The polls are about to close. I thought someone might want to know how the presidential delegates will be divided up for the Democrats.
Pennsylvania gets 158 delegates. Of those, 55 are at-large delegates, and 103 are allocated by district.
If a district has 4 delegates, Clinton will get two of them and Obama will get two, if it's anywhere between a 74-26 split favoring Clinton, or a 74-26 split favoring Obama.
Districts are awarded delegates based on the democratic vote in the 2004 presidential election. That means roughly half the delegates go to Philadelphia-area districts, a quarter of them go to Pittsburgh-area districts, and a quarter of them to the rest of the state.
A week ago, governor Ed Rendell told Dr. Terry Madonna, the pollster that's run the Keystone Poll for many years, that he expected the Philadelphia area to go heavily for Obama, Clinton would do well in the northeast counties and Clinton would have a slight edge in the rest of the state.
Because the districts around Philadelphia get so many delegates, there will be more per district. If there are 5 per district, each delegate represents 20% of the vote, and a 60% majority gives one a 3-2 split. If there are 7 delegates, each delegate represents 14% of the vote, and a 74-22 split in the vote would lead to a 5-2 split in delegates, while a 74-22 split in the vote in a district with 4 delegates would lead to a 2-2 split in delegates.
That means that Obama is likely to end up with a majority of the delegates, even if Clinton wins the popular vote.
But is Clinton going to win the popular vote? The Allentown Morning Call just did a telephone poll in which Obama wins, even though Allentown is in those northeast counties where Ed Rendell predicts a nice Clinton lead.
If he's leading in NE Pennsylvania, it might be an upset by Obama.
When I voted,. there seemed to be a lot of people voicing loud support for Clinton - and even more keeping quiet. Some of those keeping quiet were, like me, restricted to voting for McCain, Huckabee, or Paul, but some of them were obviously Democrats. When the voters actually started blacking in the boxes of the paper ballots, I wonder if perhaps Obama hasn't a lot of hidden strength.
The Fairview Avenue poll, consisting of driving down the street, looking for yard signs? There was one yard sign for Obama, and one door knob with a hanger for Obama on the other side. There were two yard signs for Paul, which really surprised me; I didn't know there were two other Republicans on this street. There were no signs at all for McCain, Huckabee, or Clinton.
We'll soon see.
