The Texas Primary
The Texas Primary
Early voting is over in Texas. This year’s turnout (7.45%) surpassed turnout in 2016 (5.12%). In Texas’ 10 largest counties, a total of 1,113,726 people voted in person and by mail — 12% of registered voters. According to the latest registration figures reported by the secretary of state before the 2020 primary, 57.2% of all Texas voters live in these 10 counties.
The state will send 261 delegates to the DNC with 228 of them as pledged delegates bound to a candidate in the first ballot unless he releases them. The 33 remaining delegates, formerly known as superdelegates, include 13 Democratic members of Congress and 20 Democratic National Committee members. These are unpledged delegates, but they cannot vote on the first ballot.
Of the 228 pledged delegates, the Texas Democratic Party allocates 149 district-level delegates among each of the 31 Texas Senate districts. There are 49 at-large and 30 Pledged Elected Party Officials (PLEO) Democratic delegates in Texas. All the pledged delegates will be apportioned based on the statewide voting. Candidates have to receive at least 15% of the statewide vote in the primary.
Latest polling (538) - Sanders 28.9%, Biden 22.4%, Bloomberg 17.3% and Warren 12.2%
When selecting the at-large delegates, the committee must also select people who meet the Texas Democrats’ goals. The 261-person delegation must be perfectly split by gender and also needs to include a certain number of Hispanics, African Americans, Texans under 36, disabled Texans and other historically underrepresented groups.
Getting that proportionality of the delegates more closely to the voting public as well as not having the superdelegates vote on the first ballot seem like good ideas.
