Obama would get edge if he carries black districts
WASHINGTON - Senator Barack Obama has won the African-American vote in all the Democratic primaries and caucuses so far, and based on that performance is expected to win it again in the 22 states that hold Democratic ballots today.
The size of Obama's victory over Senator Hillary Clinton of New York among African-American voters could prove crucial to the eventual outcome of the race: If Obama wins by big margins in heavily black areas, he could gain a trove of delegates to the party's national convention that would be the equivalent of winning several small states.
That is because many predominantly black congressional districts, particularly in the South and Midwest, are delegate powerhouses that will send more than twice as many representatives to the Democratic convention in August as some mostly white districts in the same state.
Obama won about 78 percent of the black vote in the South Carolina Democratic primary, according to exit polls. If he can match or exceed that figure today, he could win big in the very districts that also have the most Democratic delegates at stake.
"Those are places where he can run up the score," said Tad Devine, a Democratic strategist and specialist on the party's complicated delegate rules.
In all, voters in 20 districts represented by Congressional Black Caucus members will cast ballots today. Another predominantly African-American district in Tennessee that is represented by a white Democrat will also vote.
Districts with a majority of minority residents, many of which were created by federal courts to ensure adequate congressional representation for African-Americans and Hispanics, typically have more convention delegates because they tend to vote overwhelmingly for Democrats in presidential and local elections.
The party's rules reward districts that elect Democrats with additional seats at the convention. As a result, many districts that are predominantly African-American will elect seven or eight delegates today, compared with the norm of between three and five delegates.
In Obama's home state, three congressional districts with a majority black population in the Chicago area have eight delegates apiece - the most allotted to any of the 224 congressional districts voting today in the Democratic race.
Those three heavily Democratic districts have more pledged delegates at stake than Utah, Delaware, or Alaska, which also vote today. Under Democratic Party rules, the delegates in each district are divided according to the popular vote. In addition to the district-level delegates, in each state a smaller pool of delegates at large are determined by the overall statewide vote. To garner delegates from a district or statewide, a candidate must meet a minimum threshold of 15 percent of the popular vote.
With most polls forecasting a close race between Clinton and Obama in almost every state, the two candidates are likely to split most congressional districts evenly or gain only a slight advantage. But if Obama's levels of support among black voters hold up, districts that are predominantly African-American may prove an exception that would give the senator from Illinois an opportunity to win a delegate edge.
The results from South Carolina's primary last month provide an example of how such an advantage could unfold. In South Carolina, Obama won by 29 percentage points in the statewide popular vote. But in four of the state's six congressional districts, his win translated into only one additional convention delegate, because Clinton and former senator John Edwards, who dropped out of the race last week, cleared the 15 percent barrier.
But in South Carolina's Sixth Congressional District, made up of mostly African-Americans, Obama won 70 percent of the vote and picked up five delegates. Clinton got one delegate in the district, and Edwards failed to qualify.
Donna Brazile, campaign manager for Al Gore in 2000, cautioned against reading too much into the racial breakdown of the delegates' distribution. "I know the media now has a race narrative, but I assume both Clinton and Obama will split these districts. It all depends on who turns out and where," she said.
Still, some analysts said that Obama was solidifying his support among black voters and that he could win predominantly black districts and their lode of delegates by significant margins.
"He got a huge bump among African-American voters," said Katrina Gamble, a professor of political science at Brown University. "His potential electability is less of an issue among African-Americans than before."
David Bositis, a researcher at the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, said the Clinton campaign may have expected the big trove of delegates in minority districts to play a role in the campaign - to her advantage.
"They didn't expect to be fighting over black votes in the primary," he said. "They thought, given the Clintons' reputation and standing, that this was going to be their territory." 