How Did Sharpton Get Delegates and Not Clark?

[Closer]

If I'm not mistaken, they both received 8% in Michigan, but Sharpton got 7 delegates and Clark got zero? How does that happen?

[RichM]

1. My guess would be that it comes from the 15% rule.

Delegates (in many states) are alotted not according to the TOTAL statewide percent of the vote, but according to whether or not you get more than 15% of the vote IN ONE OR MORE CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICTS.

For example, in California (I assume it's the same in at least many other states), suppose Candidate X gets 14% in EVERY district. He gets 0 delegates, even though he wins 14% of the whole state.

By contrast, suppose Candidate Y gets 0% in EVERY district except one, and in that one, he gets 86%. Then he gets ALL the delegates from that one district (somewhere from 4 to 7, depending on population). But statewide, he might have won only 2% or so.

[genius]

5. My understanding is that in Cal, you need 15% both statewide and in the CD

However, it is possible for a lesser candidate to get a lot more delegates than a candidate who got a much higher percentage statewide.

[lcordero]

2. I'm assuming that Sharpton got 15 percent in one district

and 0-1 percent in another district, repeatedly. At the same time, Clark was receiving 8% consistently across the board.

[dsc]

3. what they said

and remember that congressional districts often are racially drawn. So there are a few mostly black districts in Michigan.

[ajacobson]

4. 128 pledged delegates apportioned by C.D.

Sharpton got approximately 30% of the vote in both the 13th Congressional District and the 14th, both of which are predominately in Detroit. At my polling place on the west side of Detroit, covering about 10 precincts, Sharpton got 62%. People were still frosted about the noshow of the candidates except Rev Al at the NAACP forum a couple days earlier. I think if Dean had shown up, Sharpton would not have received such a bump (e.g. the event would not have been so controversial and receive so much press).

A Dean supporter told me that Dean was going to go, but Carolyn Cheeks-Kilpatrick, congresswomen from the 13th CD and mother of Detroit mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, told Dean not to go because the format of the event was changed at the last minute into a head-to-head debate mano a mano with Sharpton. Dean would have been walking into a turkey shoot with him as the target. That's the gossip I heard, take it as rumor only.