.5% | 60.4% |
17 | 860 (61.7%) | 535 (38.3%) | +7.2% | 46.0% |
18 | 762 (56.2%) | 594 (43.8%) | +8.9% | 44.1% |
19 | 434 (32.6%) | 897 (67.4%) | -4.5% | 48.7% |
20 | 205 (19.1%) | 867 (80.9%) | -11.2% | 44.0% |
21 | 352 (27.5%) | 928 (72.5%) | -2.7% | 47.0% |
22 | 592 (50.9%) | 571 (49.1%) | +7.9% | 44.2% |
23 | 1,806 (80.7%) | 431 (19.3%) | +7.8% | 49.9% |
24 | 560 (56.1%) | 439 (43.9%) | +9.3% | 45.9% |
25 | 1,565 (57.4%) | 1,160 (42.6%) | +2.7% | 65.0% |
26 | 481 (35.4%) | 878 (64.6%) | -2.6% | 53.7% |
27 | 80 (19.4%) | 333 (80.6%) | -9.5% | 23.6% |
28 | 337 (36.4%) | 590 (63.6%) | -2.9% | 43.1% |
29 | 332 (25.3%) | 981 (74.7%) | -4.7% | 62.2% |
30 | 533 (42.1%) | 734 (57.9%) | +4.5% | 52.2% |
31 | 178 (41.8%) | 248 (58.2%) | +2.7% | 32.2% |
Tot | 23,918 (56.2%) | 18,620 (43.8%) | +8.0% | 48.3% |
* OGAP = Obama Gain After Primary, the difference between Obama’s percentage (as far as these numbers reveal) in the caucuses and his percentage in the same district in the primary earlier on March 4. The higher the number, the more Obama’s results improved between primary and caucus. A negative “gain" is a
loss of vote share, of course.
** %VIn = Percentage of Vote In (i.e., reported). Calculated as ( Obama district delegates reported + Clinton district delegates reported ) ÷ Total delegates allotted to district. On average, Obama-favoring districts have reported a slightly larger proportion of their district delegates, 49.2% to 45.7%. This could bode ill for Obama's hopes of maintaining the +9 net delegate haul from the Texas caucuses.
There's a large and detailed Texas State Senate district map here (PDF).
It will be interesting, to say the least, to see how these numbers compare to the numbers coming out of Texas today and tomorrow. Of course, converting results from senate districts (as above) to counties (the format in which I anticipate Burnt Orange Report will report their results) is something I doubt I can pull off. Partial information about how to make that translation is available on the TDP table, but I don't think I'm up to it.
(Congratulations to the ballers at my high school alma mater, who won the Minnesota state boys' basketball Class 4A title on Saturday evening. It was a fantastic game to watch between refreshes of Burnt Orange Report.)
You can still try EquationDoc's comment thread at this link, though I'm guessing that that thread is as dead as this one. Comments here wouldn't bother me, anyway.