It recently dawned on me when I thought about it, that I have only one superdelegate. Here in Texas, having a superdelegate is a rarity, and were it not for the fact that Nick Lampson is a Democrat in what is now most likely a toss-up congressional district, I wouldn’t have any at all.
So I was wondering today about which candidate my superdelegate was going to throw in with and could find no indications anywhere. Nick is doing the typical Nick thing: holding his cards close to his chest.
My superdelegate remains uncommitted.
The only comprehensive list of Texas superdelegates is the one assembled by Phillip Martin on BOR. Martin is BOR’s unofficial “data guy”. Although the list was posted in mid-February, he keeps it updated as news comes out. Another place to look for the superdelegate count everywhere is at this site.
According to both sites, my superdelegate, Nick Lampson is one of only two congressmen in the Texas Democratic delegation to Congress to remain uncommitted. The other one, not surprisingly, is Ciro Rodriguez, the guy who unseated Henry Bonilla in an upset after the boundaries to CD 23 were redrawn by order of the US Supreme Court. Nick and Ciro, you see, find themselves in similar situations.
So I thought I would help out my superdelegate, help him to make his decision. I went around looking for someone who has it all figured out and found this site. I try not to reinvent the wheel if it’s not necessary. The site appears to be put together by some college students, and I thought that was kind of cute. It really is nice to see the next generation getting involved. For a while there I was beginning to think that we would be running out of voters when the last one born of my baby boomer generation kicks the bucket, but now that doesn’t appear to be the case.
So according to that site, it looks like Nick should opt for Hillary Clinton. But then I read a little further and realized that not only do they have it wrong about Nick’s November opponent, something that is not actually decided yet (although I hope they have correctly called it for Shelley), they got it wrong in their conclusion that Hillary should get his vote because SD 11 went for Hillary Clinton by 57% to 42%.
SD 11?
SD 11 has some overlap with CD 22, but not overwhelmingly so.
So no, that wasn’t going to do it for me, but the idea intrigued me. The site appears to have a Hillary Clinton bias, yet also seems to have signed on to the notion that a superdelegate should cast his or her vote according to the predominant wishes of their constituents.
So to help Nick Lampson come to grips with this important decision, I knew what I had to do. I had to get out the precinct reports from all four counties that CD 22 occurs in, and find the presidential candidate totals for all of the precincts that had Nick Lampson on their ballot.
Sheesh.
That’s over 200 precincts spread over 4 counties. Still, someone has to do it, so here you go Nick. Here is what I came up with:
Fort Bend County: 25,812 for Obama, 18,209 for Clinton
Harris County: 13,650 for Obama, 17,501 for Clinton
Brazoria County: 7,170 for Obama, 4,948 for Clinton
Galveston County: 5,440 for Obama, 4,814 for Clinton
CD 22 Totals: 52,072 for Obama (53.4%), 45,472 for Clinton (46.6%)
I don’t know, Nick, seems pretty cut and dried. Three out of four counties can’t be wrong.
So I was wondering today about which candidate my superdelegate was going to throw in with and could find no indications anywhere. Nick is doing the typical Nick thing: holding his cards close to his chest.
My superdelegate remains uncommitted.
The only comprehensive list of Texas superdelegates is the one assembled by Phillip Martin on BOR. Martin is BOR’s unofficial “data guy”. Although the list was posted in mid-February, he keeps it updated as news comes out. Another place to look for the superdelegate count everywhere is at this site.
According to both sites, my superdelegate, Nick Lampson is one of only two congressmen in the Texas Democratic delegation to Congress to remain uncommitted. The other one, not surprisingly, is Ciro Rodriguez, the guy who unseated Henry Bonilla in an upset after the boundaries to CD 23 were redrawn by order of the US Supreme Court. Nick and Ciro, you see, find themselves in similar situations.
So I thought I would help out my superdelegate, help him to make his decision. I went around looking for someone who has it all figured out and found this site. I try not to reinvent the wheel if it’s not necessary. The site appears to be put together by some college students, and I thought that was kind of cute. It really is nice to see the next generation getting involved. For a while there I was beginning to think that we would be running out of voters when the last one born of my baby boomer generation kicks the bucket, but now that doesn’t appear to be the case.
So according to that site, it looks like Nick should opt for Hillary Clinton. But then I read a little further and realized that not only do they have it wrong about Nick’s November opponent, something that is not actually decided yet (although I hope they have correctly called it for Shelley), they got it wrong in their conclusion that Hillary should get his vote because SD 11 went for Hillary Clinton by 57% to 42%.
SD 11?
SD 11 has some overlap with CD 22, but not overwhelmingly so.
So no, that wasn’t going to do it for me, but the idea intrigued me. The site appears to have a Hillary Clinton bias, yet also seems to have signed on to the notion that a superdelegate should cast his or her vote according to the predominant wishes of their constituents.
So to help Nick Lampson come to grips with this important decision, I knew what I had to do. I had to get out the precinct reports from all four counties that CD 22 occurs in, and find the presidential candidate totals for all of the precincts that had Nick Lampson on their ballot.
Sheesh.
That’s over 200 precincts spread over 4 counties. Still, someone has to do it, so here you go Nick. Here is what I came up with:
Fort Bend County: 25,812 for Obama, 18,209 for Clinton
Harris County: 13,650 for Obama, 17,501 for Clinton
Brazoria County: 7,170 for Obama, 4,948 for Clinton
Galveston County: 5,440 for Obama, 4,814 for Clinton
CD 22 Totals: 52,072 for Obama (53.4%), 45,472 for Clinton (46.6%)
I don’t know, Nick, seems pretty cut and dried. Three out of four counties can’t be wrong.
6 comments:
hmm....
I think your super delegate Nick Lampson is uncommited and maybe undecided because he is frustrated he cant vote for the presidential candidates that more closely align to his political ideas, Romney or Huckabee.
Hi I would just like to point out that including all of Harris, Fort Bend, Brazoria, and Galveston counties covers way more than just CD22. CD22 is broken up across the four counties so there is overlap but certainly not all inclusive.
On the other hand SD11 is much smaller than CD22 and is wholly encompassed by it. At any rate either way it's virtually impossible to tease out only CD22 alone as long as the breakouts remain by county.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b8/TX22_109.gif
http://www.lonestarproject.net/Primary/TXMAP.html
Now who on Earth would want to include all of those counties? Yes, SD 11 is within CD 22 but nowhere near gets to all parts of it. To understand this you have to look at the district map.
And as for "...virtually impossible to tease out CD 22 alone...", yes, that is true if you don't have any time on your hands. I, however, did today. You make a spreadsheet that lists the presidential vote totals of each and every precinct in each of those 4 counties that also listed Nick Lampson on that precinct's ballot. That's how you do it. Laborious? Yes, and I can vouch for that. Impossible? Hardly.
Thank you for your work. John Coby has been huffing and puffing that his candidate, Hillary, should have a lock on SD-11.
My own precinct was 50-50.
Well Gary, since Harris County went for Hillary 52% to 46% and SD-11 went the same way in very nearly the same percentages, you can be pretty sure that the Harris County portion of SD 11, which is the one John must be talking about, did just about the same (or maybe a little better, like 58% to 42%).
But that's the primary vote. What the caucus count was determines the apportionment of caucus delegates, not primary, and isn't necessarily the same. It depends on who shows up, and whether they want to change their minds or not.
I made prognostications, and so did CNN (and we agreed!). But as the TDP says, nothing is etched in stone until June 6th.
Oh, and by the way, Anon, SD 11 absolutely does not totally fall within CD 22, that's a huge whopper. In addition SD 11 has no overlap with Fort Bend County whose population includes a significant portion of the CD 22 constituency.
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