Good news for those of you planning to follow the election numbers in Tuesday’s Democratic presidential primary: I just got off the phone with Ann McGeehan, director of elections for the secretary of state’s office, and her office will be posting the results divided up among the state’s 31 senatorial districts, which of course is the real key to understanding who’s winning. (Of course, you could just come back here to Newsdesk Tuesday night, where we will continually update the numbers of not only that race but all of the state and county races important to Austin.)
If you don’t know what I’m talking about, here’s a quick primer: 126 of Texas’ 228 delegates will be decided by the popular vote tomorrow. They are not divvied up according to the statewide popular vote; instead, each of the 31 senate districts has a preassigned number of delegates based on Democratic turnout in the previous two general elections (2004 and 2006). Those delegates will be divided up based on the vote totals in each district. So it’s really 31 separate contests. I explain it in a bit more detail here.
Click on “continue reading” to see a breakdown of the delegate count by district, as well as a quick explanation of how the rest of the delegates are assigned.
Dist. 1 = 4 delegates
Dist. 2 = 4
Dist. 3 = 4
Dist. 4 = 4
Dist. 5 = 4 (includes Williamson County)
Dist. 6 = 3
Dist. 7 = 3
Dist. 8 = 4
Dist. 9 = 3
Dist. 10 = 5
Dist. 11 = 4
Dist. 12 = 4
Dist. 13 = 7
Dist. 14 = 8 (includes most of Travis County)
Dist. 15 = 4
Dist. 16 = 4
Dist. 17 = 5
Dist. 18 = 4 (includes Bastrop County)
Dist. 19 = 4
Dist. 20 = 4
Dist. 21 = 4
Dist. 22 = 3
Dist. 23 = 6
Dist. 24 = 3
Dist. 25 = 6 (includes a small sliver of southern Travis County)
Dist. 26 = 4
Dist. 27 = 3
Dist. 28 = 3
Dist. 29 = 3
Dist. 30 = 3
Dist. 31 = 2
Total = 126
About the remaining delegates: 67 will be decided by a process that begins at the precinct caucuses, which start at 7:15 or after the polls close. If you feel passionately about one candidate or the other, it is very important that you participate in those caucuses. The other 35 are those “superdelegates” you’ve heard so much about, and they may not make up their minds until the national convention in Denver on Aug. 25-28.
This article appears in February 29 • 2008.