Hello everyone!
Your (newly) resident Dane here with some numbers.
Like, probably, many of you I have been waiting for the Pennsylvania primary for a while now. Getting jittery.
And yeah, you are probably asking - or will be by the time you get through this; "What makes a Scandinavian guy waste so much time on this? He is not even able to vote nor living here.". Well, I'll tell you: Its just too damn interesting. :)
I have read some very interesting projections and information bits by the brilliant PocketNines on dKos before some of the other primaries, that taught me tons of stuff on the whole primaries/delegates thing and revealed some numbers that the binary polls we normally see are not bringing to light. And I was missing it this time. So I realised that I might as well take it upon myself to give it shot. Might even learn some stuff on the way.
So I present to you:
The Danish Pennsylvania Democratic Primaries Prediction Projection Presentation v1.0
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Or TDPDPPPP1.0 since more or less obscure abbreviations seem to be the craze around here.
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Pennsylvania
According to the
http://padems.com/files/Delegate08Final806.pdf">rules of the PA primary delegate selection, the delegates the candidates are fighting over on Tuesday, April 22. are distributed as follows:
- 19 congressional districs in which 103 delegates are alotted going in sizes from 3 to 9 based on the popular vote within the district.
- Pledged Party Leaders and Elected Officials (PLEOs) will be splitting 20 delegates based on the popular vote in the state.
- At-Large delegates will be splitting 35 delegates based on the popular vote in the state.
For a total of 158 delegates.
Lets first look at the districts. And here I have more or less taken the numbers from
http://www.cqpolitics.com/wmspage.cfm?docID=news-000002703375&cpage=1">CQPolitics that have done some predictions, that seem fairly probable. Its probably not good style to poach their district descriptions, and my knowledge of Pennsylvania demographics is, to put it mildly, limited. So descriptions are welcome, if there are some locals willing to give it a shot.
For each district I will list the number of delegates, critical split percentages where delegates changes hands and the prediction.
(Can someone tell me how they handle it if they land precisely on a split like 50% in 5 delegate districts? Who gets the split delegate?).
Then afterwards some comments to chase all those dry numbers down. I don't want to sadden any Hillary supporters giving this a look - but this is where the district allocation system cements that your preferred candidate has little to no chance of making up a significant part of the current difference in the pledged delegate count.
Or you can jump to the bottom where total is listed in nice large font. :)
District #1 South and central Philadelphia; Chester7 Delegates -- Split percentages | 7,14% | 21,43% | 35,71% | 50,00% | 64,29% | 78,57% | 92,86% |
Prediction: Obama 4 Clinton 3
District #2 West Philadelphia; Chestnut Hill; Cheltenham9 Delegates -- Split percentages | 5,56% | 16,67% | 27,78% | 38,89% | 50,00% | 61,11% | 72,22% | 83,33% | 94,44% |
Prediction: Obama 7 Clinton 2
District #3 Northwest — Erie5 Delegates -- Split percentages | 10,00% | 30,00% | 50,00% | 70,00% | 90,00% |
Prediction: Obama 2 Clinton 3
District #4 West — Pittsburgh suburbs5 Delegates -- Split percentages | 10,00% | 30,00% | 50,00% | 70,00% | 90,00% |
Prediction: Obama 2 Clinton 3
District #5 North central — State College4 Delegates -- Split percentages | 12,50% | 37,50% | 62,50% | 87,50% |
Prediction: Obama 2 Clinton 2
District #6 Southeast — parts of Berks and Chester counties, Philadelphia suburbs6 Delegates -- Split percentages | 8,33% | 25,00% | 41,67% | 58,33% | 75,00% | 91,67% |
Prediction: Obama 3 Clinton 3
District #7 Suburban Philadelphia — most of Delaware County7 Delegates -- Split percentages | 7,14% | 21,43% | 35,71% | 50,00% | 64,29% | 78,57% | 92,86% |
Prediction: Obama 3 Clinton 4
District #8 Northern Philadelphia suburbs — Bucks County7 Delegates -- Split percentages | 7,14% | 21,43% | 35,71% | 50,00% | 64,29% | 78,57% | 92,86% |
Prediction: Obama 3 Clinton 4
District #9 South central — Altoona3 Delegates -- Split percentages | 16,67% | 50,00% | 83,33% |
Prediction: Obama 1 Clinton 2
District #10 Northeast — Central Susquehanna Valley4 Delegates -- Split percentages | 12,50% | 37,50% | 62,50% | 87,50% |
Prediction: Obama 2 Clinton 2
District #11 -- Northeast — Scranton, Wilke-Barre5 Delegates -- Split percentages | 10,00% | 30,00% | 50,00% | 70,00% | 90,00% |
Prediction: Obama 2 Clinton 3
District #12 Southwest — Johnstown5 Delegates -- Split percentages | 10,00% | 30,00% | 50,00% | 70,00% | 90,00% |
Prediction: Obama 2 Clinton 3
District #13 East — Northeast Philadelphia, part of Montgomery County7 Delegates -- Split percentages | 7,14% | 21,43% | 35,71% | 50,00% | 64,29% | 78,57% | 92,86% |
Prediction: Obama 3 Clinton 4
District #14 Pittsburgh and some close-in suburbs7 Delegates -- Split percentages | 7,14% | 21,43% | 35,71% | 50,00% | 64,29% | 78,57% | 92,86% |
Prediction: Obama 4 Clinton 3
District #15 East — Allentown, Bethlehem5 Delegates -- Split percentages | 10,00% | 30,00% | 50,00% | 70,00% | 90,00% |
Prediction: Obama 2 Clinton 3
District #16 Southeast — Lancaster, part of Reading4 Delegates -- Split percentages | 12,50% | 37,50% | 62,50% | 87,50% |
Prediction: Obama 2 Clinton 2
District #17 East central — Harrisburg, Lebanon, Pottsville4 Delegates -- Split percentages | 12,50% | 37,50% | 62,50% | 87,50% |
Prediction: Obama 2 Clinton 2
District #18 West — Pittsburgh suburbs, part of Washington and Westmoreland counties5 Delegates -- Split percentages | 10,00% | 30,00% | 50,00% | 70,00% | 90,00% |
Prediction: Obama 2 Clinton 3
District #19 South central — York, Gettysburg4 Delegates -- Split percentages | 12,50% | 37,50% | 62,50% | 87,50% |
Prediction: Obama 2 Clinton 2
Comments:First and foremost lets just acknowledge the fantastic shapes some of the districts have - probably due to being consolidated to 19 districts from previously 21. 12, 6 and 18 are just fantastic.
What will be interesting is perhaps whether Obama can make the cut for the 7-2 split in district 2 and if he can break some of Hillarys 50%+ districts - which as far as I can tell is rather unlikely. The chance of the 4 delegate districts splitting anything other than 2-2 is probably not very high.
Hillary supporters: This is where the game is lost for Senator Clinton. There are quite a few of those in play out there in the remaining contests, where you need landslides to avoid 50-50 splits. Or something close to it. And need it over the entire board. And as far as I can tell Kentucky is the only remaining state where there is something close to that lined up.
Oh. Lets have the total of the district delegates:
Obama 50 Clinton 53Then we have the 20 PLEO delegates and the 35 at large delegates.
I have chosen to operate from a poll average I guestimated to be Obama 41 Clinton 49, adding a little to make increase the odds of me not underestimating Senator Clintons lead. Splitting the undecided evenly among them.
I would like to hear any comments to these numbers, if you think they need adjustment
That gives us:
PLEO: Obama 9 Clinton 11
At-large: Obama 16 Clinton 19Giving us a combined total of:
Obama 75 Clinton 83
An 8 delegate gain for Hillary. The percentages in delegates are 47,47% vs. 52,53%. And thats with a 8% spread in the popular votes. If anyone was in doubt about the math here, that should illustrate what percentages we are talking about in terms of popular vote if Senator Clinton is to win 60-70% of the remaining pledged delegates. Which she will probably need to do, to field a reasonable argument to the SDs. All other things being equal.
So. There you have it. Hope you enjoyed it and perhaps even learned/realised something.
I would love it if anyone could add thoughts, corrections, local stories/information.