The way the system is set up does not play to their alleged advantages among Hispanic voters:
Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton is looking to Latino voters in Texas to help her wrest the nomination from Barack Obama, but Texas' complicated delegate apportioning system doesn't necessarily favor Hispanic regions of the state.
Of the state's 228 Democratic presidential delegates, 126 will be awarded based on voting in the March 4 primary. But most of the remaining 102 are allocated in a caucus system leading up to the state convention in June, making Texas the only state with a twin primary-caucus system.
Those delegates are allotted by a candidate's performance in each of the state's 31 state senate districts. Each district gets delegates based on Democratic turnout in past elections.
So some urban districts in Houston, Dallas and Austin with higher Democratic turnout in the 2004 and 2006 general elections could give their winning candidate more delegates than some predominantly Hispanic districts in the Rio Grande Valley and El Paso.