Texas Still Messing With Delegate Totals

By: Brian Montopoli
Topics: Texas

Texas held a complex hybrid primary/caucus back on March 4th, and this weekend the state's Democratic Party held county and senatorial district conventions. The conventions marked the latest step in the convoluted process that ultimately selects at-large delegates to go to the national convention in Denver this summer.

Even after this weekend, however, it remains unclear which Democrat will emerge from the Lone Star State with the most total delegates.

CBS News estimates that Hillary Clinton, who won the state's popular vote in the primary, leads Obama by three district-level delegates, with one delegate unallocated. But Barack Obama leads by six at-large delegates – the delegates that come from the caucus results. Seven at-large delegates remain unallocated.

The CBS News estimate thus has Obama leading in overall Texas delegates, though there are enough unallocated that those results could change.

The Obama campaign, having done its own math, has already predicted victory in the state.

"Despite the Clinton campaign's widespread attempts to prevent many Texans from participating in their district convention, the voters of Texas confirmed Senator Obama's important delegate win in the Lone Star State," Obama spokesman Josh Earnest said in a statement Saturday.

The Associated Press reports that Clinton's campaign, meanwhile, is trumpeting "its caucus successes in predominantly Hispanic regions along the Texas-Mexico border, as well as in South Texas and in rural counties."

The actual number of delegates won by Obama and Clinton will become official when the Texas Democratic Party holds its state convention in June.

Brian Montopoli
Brian Montopoli is the senior political reporter at CBSNews.com.
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by ov442 April 1, 2008 1:14 PM EDT: Yeah Texas! texans like screwin things up. its their bread and butter.
its their ''Schtick''.
Why bother to have some kinda primary that makes sense and is easily able to be counted, instead you could have duplicate voters in two types of primaries for the same party, and at the same time exclude voters in rural areas just cuz.; Reply to this comment


by jgunther7 April 1, 2008 10:35 AM EDT: Yea Texas, way to go! Texans don%u2019t like liars, and as they get to know the candidates better there is a big shift to Obama. Viva Obama; Reply to this comment


by eshaneua April 1, 2008 7:05 AM EDT: Obama win appears big in Texas delegate battle
By Anna M. Tinsley, Aman Batheja and Sarah Bahari | Fort Worth Star-Telegam
Posted on Sunday, March 30, 2008

Barack Obama appeared to have scored a clear victory over Hillary Clinton on Saturday in the second step of Texas'' multi-tiered process for selecting its delegates to the Democratic National Convention. With results available from about half of the district conventions held statewide, the Associated Press reported that Obama had won 59 percent of the delegates headed to the state party''s June convention to Clinton%u2019s 41 percent. That translates into 1,858 delegates for Obama and 1,270 for Clinton.

That result made it likely that when the delegate selection process is finally completed, Obama will have more Texas delegates to the national convention than Clinton, despite Clinton''s having won the March 4 primary vote 51 to 47 percent.

Read the full story at star-telegram.com.

WHY THE MEDIA FAILS TO REPORT THIS ESCAPES ME...; Reply to this comment


by croft777 April 1, 2008 2:36 AM EDT: Hasn''t anyone figured any of this out. The DNC is cheating. Its all a bunch of dog ***. Obama does not have the popular vote. They need to only hold primaries, get rid of those caucses. Thats a good way to cheat. I bet if they had a revote in the states where they held caucuses Obama would definately lose most of them. Unless every voice is heard, there is no way of saying for sure who won the popular vote. This country is reallt beging to su*ck. The rich are trying to take over, let them, this country will colaspse in their hands and they will go down with it.; Reply to this comment


by rowdytexan2 March 31, 2008 10:06 PM EDT: Posted by truth-hurts at 05:45 PM : Mar 31, 2008

Exactly!; Reply to this comment


by smashwl7 March 31, 2008 8:51 PM EDT: Don''t worry folks Bush is headed back down to Texas to count the votes.; Reply to this comment


by jone775 March 31, 2008 7:15 PM EDT: themooniac: I have friends who live in Tarrant County, and what you say is true. However, I also have friends in Harris County who tell me otherwise. I must give credit to the state of Texas though, they managed to stay on top of the "two-step" for the most part.; Reply to this comment


by themooniac March 31, 2008 7:02 PM EDT: I was at the district 9 convention In Tarrant county ( Fort Worth ). I was there for over 11 hours. There were no Clinton folks trying to prevent ANY Obama supporters from attending or registering. That''s a HUGE, huge B.S. lie. I challenge anyone from that convention to demonstrate otherwise.; Reply to this comment