One Reason Why Obama is Leading in the Delegate Count

Bankrobber Willie Sutton was purported to have said that he robbed banks "because that's where the money is."

Among the reasons why Obama is leading in the delegate count is that he is following Sutton's maxim - he wins the districts with more delegates.

According to the convention delegate selection rules of the Democratic Party, approximately 52% of the delegates are selected at a district level - in most cases this means congressional districts (although there are a handful of states that use a different set of districts.)

Among the "district" delegates selected so far Obama has a 100 delegate edge over Clinton - 968 to 868 - even though Obama (187) and Clinton (183) have won almost the same number of districts. (Note that if Florida and Michigan were to be included Obama's delegate margin would be cut to 63 delegates while Clinton would be winning more districts than Obama 215 to 195.)

These district delegates account for the bulk of Obama's current delegate advantage. Here is the distribution of districts won by number of delegates:

As you can see, Obama has won 74% of the districts that were allocated 6 or more delegates including all 14 districts so far with 8 or more delegates, while Clinton has won 60% of the districts that were allocated 5 or fewer delegates.

The Democratic Party allocates district delegates based upon the vote in each district for the Democratic presidential candidates in 1996, 2000 and 2004. Since African-Americans voted roughly 90% Democratic in those three elections, African-American congressional districts typically have the highest number of delegates in a state. Also, by the quirks of the rules states with single at-large districts also tend to have a large number of "district" delegates and those states have also votes for Obama - Alaska, North Dakota, Vermont and Wyoming.

As the candidates and their campaigns continue to debate who should be the nominee, one thing is clear - the Obama campaign has better understood how to play by the delegate rules. They are winning the game where the delegates are.

P.S.  For completeness' sake, here is the same table, including Florida and Michigan.