Clinton’s Penn. delegate boost: 12

by Josh Drobnyk

Hillary Clinton will net 12 delegates from her presidential primary win in Pennsylvania last month, according to a Morning Call analysis of preliminary vote totals released by the state today.

The New York senator, who won the primary with 55 percent of the vote, will pick up 85 pledged delegates. Barack Obama will gain 73.

While the statewide vote count has been known since the night of the Democratic primary, the results within each of the state’s 19 congressional districts have taken longer to tally. Because two-thirds of the 158 pledged delegates up for grabs are apportioned based on votes in each congressional district, a final delegate total has been unavailable until now.

The state Democratic Party confirmed that the preliminary results put Clinton on tap to pick up 12 delegates from the state.

Clinton’s 9-point victory in the state gave her 30 of the 55 delegates that were divvied up based solely on the statewide vote count. She won another 55 of the delegates based on the results in individual congressional districts, with the biggest bulk coming from the Philadelphia suburbs and northeastern and western Pennsylvania.

One significant victory for her came in the 11th District, which includes Scranton, where she and Obama made a combined half-dozen appearances during the six-week contests. There, Clinton won 71 percent of the vote, giving her just enough to claim four of the five delegates.

In the 15th District, which includes much of the Lehigh Valley, Clinton won with 61 percent of the vote. She took three of the five delegates.

But it was Obama who benefited from Pennsylvania’s quirky system of handing out delegates. He won by big margins in Philadelphia’s 1st and 2nd Districts, netting him eight more delegates than Clinton in the two districts alone.

Had Pennsylvania awarded all of its pledged delegates based on the overall vote count, Clinton would have walked away with 14 more delegates than Obama, instead of 12.

Either way, the bump does little to impact Obama’s overall delegate advantage, which stood at 139 before the Pennsylvania primary. The Illinois senator has won support from more than half of the superdelegates who have announced their endorsement since Pennsylvanians voted.

Here are the delegate totals by congressional district: 1 — Clinton 2, Obama 5 2 — Clinton 2, Obama 7 3 — Clinton 3, Obama 2 4 — Clinton 3, Obama 2 5 — Clinton 2, Obama 2 6 — Clinton 3, Obama 3 7 — Clinton 4, Obama 3 8 — Clinton 4, Obama 3 9 — Clinton 2, Obama 1 10 — Clinton 3, Obama 1 11 — Clinton 4, Obama 1 12 — Clinton 4, Obama 1 13 — Clinton 4, Obama 3 14 — Clinton 3, Obama 4 15 — Clinton 3, Obama 2 16 — Clinton 2, Obama 2 17 — Clinton 2, Obama 2 18 — Clinton 3, Obama 2 19 — Clinton 2, Obama 2 Statewide — Clinton 30, Obama 25

Commonwealth edison

Josh Drobynk reports from Washington for the Allentown (Pa.) Morning Call, a Tribune Co. newspaper.

Related posts: Stamp increase

Recently:

• Video blogging
• Watch coraline
• Kelly malone
• Iraqi death researcher censured
• Lucy hale
• Four men and a pig
• Football pool sheet
• Fire kills 5 newborns in India hospital
• Mofo layoffs
• Austin school closings