The Delegate Fight: Obama Clinches!

[Mr. Morden]

According to Wikipedia, there are 1075 pledged delegates in the remaining primaries.  If Clinton is down by 134 pledged delegates, she needs to win more than 56% of the remaining pledged delegates in order to catch up to Obama in pledged delegates (unless she can get the FL/MI delegates restored).  That seems like a *really* tough hill for her to climb, given the PR system for allocating delegates.  Basically, her average margin of victory in all the remaining primaries has to be comparable to her margin of victory in California.

[Mr. Morden]

If Clinton wins 53% of the remaining delegates, then I guess that would cut Obama's pledged delegate lead about in half, which means that even if the FL/MI delegates are reinstated, that just brings Clinton and Obama roughly into parity in pledged delegates (assuming that the uncommitted delegates in MI break heavily for Obama).

[Mr. Morden]

Erc, I know this thread is primarily for tracking the Democratic delegates, but you also list the GOP totals, so I figured you might be interested in these stories about McCain picking up delegates in MI & LA:

http://www.nola.com/news/index.ssf/2008/02/states_delegates_move_to_mccai.html

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5gUSEb3otSltjMiqOhs0CLj_ma5CAD8URK9HO1

[Mr. Morden]

Just a quick something to note:

If Hillary goes 50-50 in pledged delegates from here on out (certainly not unfeasible), and wins 60% of the remaining unpledged delegates (she's won about 60% of the ones who've endorsed so far), she beats Obama by 3 delegates in the end, even without MI & FL being restored.

So don't declare her dead just yet.

Hmm? I thought the numbers required were higher than that.

No, the number of superdelegates is so large (nearly 800), that if Clinton won 60% of them (to Obama's 40%), that's a 160 delegate advantage right there, which wipes out Obama's current lead among pledged delegates.

Of course, the problem for Clinton is that if Obama does in fact finish the primary season with a pledged delegate lead of over 100, then she is *not* going to be able to get 60% of the superdelegates, barring some extraordinary circumstances.  I just can't see the supers going with Clinton if Obama's pledged delegate lead is that significant.

[Mr. Morden]

In any case, there are enough superdelegates that they can pretty much decide the nomination, no matter what happens in the remaining primaries (barring some extremely improbable results, like 80%/20% margins).  So the real question is what kind of results in the remaining primaries will cause the supers to break one way or the other.

If, for example, Obama ends the primary season with a pledged delegate lead of more than 100, and a lead in the "popular vote", is Clinton really going to be able to get a majority of the superdelegates, let alone 60% of them?

[Mr. Morden]

A few things:

First, Erc's ~150 pledged delegate lead for Obama is correct, it looks virtually impossible for Clinton to catch up in pledged delegates sans FL/MI.  She'd have to win at least 63% of the remaining pledged delegates to do that.  Is she really going to win PA/NC/IN by some 25 points?  Doesn't seem plausible.

But what about the "popular vote"?  According to Firstread:

http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2008/03/05/732427.aspx

if you don't count FL or MI, Obama leads "12,920,961 votes to Clinton's 12,322,695 votes out of more than 26 million cast."  By my very rough count, based on the fraction of the country that's already voted, and what's left....if you assume that the remaining states will have comparable turnout to the ones that have already voted, then Clinton could catch up in the popular vote (sans FL/MI) if she wins the remaining states by an average 55%-45% margin.  (Since there aren't many caucuses left, the remaining turnout will probably be higher than the states that have already voted, so that means she could probably get there even if it's not quite 55-45.)  That's *really* difficult, but much much easier than catching up in pledged delegates.

Finally, we're now at the point where there are more total superdelegates (counting those who have already endorsed...but they can still switch) than pledged delegates in the remaining primaries.  The superdelegates now hold such a balance of power that, at any time starting today, if they all went en masse to either candidate, they could cause that candidate to clinch the nomination.  (Though of course they could also reverse themselves later.)

[Mr. Morden]

Without Michigan and FLorida included Clinton probably needs about 60% of the remaining super delegates. Not impossible, imo.

Is that the right way to look at it though?  IMHO, the question isn't what fraction of the supers she needs, as much as it is "What does she need to do in the remaining primaries in order to win those supers?"  Because I just can't see the majority of supers supporting her if she loses both the pledged delegate count and the popular vote.  It's not going to happen.

[Mr. Morden]

Without Michigan and FLorida included Clinton probably needs about 60% of the remaining super delegates. Not impossible, imo.

Is that the right way to look at it though?  IMHO, the question isn't what fraction of the supers she needs, as much as it is "What does she need to do in the remaining primaries in order to win those supers?"  Because I just can't see the majority of supers supporting her if she loses both the pledged delegate count and the popular vote.  It's not going to happen.

But if she wins the popular vote, most of the delegates toward the end of race and polls show her having more national support than Obama, all of which are definite possibilities, I don't think it will be that hard. I think it's actually pretty likely that she wins the overall popular vote and I think that pretty much negates the "most pledged delegates" argument.

Well, I don't think it's that likely that she'll win the popular vote, but setting that aside for the moment.....you're making my point for me.  Which is that the operative question isn't "What fraction of the remaining supers does she need?".  It's "What does she need to do in the remaining primaries in order to win over the bulk of those supers?"  With one possible answser being "win the overall popular vote".

[Mr. Morden]

Assuming Obama nets 7 delegates from MS....by my count, Clinton needs to win a whopping 65% of the remaining pledged delegates in order to catch up to Obama in pledged delegates *sans FL/MI*.  And, assuming comparable turnout in the remaining states to those that have already voted, she would need about 56.5% of the remaining popular vote in order to catch up in the popular vote *sans FL/MI*.

OTOH, if there are new contests in FL & MI, and they get full delegate slates from those new contests, then Clinton needs just under 60% of remaining pledged delegates to catch up in pledged delegates, and about 54% of the remaining popular vote in order to catch up in total popular vote.