Obama Wins Texas! (finally)

The Obama juggernaut continues to roll on, picking up the 99th delegate in Texas that the campaign has always claimed it had. You might recall that when it came to the final delegate selection at the Iowa and Nevada state conventions, Obama snagged an extra delegate in each one. Over the weekend in Texas, they did it again!

Here is my earlier post, predicting that this would happen.

Since the Texas two-step primary/caucus, the Obama campaign has claimed to have won 38 delegates in the Texas caucuses, in addition to 61 in the Texas primary (a total of 99 to Clinton’s 94). On the other hand, The Green Papers (and hence DemConWatch) has been showing Obama with 37 caucus delegates ever since the Texas County Conventions on March 30.

This appears to be because his percentage of state convention delegates that were chosen at the county conventions was just short of the threshold to earn that 38th delegate.

7239 delegates signed in at the state convention, compared to the 7298 that could have shown up (according to Stephanie Leavitt, the Deputy Finance Director of the Texas Democratic Party).

Specifically, 7,239 delegates signed in; 4,144 for Obama (57 percent) and 3,088 (43 percent) for Clinton. The 99-94 Obama edge doesn’t take in how 35 superdelegates from Texas will vote.

The state convention delegates elected 25 PLEO (Party Leaders and Elected Officials) delegates and 42 at-large delegates. When you consider the PLEO and at-large delegates together, the threshold percentages required for election of national delegates becomes clear. With final numbers for Obama between 50 and 60% and with 7239 state convention delegates, the key numbers are:

53.572% (3879 state delegates) => 36 national delegates
54.001% (3910 state delegates) => 37
55.953% (4051 state delegates) => 38
58.001% (4199 state delegates) => 39
58.334% (4223 state delegates) => 40

4144 easily put Obama's count into 38-land. ("The Green Papers" has now updated its count.)

Based on the Burnt Orange Report spreadsheet, Obama had earned 4040 state convention delegates on March 30.

Also note that in its spreadsheet, BOR reported for Senate District 29 in El Paso County:

To be 'challenged' at the TDP convention, resulting in around 22 more delegates for Obama.

The quote marks around the word 'challenged' seem to indicate that this was a mere formality. Adding 22 to the 4040 Obama delegates gave 4062.

So somehow Obama picked up an extra 82 state convention delegates beyond the number selected on March 30 at the district caucuses. Yes We Can!