Texas is considered a “must win” state for US Democratic hopeful Hillary Clinton who had lost the eight most recent contests to Barack Obama giving him a slight lead over her in the delegate count. Before Super Tuesday, February 5, Hillary Clinton had a lead over Barack Obama. After the Super Tuesday primaries and caucuses, Clinton’s lead over Obama had vanished. After the eight contests afterwards, it was Obama who came out as the victim and gained a marginal lead over Clinton.
Wisconsin, Ohio, and Texas are considered to be “must win” states for Clinton. Currently, Hillary Clinton has been making a comeback in Wisconsin. As a result Barack Obama’s campaign has been spending more time and money to counteract Hillary Clinton’s comeback in the state. Recently, the Clinton campaign launched a pamphlet that explained that Obama’s health care plan was not universal. The website known as FactCheck.org supports Clinton’s claim.
Hillary’s campaign could possibly face another obstacle. This obstacle takes place in the state of Texas, a state that is deemed a must-win for Clinton. Her supporters have shown concern that the Texas delegate rules which are deemed as convoluted could downgrade her impact amongst the very powerful support amongst Hispanic voters in the state. A good size of the population of Texas is Hispanic.
The aides to the Clinton camp learned that while she can win strong in certain heavily populated districts, she will only win only a handful of delegates giving her only a slight edge. In the case of Barack Obama, he can win triple or quadruple the amount from urban areas such as Dallas and Houston. Obama has been doing well in more urbanized areas. It is expected and estimated that Obama will claim victory in the more urbanized districts in Texas.
“What it means is, she could win the popular vote and still lose the race for delegates,” said Democratic State Senator Juan Hinojosa. His Senate district has a high concentration of Hispanic voters.
Hinojosa adds: “This system does not necessarily represent the opinions of the population, and that is a serious problem.”
The rules have been in place for over twenty years. However, this system is come under attack because of the Texas primary contest that takes place on March 4.
The Texas Democratic Party strongly stands by its rules. The party officials give the explanation that some senatorial districts dish out two or three delegates while others can dish out much more. This formula calculated by the party is based on the number of voters in each district that had voted for John Kerry, the 2004 US Democratic nominee.
They explain that the turnout of voters in each of these districts increase within those years. Hypothetically, it would mean that voter turnout in the more urbanized areas will be much more. In a sense, it does make logical sense because Obama had also appealed to moderate Republicans, independents, and young voters.
“It’s not that anyone’s trying to penalize anymore,” said Boyd Richie, chairman of the Texas Democratic Party. He adds: “That’s the last thing I want to do. What I want to do is encourage people to come back and vote. We want to have everybody participate.”
However, Clinton’s supporters say that the formula associated with the rules fails to consider areas where the general-election turnout has been low. But, turnout for primaries was much higher than it was for the general election.
Supporters have also pointed out that the number of delegates won from primaries will also affect the number of delegates won from caucuses. The caucuses have given a separate but very important concern for Clinton and her supporters. For many years, Texas’ Democrats have been out of power for years.
This brings a lot of concerns that the Clinton campaign must prepare for.
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