Delegate distribution challenges math acumen

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WASHINGTON -- Call it Super Complicated Tuesday: a virtual national primary that may not yield a clear winner in the high-stakes showdown between Democratic Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York and Barack Obama of Illinois, even if one grabs most of California's 370-delegate mother lode.Of the 2,025 delegates needed to secure the Democratic nomination at the party convention in August, 1,681 will be awarded by voters on Tuesday. Republicans will pick 1,023 of the 1,191 delegates their winner needs, but their selection process is more clearcut.Never before has such a vast primary contest been held. And while the big popular vote will look good on television, it's the number of delegates that counts."The first objective of the campaigns is to be ahead on the delegate count on the 6th of February," said Tad Devine, a top adviser to Al Gore in 2000 and John Kerry in 2004 who is unaligned in this race. "That's the place you want to be."Few expect a clear Democratic winner to emerge from Super Tuesday because the party awards delegates in proportion to votes. The arithmetic is tricky. It hinges on critical thresholds in each congressional district, of which California alone has 53.In fact, the loser of the popular vote could emerge nearly tied in delegates, continuing the race through the remaining primaries that will cover most states by March 4 but don't end until June."When all the confetti has hit the floor and everyone takes a deep breath and looks at what happened, it may come out to a difference of only a couple of hundred delegates," said Jenny Backus, a Democratic strategist.Perception will help. When the television network boards light up Tuesday night, they will show the winners of the popular vote, conveying an aura of front-runner status. The big states will make a big show: California is far and away the largest prize, followed by New York, Illinois, New Jersey, Massachusetts and Georgia.The maps will also show the spread of wins across the country in smaller states, bestowing a sense of national reach. Many eyes will be on Missouri, a classic bellwether that nearly always picks the eventual winner.But if the delegate count is close, the race will quickly move to the next round of states on Feb. 9 (Washington, Nebraska, Louisiana), Feb. 10 (Maine), Feb. 12 (Virginia) and Feb. 19 (Wisconsin).The Republican race, winnowed mainly to Arizona Sen. John McCain and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, will be much clearer. In the GOP's winner-take-all primaries in New York, New Jersey and Arizona, second place might as well be last. Even states such as California that use partial proportional representation give the GOP winner of each district all its delegates, and the statewide winner all the statewide delegates. That's enough to cement a winner.For the Democrats, Devine will be focused on the six big states. "If some candidate goes out and wins five of those six, particularly California, and relegates the other candidate to a victory in their home state, that candidate is certainly going to be well ahead in delegates and will demonstrate enormous strength," he said. He or she will become "the clear front-runner and difficult if not impossible to beat for the nomination."Yet because of proportional representation, Devine said, "That's a very difficult chore for any candidate right now."On Tuesday, about two-thirds of the Democratic delegates will be awarded according to the share of the vote that Clinton and Obama receive in each district. Another third will be awarded according to their share of the statewide vote, giving a statewide winner an advantage.Hitting certain thresholds in each district offers a chance to pick up an extra delegate. A candidate who wins 15 percent of the vote automatically gets one delegate. After that, it becomes even more arcane.The arithmetic of proportional representation shows why it will be so difficult for Clinton or Obama to gain an advantage.Districts get delegates based on the Democratic turnout in the last two presidential elections. They range from three in a Bakersfield district to six in San Francisco.In districts with an even number of delegates, Obama and Clinton stand a good chance of splitting evenly unless they blow away their rival.(E-mail Carolyn Lochhead at clochhead(at)sfchronicle.com.)(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)