One Vote Matters

Post-Super Tuesday Predictions

by polrick on February 6th, 2008

On the Democratic side, Obama carried 14 states, while Clinton won in 8 (including California). In terms of delegates, Clinton was yesterday’s winner, and she remains in the lead with 845 delegates. Even so, Obama’s 765 delegates place him close behind.

For the Republicans, McCain took 9 states, Romney 7, and Huckabee 5. With wins in New York, Illinois, and California, McCain was yesterday’s Republican victor. With 613 delegates, McCain has a clear lead over Romney’s 269 and Huckabee’s 190.

(By the way, those delegate counts come from the Associated Press. Counts from other sources may differ, because only a portion of each party’s delegates are “pledged” to particular candidates. Many delegates are free to vote for whomever they want at the party conventions this summer, although they almost always vote in accordance with their state parties’ preferences, as expressed in the primary elections.)

So those are the ‘facts on the ground’, as they say. But let’s talk predictions.

The Democratic Party’s primary process is organized as a “proportional representation” contest. This means that the delegates from each state are divided among each Democratic candidate who received votes in that state. So basically, if Clinton wins 60% of the California vote, she gets 60% of California’s delegates. Obama then receives the other 40%. (It’s actually more complicated than that, but we can delve into the arcana of delegate selection some other day.) That’s why the delegate count on the Democratic side is so close.

Most Republican primaries are winner-take-all contests, in which the candidate who receives the majority of votes in a state gets all the delegates from that state. This accounts for the big difference in delegate counts on the Republican side.

Each of these two primary processes has its advantages. The Republican winner-take-all system creates a big lead in the delegate count as quickly as possible. With 613 delegates, John McCain is the obvious Republican frontrunner. This encourages the Republican party to unify behind a single candidate early in the election season. Once unified, the party can more effectively raise money, get out the vote, and convince undecided voters to turn out for their nominee in November.

But the Democratic proportional representation method has the advantage of drama. Clinton and Obama are likely to maintain close delegate counts for weeks, building suspense and excitement, and drawing both media coverage and donations from anxious supporters. If the party’s two candidates can resist tearing each other down, turning the drama into nasty dogfight, the excitement of their close race may prove more enticing to voters than the Republican party’s increasingly more unified message.

So my predictions are:

1. During the next few weeks, McCain will solidify his position as the Republican frontrunner. Although both Romney and Huckabee say they are in the race until the end, Huckabee will be out by the end of February. By mid-March, the Republican party will be effectively unified behind McCain.
2. Clinton and Obama will continue battling until the end of the primary season. Even so, by March 5, one candidate will begin to emerge as the clear frontrunner.
3. This will make for great news, and major media organizations will begin to focus more on the Democratic drama than on the Republican unity.

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