I am not normally a fan of horserace journalism which focuses on things like polling, fundraising, or endorsements at the expense of talking about important issues. However, I am also a number cruncher, and tomorrow is derby day for Connecticut Democrats, so I have created some spreadsheets to try and get a sense at how much support there is likely to be for candidates at the convention.

As a starting point, I received a spreadsheet which lists the delegates, as well as their congressional, state senate, and state house districts. While it might seem that the number of delegates would be the same for these districts, due to a collection of factors, they are not. Based on my calculations, the first district has 408 delegates, the second and third both have 376, the fourth has 333 and the fifth has 334. That means that an endorsement by John Larson may have much more influence than an endorsement by Jim Himes. Likewise, the 24th Senate District only has 38 delegates while the 2nd Senate District has 65. This means that an endorsement by Eric Coleman may have more weight than other State Senators. For that matter the 24th Senate District is represented by a Republican who is about as far from Democratic values as you can get in the State Senate.

To further complicate things, a delegate may find her State Representative endorsing one candidate, her State Senator endorsing another, and her congresswoman endorsing a third candidate. For that matter, the delegate might end up voting based on criteria completely independent of endorsements.