Two-way race puts party rules to the test
It's the double-edged sword of the Democratic Party's arcane rule of proportional representation: A string of wins on Super Tuesday won't translate into a blowout in the convention delegate count, but a candidate who is trailing may have difficulty making up ground later because of momentum and the mathematical forces at play.
"If a candidate gets 200 delegates ahead, it becomes a very, very significant advantage," said Thomas A. "Tad" Devine, a political consultant and one of the architects of the 20-year-old system. "We've never really had a test of it until this year, with two candidates who have broad-based support and are well funded."
Of the 19 states that were the first to be decided last night, Hillary Clinton claimed eight, and Barack Obama 11, while three states remained in doubt. The states won by Clinton, including California, had more total delegates, but under the party's proportional system, it was still unclear what the bottom line would be.
More than 40 percent of the delegates to the Democratic National Convention this summer in Denver will be based on yesterday's results. That's 15 times more than Clinton and Obama received in the previous four contests, and the 22 remaining states with primaries or caucuses over the next four months will allot roughly the same number of delegates as those in play yesterday.
"Proportional representation begins to work for you if you get ahead," said Devine, who is not aligned with a candidate this year. "If you get a couple of hundred delegates ahead and you have momentum, the superdelegates start to move toward you, and the second-place candidate has a hard time catching up, even with a few big wins in later states."
He was referring to the top elected officials and party leaders, known as "superdelegates," who are not bound to any candidate. By unofficial count, 444 of the 796 superdelegates were still uncommitted heading into Super Tuesday. Because she had a lead in early superdelegates before yesterday, Clinton was ahead of Obama in delegates, 261 to 202, according to an unofficial tally by the Associated Press. A total of 2,025 delegates are needed for the nomination.
Devine was the chief delegate counter for Walter Mondale in his 1984 battle with Gary Hart for the party's presidential nomination, and was director of delegate selection for Michael Dukakis four years later, when he led negotiations with representatives of the Rev. Jesse Jackson over a new apportionment formula.
Under a two-tier system, about 35 percent of pledged delegates will be allocated based on the statewide performance of the candidates; the rest are decided under a more-complicated formula involving local results - in most cases, by congressional districts - that tends to produce a muddled tally. To win a significant edge in district delegates, candidates typically would have to run up large victory margins. In districts with four delegates at stake, for instance, unless a candidate won at least 63 percent of the vote, the delegates would be split evenly.
The challenge after Super Tuesday will be for the candidates to maintain the dynamic of the race through the three weeks when more than 500 delegates are at stake in nine states, many with demographics favorable to Obama. Washington, Louisiana, and Nebraska will vote on Saturday; the "Beltway primary" in Virginia, Maryland, and the District of Columbia is next Tuesday; and a week later, Wisconsin and Hawaii, where Obama grew up.
After Super Tuesday, the next biggest day on the nominating calendar is March 4, when four states worth almost 400 delegates are up for grabs. The day's big prizes are Texas and Ohio, where Clinton may hold an advantage, joined by Rhode Island and Vermont.
If the race is still competitive, Pennsylvania, with 158 delegates, looms on April 22. 