Delegate Math: Who Won Nevada?

[Leo 9]

washingtonpost.com's Politics Blog

Delegate Math: Who Won Nevada?
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UPDATE: AP and NBC have now changed their delegate counts to 13 for Obama and 12 for Clinton.
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Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.) won today's raw vote in Nevada but senior aides to Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.) believe they have narrowly won the fight for delegates in the Silver State.

In a just completed conference call with Obama campaign manager David Plouffe and director of delegate selection Jeff Berman argued that the Illinois Senator will leave Nevada today with 13 pledged delegates to 12 for Clinton thanks the weighting of northern and rural areas in the state.

An Associated Press official on the call suggested that Obama's campaign may well be right and the organization was looking seriously at its own math.

While the process of delegate apportionment is extremely complicated, it boils down to this: in the places that Clinton won, there were an even number of delegates that were split between she and Obama. In the places Obama won, there were an odd number of delegates, meaning that he often took two delegates to one for Clinton.

snip

http://blog.washingtonpost.com/thefix/2008/01/clinton_won_or_did_she.html?hpid=topnews

[sunonmars]

1. But theres this

But some election officials said they were confused about Mr. Obama’s claim that he more delegates than Mrs. Clinton.

“I don’t know why they’re saying that,” said Jill Derby, President of the Nevada State Democratic Party, referring to the Obama campaign. “We don’t select our national delegates the way they’re saying. We won’t select national delegates for a few more months

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/19/us/politics/19cnd-dems.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

[ursi]

3. Jill Derby? LOL! she won't be talking much soon when she has to start answering

about all the money that is gone.

[Renew Deal]

5. All that means is that Obama is correct, but not official.

It's like the end of a NASCAR race.

[ursi]

2. the ABC station in Reno just said Clintons and Obama both got 15, wtf?

[MH1]

4. Interesting that this comes from "the fix"

From another thread, it appears the delegates aren't officially apportioned until some weeks from now.

Plenty of time to "fix" anything that might be considered "broken" by a certain candidate.

[Evergreen Emerald]

6. They are trying to spin a win out of whole cloth

The Las Vegas reporter as well as the NV Democratic chair say they are wrong.

[Leo 9]

7. Loser Obama wins more delegates

Published: January 21, 2008 6:00 a.m.
Loser Obama wins more delegates

Nevada rules weighted away from Vegas
By David WillmanLos Angeles TimesAdvertisement

WASHINGTON – Hillary Rodham Clinton won and Barack Obama lost the West’s first presidential plebiscite.

Or was it the other way around?

As the candidates’ focus shifts to larger electoral prizes, the campaigns squabbled over the winner of Saturday’s caucuses in Nevada, a state with fewer than 2 percent of the delegates needed to win the Democratic nomination.

snip

Nevada’s rules allocate delegates – the people who will ultimately vote for a nominee at the national party convention – based on a formula that is not bound strictly by the statewide vote in the caucuses. The rules are weighted to preserve the voice of voters in rural precincts, voices that might otherwise be dimmed by the influx of new voters in metropolitan Las Vegas.

snip

Clinton won decisively in Las Vegas and surrounding Clark County, but statewide, Obama won more votes in 11 of Nevada’s 17 counties. When the state’s arcane rules were taken into account, Obama could claim 13 delegates to Clinton’s 12.

snip

“We carried Reno by double digits, we carried the north. And that’s why we ended up with more delegates than you,” Axelrod said Sunday during an exchange on CBS’s “Face the Nation.”

snip

http://www.journalgazette.net/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080121/NEWS03/801210338

[MonkeyFunk]

8. the one delegate in question

is ultimately meaningless.

The fact is, every newspaper in the country trumpeted this as a Clinton victory - that's more important.

[robbedvoter]

9. By convention time, 25 delegates of Nevada will be given to the primary WINNER

whomever that may be.