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How the Congressional districts lean

Congressional districts will play a key role in the presidential primary.

Two thirds of the state's pledged delegates — a trove of 77 — will be distributed to either Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton based on the percentage of votes in the state's 13 Congressional districts.

(Mike Gravel and "No Preference" will also be on the ballot, but they are unlikely to pass the 15 percent threshold necessary to affect delegate distribution.)

At Dome's request, Tom Jensen of Public Policy Polling took a look at their surveys, using area code as a proxy for Congressional district. Here's where each candidate's ahead, and the district representative:

Clinton: 3rd (Jones), 5th (Foxx), 10th (McHenry), 11th (Shuler)

Obama: 1st (Butterfield), 4th (Price), 6th (Coble), 7th (McIntyre), 8th (Hayes), 9th (Myrick), 12th (Watt), 13th (Miller)

Toss-Up: 2nd (Etheridge)

"Obama does very well in urban areas and more rural areas down east with strong black populations," he writes Dome. "Clinton is strongest with the whiter 3rd District out east and in the western part of the state."

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Re: How the Congressional districts lean

Submitted by TomJensen on March 7, 2008 - 5:25pm.

Liam is correct that the margin of error for each Congressional district would be quite high.

PPP's crosstabs are as good as anyone else's though- you would have to do a poll of 5,200 people to get it statistically significant at the Congressional district level and no legitimate polling company tends to do a poll with much more than 1,500 respondents- usually it's 400-600.

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Re: How the Congressional districts lean

Submitted by liam on March 7, 2008 - 5:15pm.

My concern has to do with sample size in each district. For example, how many residents of the 2nd were surveyed and claimed they were democratic primary voters. When sample sizes get down to the low double digits out of a statewide poll of 600, the chance for error greatly increases.

PPP's polling is good for getting reactions quickly, but not for getting dirty in the cross-tabs.

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Re: How the Congressional districts lean

Submitted by bmullis on March 7, 2008 - 4:47pm.

I wonder if there are other significant cleavages that Jensen may be ignoring in this analysis due to his own biases (the majority of his past analysis typically centers on race), but it is an obvious analytical approach in this campaign.

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