With the added time before the Pennsylvania primary, it gives me a chance to write posts explaining things that I wouldn’t normally have a chance to. Things that need explaining for my audience as well, as a lot of what I write is usually diluted down for ease. With that said, here’s a post that explains the delegate selection process that goes on in a state like Pennsylvania.

Pennsylvania is allocated 188 delegates in total. Generally, I’d say there are 2 types – delegates tied to the voting in the state, and the superdelegates. While this is true, it is only to a point. There are actually 4 types of delegates. The first are 103 pledged district-level delegates. The second is the 35 at-large pledged delegates. The third, 20 pledged PLEOs. And the fourth, 29 superdelegates. Let’s start with the 103 pledged district-level delegates.

It gets pretty complex, so I’ll try and keep it simple-ish. The delegate numbers are worked out well before the race. There is a base pool of 3,000 delegates for the entire Democratic primary race. Starting with that 3,000, the proportion allocated to each state is figured out with a 50/50 mix of two things. The first is the state’s proportion of the entire electoral vote. The second is the state’s proportion (as compared to the entire country) of the votes for the Democratic candidate for the previous election. The 50/50 average of the two numbers comes to 4.378%, and of the 3,000 pool of delegates, Pennsylvania gets 131 delegates.

Now, as a ‘reward’ for holding their primary late in the process, the state gets bonus delegates. This entitlement is saved for ten states that hold their voting late in the process. The total bonus delegates for all ten states adds to 54. Pennsylvania gets 5% of them, for a total of 7 ‘reward’ delegates. This brings the total delegates allotted to the state to 138.

Now this number is the one that is used to figure out how many of the 3 types of delegates are tied to the voting. This 138 needs to be divided into two different ‘levels’ of pools – a statewide pool and a district pool. The statewide pool is 25% of the 138 delegates, the district pool is 75%. With rounding, the statewide pool comes to 35 delegates, the district pool comes to 103. That’s where we get our first numbers – 103 district-level delegates and 35 at-large pledged delegates. One is representing the congressional districts, another is representing state-wide voting. Winning the state’s popular vote, thus, gives an added bonus. That is why you see Obama winning more delegates from a state while winning fewer counties than Clinton – he is winning the highly-populated areas with a high percentage, while Clinton is winning lowly-populated areas with various margins. This gives Obama an extra boost, as we will see when it comes to winning congressional districts.

Continuing with the 103 district-level delegates, they are distributed to the different congressional districts of the state using an approved mathematical formula. There are four formulas that can be approved, each that may or may not take into account the state’s population, the Democratic registration, Democratic vote for President, and Democratic vote for Governor. At the end of the maths though, the congressional districts
are allocated anywhere between 1 and 8 delegates.

Pennsylvania has 19 congressional districts as of 2000 (prior to which, it was 21, but changed due to reapportionment), and dividing the 103 between each district gives each one roughly 7 or 8. However, the distribution isn’t uniform, and generally the highly-populated congressional districts are worth more than the lowly-populated ones. So by winning the congressional district that has the state’s capital in it, the candidate will get more delegates. Obama has been doing this – winning the urban and city centres – which along with delivering him the most votes (and getting him the at-large delegates), gives him more delegates from the district-level delegates.

The third type of delegates, the PLEOs, form another pool of delegates available to the candidates. PLEOs are Pledged (Party) Leaders and Elected Officials. This poll needs to number 15% of the base delegates – that is, 15% of the 138 delegates previously assigned to the state. This gives us the figure of 20 pledged PLEOs. This brings the state of Pennsylvania’s total pledged delegates to 158 – the final number of delegates that are tied to the voting on April 22.

Now, you might be thinking that the name of these delegates, PLEOs, is quite similar to what superdelegates sound like. They are, actually, quite different. These delegates are selected by the Pennsylvania Democratic State Committee, and the slots that are put aside for them are filled by the statewide voting results and not congressional district results. Remember, in all the primaries, the people are voting for a delegate to go a vote at the Democratic National Convention for the candidate that they say they will vote for. They aren’t actually voting for Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton – they are voting for someone who will vote for them. Thus, for the PLEO spots, if it was a 50/50 split between Obama and Clinton, ten of the spots would be filled with candidates selected by the D.S.C. that support Obama and ten for Clinton.

But in the case of PLEOs, the candidates that the people are voting to send to the D.N.C. are from the Democratic party leaders and elected officials, like county officials, constitutional officers, mayors, and the like. For the district and at-large delegates, the candidates are regular citizens.

Another difference between the PLEOs and the at-large delegates is that they are assigned via the statewide voting, but separately. It is not treated as 55 delegates, rather 20 PLEOs and 35 at-large delegates.

Now we come to the 15% threshold. If a candidate doesn’t receive 15% in either congressional district votes or in statewide votes, then they cannot get a single delegate. However, it they do get 15%, they are guaranteed at least one delegate. These threshold rules work on both the congressional districts and in the statewide voting that determines the PLEOs and the at-large delegates.

And finally, we come to the fourth group of delegates: The superdelegates. I’ve done a lengthy explanation of them before. For Pennsylvania, there are 29 superdelegates: 14 Democratic National Committee members, 12 members of congress, 1 distinguished party leader (Governor Ed Rendell), and 3 add-ons. The add-ons are superdelegates that are chosen after the primary process by either the delegates already chosen or a committee, depending on the state. Each state has to select a certain amount, and the total the amount of 70 add-on delegates.

And just to run a scenario to see if you’ve got it all into your head. Let’s say that Clinton wins Pennsylvania with the same figures as Ohio – 55% to 45%. If she wins each congressional district with 55%, she gets a nett of 13 delegates on Obama – Clinton wins 58 delegates from the 103 district level delegates, while Obama wins 45. If the numbers change to 60% to 40% Clinton’s way, it still only netts her 15 delegates. Thus, a landslide win of 20% only gets her 2 delegates more than a 10% win at the district level.

With the 35 at-large delegates, with a 55% statewide win for Clinton, she gets 19 delegates, Obama gets 13, and she only netts 3 there on Obama. If she managed to get the 60% to 40% win, she still only netts 7 delegates on Obama.

Moving to the PLEOs, assuming that Clinton gets 55% of the vote statewide, she gets 11 delegates, Obama gets 9. She has only netted 2 more over him here too.

Thus, if Clinton gets a 10% win on Obama, she will nett just 20 delegates on his lead by the close of the day. Considering his lead is 120-140, it won’t make a whole lot of difference, and especially considering he is expected to wipe out any deficit in delegates he gets with his win in North Carolina two weeks after Pennsylvania anyway.

So, all in all, there are 188 delegates, made up by the four different types. I hope this was a clear and accurate post about everything I’ve been talking about for the past three months. It might have been a bit late, but it generally applies to all those states that had primaries. If there are any more questions, drop me a line.

Thomas.