With yesterday's Idaho primary, won by Barack Obama, we now have four states which have conducted both a primary and a caucus in this election season - Washington, Texas, Nebraska and Idaho. In all four cases, more people participated in the primary than in the caucus. Also in each case, Hillary Clinton performed better and Barack Obama worse in the primary than in the caucus. What is amazing is how regular the trend is:
The figure above plots Hillary's (blue) and Obama's (red) perfomance in the primary in each of those four states (y-axis) vs. their performance in the caucus in each of those four states (x-axis). A linear fit for each of Hillary's and Obama's data is generated (whose equation is given), each of which have a very high R-squared value, indicating a clear correlation.
(NB - The labels for TX and ID are reversed for Hillary's results)So based on the linear fits above, I've taken the liberty to perform interpolations to recalculate what a primary result would have looked like in each of the other caucus states (except Iowa - Edwards' presence kind of screws things up)
Alaska
Caucus result: Obama 75-25
Primary result: Obama 56-44
Colorado
Caucus result: Obama 67-32
Primary result: Obama 52-48
Hawaii
Caucus result: Obama 76-24
Primary result: Obama 56-44
Kansas
Caucus result: Obama 74-26
Primary result: Obama 55-45
Maine
Caucus result: Obama 59-40
Primary result: Clinton 51-49
Minnesota
Caucus result: Obama 66-32
Primary result: Obama 52-48
Nevada
Caucus result: Clinton 51-45
Primary result: Clinton 57-43
North Dakota
Caucus result: Obama 61-37
Primary result: TIE 50-50
Wyoming
Caucus result: Obama 61-38
Primary result: TIE 50-50
Using the fit from the known data in ID,WA,TX and NE, we can project that Maine would have flipped from Obama to Hillary and North Dakota and Wyoming would have been essentially a dead heat.
Next comes the projections for pledged delegates.
Texas allocatd 67 delegates based on its caucus, which have gone 37-30 for Obama. Had these delegates been awarded on the basis of the primary result, we can approximate a 35-32 breakdown in favor of Hillary.
In the below table, I've reallocated pledged delegates based on either the known primary result or on my interpolation based on the linear fits. I've not tried to break things down by CD, but am just using a straight-up formula, proportionally breaking down pledged delegates according to the actual or interpolated primary result.
Key:
PDel = Pledged Delegates Total
A-HC = Actual HRC PDs won
A-BO = Actual BO PDs won
B-HC = PDs to HRC based on primary reallocation
B-BO = PDs to BO based on primary reallocation
State PDel A-HC A-BO B-HC B-BO
Alaska 13 3 10 6 7
Colorado 55 19 36 26 29
Hawaii 20 6 14 9 11
Idaho 18 3 15 7 11
Kansas 31 9 23 14 17
Maine 24 9 15 12 12
Minnesota 72 24 48 34 38
Nebraska 24 8 16 12 12
Nevada 25 11 14 14 11
N.Dakota 13 5 8 7 6
Texas 67 30 37 35 32
Washington 78 26 52 37 41
Wyoming 12 5 7 6 6
Based on the caucus results in the above states, Barack Obama gained 295 pledged delegates to Hillary Clinton's 158, a net advantage of 137 pledged delegates. Reallocating delegates based on the primary results or an interpolation based on the WA-TX-NE-ID data, Barack Obama would have won 233 to Hillary Clinton's 219, a net advantage of 14.
The use of low-turnout caucuses rather than higher-participation primaries is directly responsible for a net margin of 123 pledged delegates in Barack Obama's favor.
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