Blue districts have more sway than red ones — helping Trump, who has crossover appeal
Establishment Backfire: Rule Favors Trump.
Donald Trump may gain a leg up on his rivals from rules that grant outsized influence to Republican voters in deep blue congressional districts — rules originally intended to help Establishment-backed candidates.
These often-urban districts tend to contain moderate, wealthier voters compared to the conservative base located in red portions of the country. At one time, it looked like those rules could aid an Establishment favorite facing a strong insurgent candidate from the right. Sen. Marco Rubio, for instance, has shown more appeal to wealthier, better-educated voters than Trump. But with Rubio faltering, Trump has displayed more strength with the moderate wing of the party than Cruz.
“If it’s a Trump vs. Cruz race, Trump might be able to use that to his advantage against Cruz,” said Josh Putnam, who teaches political science at the University of Georgia and writes a blog about the primary process.
The issue revolves around arcane rules, which vary from state to sate, governing how delegates to the national convention are awarded. Some states give all of the delegates to the candidate who receives the most votes. But many states award delegates proportionately, and in most of those, three delegates come from each congressional district.
That means if you are one of many Republicans in a heavily GOP district, your vote is worth less than if you live in a district dominated by Democrats.
Consider the 34th Congressional District in California. Based in Los Angeles County, it is one of the most Democratic districts in the country, according to the Cook Political Report. In 2012, only 5,462 Republicans voted in the primary for president. Contrast that with the 4th Congressional District along the Sierra Nevada Mountains, one of the state’s most Republican districts. In 2012, 93,603 people voted in the GOP primary.
Yet both districts produce the same number of delegates — three. An individual vote in the 34th District had about 17 times the weight of a vote in the 4th District.
“This is something that’s been done for decades,” said Henry Olsen, a senior fellow at the Ethics & Public Policy Center. “This is something that’s done in red states and blue states … It certainly does, on the margins, give greater weight to people who live in blue districts.”
Olsen said it could matter in a very close contest. For instance, a conservative candidate who runs up large margins in conservative congressional districts could find himself losing to a more moderate candidate who wins with much smaller totals in the so-called “rotten boroughs.” In a close race, the moderate candidate could equal or exceed a conservative rival in delegates even if he gets fewer votes overall.
As an illustration, consider California, which awards three delegates to the winner of each congressional district. If 85,000 people in the heavily Republican 4th Congressional District voted, and Candidate A received 45,000 votes, Candidate B got 20,000 and other candidates split the rest, Candidate A would wind up with three delegates.
But Candidate B could double that by winning narrow pluralities in a pair of heavily Democratic districts. Suppose he finished first with 2,500 votes in the 34th District, a majority-Hispanic district in downtown Los Angeles and Chinatown where 5,462 people voted in the GOP primary in 2012. And suppose his 2,500 votes were good enough to win in the 40th District, another overwhelmingly Hispanic district in Los Angeles that drew 5,851 Republican voters in 2012.