October 14, 2024

Winner Take All? That’s Clinton

Even as Hillary Clinton’s lead shrinks in Pennsylvania, Rasmussen Reports says that if the Democrats used a winner-take-all system for allocating delegates things would be quite a bit different.  Their numbers show Clinton leading Barack Obama by approximately 167 delegates when counted from that perspective. 

If the Democrats were to allot their current state delegate totals in a winner-take-all format, Clinton would actually have a significant delegate advantage. Despite having won only 14 recognized contests to Obama’s 30, Clinton would currently have a 120 (1738 to 1618) total delegate lead and a remarkable 167 (1427 to 1260) pledged delegate lead.

The Clinton campaign could contend that it is the proportional allocation system’s inherent "over-fairness" that is denying her the significant delegate gains that she justifiably deserves from winning states like Ohio, where Clinton’s 10 percent margin of victory only garnered her 9 more delegates than Obama.

This is certainly true of Texas, my home state, where the "Two-Step", a nasty little system that lets the team with the most vociferous following steal an undeserved win, is in play.  And that’s exactly what happened in this year’s Democratic primary.

Clinton won the popular vote rather handily despite the intense media buzz that gave her no chance to do so, only to end up behind in the state’s delegate count after the nasty little back room deals were done being cut in the post-primary caucuses. 

Rasmussen:

The Clinton campaign could contend that it is the proportional allocation system’s inherent "over-fairness" that is denying her the significant delegate gains that she justifiably deserves from winning states like Ohio, where Clinton’s 10 percent margin of victory only garnered her 9 more delegates than Obama.

I’m not buying that.

marc

Marc is a software developer, writer, and part-time political know-it-all who currently resides in Texas in the good ol' U.S.A.

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