Pennsylvania Delegate Selection 101
| March 12, 2008 | Posted by mmp under 2008, Elections, Pennsylvania, Politics |
Pt 1. The Numbers
We’re up! Now that Mississippi voters have had their say, and Pennsylvania is going to have a short six weeks of campaign ads, candidate appearances, phone calls, and annoying blog comments before we walk into the voting booth. (We’ve also still got another week and a half or so before the voter registration deadline—you MUST register to vote as a Democrat to vote in the Democratic Primary here.)
Pennsylvania will be sending a whopping 187 delegates to the Democratic National Convention in Denver. A candidate needs a majority of delegates (right now, that number is 2,025) to secure the nomination. This post explains how we will be picking our 187, according to the state party’s delegate selection plan.
Unpledged Delegates
26 of the delegates are the Unpledged Party Leaders and Elected Officials (PLEOs). These are the so-called superdelegates who are not bound by the results of our primary vote and are free to support any candidate they choose. These are Democratic members of Congress, the Democratic Governor, members of the DNC, and distinguished party leaders. In addition to these 26, there will be 3 unpledged add-ons. These delegates will be elected by the PA Democratic State Committee members on June 7.
Pledged Delegates by District
Each Congressional district will send a number of delegates to the Convention who are pledged to a candidate (for a total of 103). These delegates are split proportionally by the popular vote within each district. The number of delegates apportioned to each district is based on a formula that gives equal weight to the number of democratic votes in the last presidential election (2004) and the last gubernatorial election (2006).
In this table, I’ll show the number of delegates that will be apportioned by voters in each district and a rough guide for how the popular vote split will determine the delegate split.
|
District |
Congressperson |
Description |
Delegates |
Winning candidate must get over this %…. |
…to get this number of delegates |
|
1 |
Bob Brady (D) | South and Central Philly, Chester City, part of Delaware County |
7 |
50% |
4 |
|
2 |
Chaka Fattah (D) | North and West Philly, part of Montgomery County |
9 |
50% |
5 |
|
3 |
Phil English (R) | Northwestern PA from Erie to Butler |
5 |
50% |
3 |
|
4 |
Jason Altmire (D) | Northern suburbs of Pittsburgh, including Aliquippa, Beaver Falls, and New Castle |
5 |
50% |
3 |
|
5 |
John Peterson (R) | North Central PA. Includes State College |
4 |
63% |
3 |
|
6 |
Jim Gerlach (R) | Northern suburbs of Philadelphia. Includes Pottstown. Parts of Montgomery, Chester, and Berks Counties. |
6 |
59% |
4 |
|
7 |
Joe Sestek (D) | Western and Northwestern suburbs of Philadelphia, including most of Delaware County, and parts of Chester and Montgomery Counties |
7 |
50% |
4 |
|
8 |
Patrick Murphy (D) | Bucks County and Northeast Philadelphia |
7 |
50% |
4 |
|
9 |
Bill Shuster (R) | South Central PA including Altoona |
3 |
50% |
2 |
|
10 |
Chris Carney (D) | Northeast corner of PA |
4 |
63% |
3 |
|
11 |
Paul Kanjorski (D) | Northeast PA including Wilkes-Barre and Scranton |
5 |
50% |
3 |
|
12 |
Jack Murtha (D) | Southwest corner of PA, includes Washington, Indiana, Uniontown, and Johnstown |
5 |
50% |
3 |
|
13 |
Allyson Schwartz (D) | Eastern Montgomery County and Southeastern Philadelphia |
7 |
50% |
4 |
|
14 |
Mike Doyle (D) | Pittsburgh and many surrounding suburbs including Penn Hills, Wilkinsburg, and the Mon Valley |
7 |
50% |
4 |
|
15 |
Charlie Dent (R) | Eastern PA / Lehigh Valley, including Allentown and Bethleham |
5 |
50% |
3 |
|
16 |
Joe Pitts (R) | Southeast PA, with some Philly suburbs as well as rural areas. Includes Reading, West Chester, and Lancaster. The district is made up of much Amish farmland |
4 |
63% |
3 |
|
17 |
Tim Holden (D) | Central PA including Harrisburg and Hershey |
4 |
63% |
3 |
|
18 |
Tim Murphy (R) | Western PA, includes suburbs of Pittsburgh. South Hills in Allegheny County, also includes Monroeville and Greensburg |
5 |
50% |
3 |
|
19 |
Todd Platts (R) | South Central PA including York, Gettysburg, and Carlisle |
4 |
63% |
3 |
Pledged Delegates At-Large
35 delegates will be elected at-large and will be split proportionally according to the statewide popular vote. If I candidate wins with just over 50% of the vote, they will get 18 delegates to their opponent’s 17. For every 3% increase over that, the winner will earn another delegate. In other words, if the winner gets 53% of the vote, the delegates will split 19-16; if the winner gets 62% of the vote, the delegates will be split 22-13.
Pledged Party Leaders and Elected Officials (PLEOs)
Since there are non-superdelegate big wigs who don’t want the embarrassment of not being selected to go to the convention, the final 20 delegates that we will be sending to the convention are pledgedPLEOs. These are (in order of preference) big city mayors and statewide elected officials, state legislative leaders, state legislators, and other state, county, and local elected officials and party leaders. These delegates will be selected by State Committee, but they must be selected in proportion to the statewide popular vote. The winner will need to earn 53% of the vote to get an 11-9 delegate split. For every 5% the winner earns after that, they will earn another delegate. (If the winner gets 63% of the vote, the split will be 13-7, for example.)
Wrap-Up
|
This number of… |
…these types of delegates… |
…selected by… |
…according to |
|
26 |
Unpledged PLEOs (Superdelegates) | Standing within the party | Tradition |
|
3 |
Unpledged Add-ons | State committee | Whim |
|
103 |
Pledged Delegates | Voters in each congressional district | District-wide Vote |
|
35 |
At-Large Delegates | State Committee | Statewide Vote |
|
20 |
Pledged PLEOs | State Committee (and standing within the party) | Statewide Vote |
Complicated? Yes. Small ‘d’ democratic? Maybe. I will write two more posts in this series. The next will be about who the delegates may be (superdelegates + our other delegates in Western PA) and the final post will be my projections for how many delegates the candidates are likely to earn and what the best and worst each of them can realistically do.
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What are the names of the delegates representing montgomery county,pa. Specifally whitpain, ambler and lower gwynedd. Thanks
what are the names of delegates representing montgomery county pa specifically whitpain, ambler area. thanks
please state the names of the delegates pledged or unpledged from Montgomery county?
Montgomery County has delegate returns posted here: http://www.montcopa.org/montco/Election/2008%20Primary%20Election%20Result_dtl.htm#cont29 and it looks like they’ve color-coded who they are pledged to (green for Clinton, black for Obama)
Note that Montgomery has 6 different congressional districts that cut through it, so there’s a lot of people on this list.
We also don’t know right now exactly who will be going to the convention.
(You can see the full Montgomery results page here – http://www.montcopa.org/montco/Election/2008%20Primary%20Election%20Result.htm – to see all Montgomery County results)