CQ Politics Projects a Close Delegate Split in Indiana Primary

Some of this involves guesswork, and we invite our readers to make their own predictions in the comments section below. For assistance, feel free to consult this chart of demographic and political information about Indiana. The Indiana Secretary of State’s office has an informative page that includes congressional district maps and a breakdown of registered Indiana voters by congressional district.

This year’s Indiana contest is the state’s first highly competitive Democratic presidential primary since 1984, when the state narrowly favored Colorado Sen. Gary Hart over former Vice President Walter Mondale, the eventual Democratic nominee.

Sixteen years earlier, New York Sen. Robert F. Kennedy won the May Indiana Democratic primary, defeating Gov. Roger Branigin, a stand-in for President Lyndon B. Johnson (who decided in late March not to seek re-election), and Minnesota Sen. Eugene McCarthy, who was competing with Kennedy for support from voters who opposed the U.S. involvement in the Vietnam war. That set the stage for the crucial early June showdown with McCarthy in California in which Kennedy scored a victory that would have established him as the leader of dissident forces challenging Vice President Hubert H. Humphrey for the nomination, but was assassinated just after speaking at a victory rally in Los Angeles.

Polls show that Indiana Democrats are pretty divided between Clinton and Obama, and so are many of the Democratic heavyweights in the state. Clinton’s backers include Sen. Evan Bayh and Indiana Democratic Party Chairman Dan Parker, while Obama is backed by well-known former Reps. Tim Roemer from the northern part of the state and Lee Hamilton from southeast Indiana.

As further evidence of how much the Indiana Democratic contest is up for grabs, only one of the five House Democrats in the state’s nine-member U.S. House delegation has announced an endorsement: 7th District Rep. André Carson, who won a special election in February, is an Obama backer. The other four — Peter J. Visclosky of the 1st District, Joe Donnelly of the 2nd, Brad Ellsworth of the 8th and Baron P. Hill of the 9th — all remain uncommitted.

“If you’re an Indiana Democrat looking for guidance, it’s decidedly mixed,” said Robert Dion, a political scientist at the University of Evansville.

The Indiana district breakdown starts here:

• 1st District (Northwest — Gary, Hammond). This district, represented by veteran Democrat Peter J. Visclosky , has the state’s largest black constituency (18 percent of the total population) after the Indianapolis-based 7th. Residents in “The Region” — as northwest Indiana is known — are more in the orbit of Obama’s hometown of Chicago than of Indianapolis (the city of East Chicago is actually in Indiana’s Lake County, and sports fans here pull for Chicago’s Bears and the Bulls, not the Colts and the Pacers of Indianapolis). Obama will get a big vote out of Gary, where African-Americans comprise a majority of residents, though some mayors in white-majority suburbs are backing Clinton. Obama probably will win the district comfortably, but his campaign also is shooting to exceed the 58.3 percent vote threshold needed to win four of six delegates. CQ Politics Projection: Tie, 3-3.

• 2nd District (North central — South Bend, parts of Elkhart and Kokomo). The population center of this district is St. Joseph County, which includes South Bend and the University of Notre Dame and accounts for about 40 percent of the district’s total population. College communities, with their young students and well-educated academics, have been voting strongly for Obama. There’s also a sizable black population in South Bend that is pro-Obama.

Elsewhere in St. Joseph’s County, there are older, blue-collar Roman Catholic Democrats on the west side of South Bend who will favor Clinton, as likely will most voters who live in small towns on the outer edge of the county. Clinton also should do quite well in the southern reaches of the district, including the 2nd’s share of the industrial city of Kokomo.

These competing demographics suggest it is unlikely that either contender will exceed the 58 percent vote share needed to get a 4-2 delegate lead in the district. “If I had to say right now, I’d say that the 2nd District is going to be fairly close,” said John Roos, a political scientist at Notre Dame who is supporting Obama. CQ Politics Projection: Tie, 3-3.

• 3rd District (Northeast — Fort Wayne). This area of Indiana was once represented by Republican Dan Quayle, who would become a U.S. senator and vice president under President George H.W. Bush, and Jill Long Thompson, who is seeking the Democratic nomination for governor this year. The district, which has a strong overall Republican lean, is represented in the House by seven-term Republican Mark Souder .

Clinton probably will win among Democrats here. The district offers just four delegates, so the winner will need 62.5 percent of the vote to win three of the four. For what it’s worth, the three heavily Republican northwestern Ohio counties that abut Indiana’s 3rd went heavily for Clinton in that state’s March 4 Democratic primary: Williams (57 percent); Defiance (56 percent); and Paulding (66 percent). CQ Politics Projection: Tie, 2-2.

CQ Politics Projects a Close Delegate Split in Indiana Primary

• 4th District (West central — Indianapolis suburbs, Lafayette). Another heavily Republican district, the 4th is represented by Republican Steve Buyer . The district has just four Democratic delegates, and should favor Clinton outside Tippecanoe County, which takes in Purdue University in West Lafayette. As in the 3rd District, the winner needs a 25-point win for a 3-1 delegate advantage. CQ Politics Projection: Tie, 2-2.

• 5th District (East central — part of Indianapolis and suburbs). Compared to the rest of the state, Democrats are in short supply in the 5th, where 13-term Republican Dan Burton holds the House seat. In the 2004 presidential election, Democratic nominee John Kerry took a statewide low of 28 percent in the 5th District. Clinton should win this district; it’s possible that she’ll exceed 62.5 percent of the vote. CQ Politics Projection: Clinton 3, Obama 1.

• 6th District (East — Muncie, Anderson, Richmond). Indiana’s 6th, represented in Congress by Republican Mike Pence , is the only district with an odd number of district delegates (five), so either Clinton or Obama will emerge from here with a 3-2 edge. (It takes a 70 percent supermajority for a 4-1 split). The university community in and around Ball State University in Muncie is likely to lean Obama, but Clinton should otherwise do well elsewhere in this district, which is overwhelmingly white and has levels of income and education that are lower than the state at-large — a profile that matches many other districts in previous primary states where she has done well. Fayette County, which includes Connersville in the southeastern area of the district, has the highest unemployment rate of any of Indiana’s 92 counties. CQ Politics Projection: Clinton 3, Obama 2.

• 7th District (Most of Indianapolis). Like newly elected Democratic Rep. Carson — who succeeded his late grandmother, Julia Carson, in the House seat — about 30 percent of residents in this Indianapolis-centered district are black, a larger percentage than in any other district in Indiana. Obama, who has received overwhelming support from black voters during the nominating campaign, surely will win this district, and it seems likely that he will exceed 58.3 percent of the vote and get a 4-2 delegate advantage. CQ Politics Projection: Obama 4, Clinton 2.

• 8th District (West — Evansville, Terre Haute). This district’s population center is Evansville, Indiana’s third-largest city and the hometown of its freshman Democratic representative, Brad Ellsworth . The first-term congressman, a former county sheriff, shares the cultural conservatism and economic populist views of many of his constituents. Evansville actually is closer to a state capital outside Indiana (Nashville, Tenn.) than to its own, and the city is about as far south as Richmond, Va.

“Our Democratic Party locally tends to be pro-life on abortion, pro-gun, pro-union, pro-school prayer,” said Dion, the University of Evansville political scientist. “Don’t forget that it doesn’t take much to get from here to Kentucky.”

Anthony Long, the 8th District Democratic chairman, is backing Clinton, while Evansville Mayor Jonathan Weinzapfel recently endorsed Obama.

The 8th has most of Indiana’s border with Illinois, though this is not as much of an advantage for Obama as you might think. White, Gallatin and Lawrence Counties, which abut Indiana’s 8th District on the other side of the Wabash River, were among the 14 Illinois counties that backed Clinton over Obama in that state’s Feb. 5 presidential primary, which Obama won by nearly a 2-to-1 ratio. Clinton should win this district handily; it’s possible she might win more than 58.3 percent needed for a 4-2 delegate edge. CQ Politics Projection: Tie, 3-3.

• 9th District (Southeast — Bloomington, New Albany). Obama will easily carry Bloomington, a liberal-leaning city that includes the main campus of Indiana University. But there are more district residents to be found in the counties along the Ohio River, just across from Kentucky, in cities such as New Albany and Jeffersonville that will back Clinton. Former Rep. Hamilton, who served this southeastern Indiana constituency for 34 years in the U.S. House, is backing Obama. Clinton should win the district, though it’s doubtful that the margin will be larger than the 58.3 percent needed to break another delegate tie. CQ Politics Prediction: Tie, 3-3.