What Is the Texas Two-Step Primary
Primacus – Texas State Primary and Restricted Caucus
Unlike most primaries in the USA's Democratic presidential selection process, Texas citizens can vote anytime during a two week period, twice - the Texas Two-Step.
From their declaration of independence from Mexico as a separate republic, to their bold stance at San Antonio’s Alamo; Texans arguably defy the American norm. Their view on politics is quite brazenly different as well. The Texas Primacus, or Texas Two-Step, comes from the only state in the Union that allows citizens to vote in both the state’s Democratic primary and Democratic state caucus on the same day. Allowing citizens to vote twice in selecting a presidential candidate follows Texas history of doing things big.
Considered difficult to understand, the Texas Democratic Primacus is relatively straight forward. Truly different from other primaries this caucus process, on the other hand, is the same as many state caucuses in selecting delegates. However, the Texas process has three points that determine the number of delegates awarded
- Primary – The Texas system awards 126 convention delegates based upon the 31 state Senate districts (instead of allocating delegates by its 32 congressional districts.) Daniel Novick of KFOX TV News in El Paso TX, reports: “The number of delegates in each Senate district varies based on previous Democratic turnout in the last two general elections.” Combining this with the early and continuous voting process in Texas, the primary portion is definitely unusual.
- Caucus – Step two of the two-step will award 35% of the pledged delegates (67 delegates not including super delegates.) Called the "precinct convention," the caucus will begin once the primary voting has ended.* Laura Mansfield of the Huffington Post reported on February 29th: “Only voters, who voted at the polls, or through early voting, are eligible to caucus for their candidate….when they vote in the primary….[that] will…allow them access to the caucuses in the evening.”
- Democratic Voting Bonus – States usually award delegates uniformly based upon their congressional districts or district population. However, Texas Democrats reward state districts for their Democratic voting patterns in previous general elections. Mansfield said: “The number of delegates assigned to each Senate District is based on numbers from voter turnout in the 2006 race for Governor and the 2004 Presidential race. For instance, Travis County [Austin]…gets 8 delegates - more than any other district - due to the high voter turnout among Democrats for John Kerry in 2004 & for Chris Bell in the 2006 race for Governor.”
This system favors Barack Obama. While Latinos are a large portion of Hillary Clinton’s base, in the 2004 presidential election, 49% of the Latino vote went to George Bush. As a result, those Hispanic districts now have fewer delegates than districts with Obama supporters that voted Democratic in the 2004 election. Nedra Pickler and Beth Fouhy of the Associated Press said on February 20th: “The turnout formula has assigned more delegates to urban centers with a lot of young or black voters that tend to favor Obama and fewer delegates to poorer Hispanic areas expected to favor Clinton. Austin, which includes the University of Texas, gets eight; Houston gets seven and Dallas gets six.”
* The actual caucus voting results may be disputed. The Clinton campaign has threatened to sue over releasing the results. Gromer Jeffers Jr. of the Dallas Morning News, reported: “The Texas Democratic Party notified the presidential campaigns…that a potential lawsuit over Tuesday's precinct conventions would delay or disrupt the conventions…. The Clinton campaign has raised questions…‘They do not want the caucus results reported…’ Obama campaign manager David Plouffe [said’].”
