Could Hillary have won the nomination?

[darklordoftech]

Or was she doomed?

[HagridOfTheDeep]

I may be misremembering, but didn't she lose every primary/caucus between Super Tuesday and Texas/Ohio? Had her camp prepared meaningfully for a post-Super Tuesday landscape she would have been a two-term Democratic populist president.

[brucejoel99]

Given how close the race for the nomination was, it wouldn't have been too hard for her to win. Even after the IA debacle, she made a comeback in NH, so if she'd bothered with trying in caucuses in order to make a play for the delegate math or if she'd kept Bill under tighter control in SC so that she could still get a good portion of the black vote & so less people would be turned off, then she probably would've won.

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

If she had voted against Kyl Lieberman and come out strongly against the Iraq war, she could have.

[Redban]

She had a shot. I remember she made some big mistakes (eg didn’t give a good answer at the debates about whether illegal immigrants should get driver licenses).
 
She also didn’t defend herself well against attacks for her support for the Iraq War.

[President Johnson]

Maybe if she campaigned more/better in Iowa. Obama's upset win here gave him a ton of momentum, especially since it's a state with such a large white electorate. This convinced a lot of folks (including blacks, who originally supported her) who liked Obama but were skeptical whether an African American could actually win a national election. Obama back then campaigned in areas he was the weakest in. By doing so, he cut his margins of losses in places where Hillary won, allowing him to win the Iowa Caucus in a major upset.

[TopShelfGoal]

If the caucus states were primaries she would have had a good shot. Obama destroyed her in the caucuses.

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

Obama dying before the Iowa cacus would have led to her coronation.

[dw93]

If she voted No on the Iraq War or the Financial Crisis started a year earlier, I think she could've beaten Obama given how close the primary was.

[TML]

Her campaign wasn't populist enough - people didn't think she would bring as much meaningful change to the country as they thought Obama would. I think she could have won had she tried hard to run to Obama's left instead of to his right.

[un]

The main reason Hillary lost was because she never really made gains during the primary. She lost Iowa to Obama, tied with Obama in New Hampshire for delegates, lost Nevada to Obama (delegate wise), and got crushed in South Carolina to Obama. Already a bad start.

 But then Super Tuesday happened, and unfortunately for Hillary, it was underwhelming, while she did win some big states like California, Obama was competitive enough where he could get a fair share of his own delegates. Meanwhile in smaller states and caucuses, Obama would destroy Hillary, where he would win a clear majority of delegates over her, that allowed him to override Hillary's minor wins in big states. For example, Obama won Idaho overwhelming, and got 15 delegates versus Hillary's 3. That doesn't sound like a lot, but when you consider that Hillary was only winning big states by a little bit, and you get multiple small state landslides for Obama, it adds up and he comes out with more delegates, like he did on Super Tuesday. After this, we had another month of primaries and caucuses, and all of them went for Obama, often by wide margins. He net gained around 120 delegates in mid-February alone.

At this point, Hillary needed a big comeback to stand a chance, and that chance was on March 4th, with Ohio, Rhode Island, Texas, and Vermont. And the day came, and she won all of them except Vermont. Sounds great, right? Well, not necessarily. She won Rhode Island by a good margin, 13 to 8 in delegates, which is nice, but it's small, and not the big small state win you would get from Obama. She also lost Vermont, 9 to 6 in delegates, making her gain in Rhode Island less important. But wait! What about Texas and Ohio? Well, she won Ohio, but not by much, only get 74 delegates to Obama's 67, a net gain of just 7. For a state that was supposed to bring a big comeback, that's very underwhelming. But what about Texas? Well, she did not win in the way you'd think. She won the Texas primary by an underwhelming margin, winning 65 delegates to Obama's 61, netting just 4 delegates, which is already underwhelming and a bad result. But it's even worse, cause Texas had a caucus, and Obama won that, 38 delegates to Hillary's 29, a net gain of 9. Meaning that when you do the math, Hillary lost Texas overall in the delegate count, which is a devastating loss.  This all lead up to Hillary only winning a net gain of 4 delegates, and when you are behind Obama and quickly losing super delegate support, that's a big loss. It got worse for Hillary in the final two contests for March, she lost the Wyoming caucus, with Obama getting 7 to her 5, a net gain of 2 for Obama. 3 days later, she lost the Mississippi primary in a landslide, with Obama winning 20 delegates to Hillary's 13. Once March was finished, Obama won a net gain of 5 delegates, meaning that in her comeback month, she lost to Obama.

After this, it was basically over, but there was technically a path for Hillary, though she would have to do extremely well in the next state, Pennsylvania, which would vote on April 22nd. The day came, and she won! Good, right? Well, she got a net gain of 12 delegates (Hillary won 85, Obama got 73), which is good, but not enough in the long term. After a rather uneventful tie in Guam with Obama (both won 2 delegates), the next contests were Indiana and North Carolina. Indiana was a possible win for her, but she needed to win it big. North Carolina was already considered gone for her, but she needed to cut the bleeding to stay in the race. The primaries came, and it was an utter disaster for Hillary. She only won Indiana narrowly, getting 38 delegates to Obama's 34, a net gain of just 4, no where near enough for a big win. That's bad enough, but North Carolina was a landslide win for Obama, he won North Carolina with 67 delegates to Hillary's 48, a gain for Obama of 19 delegates. Not only did this erase the Indiana delegate gain for Hillary, but it also erased the Pennsylvania delegate gain, leading Obama to have a net gain of 3 delegates. After this, it was over. Even though she got a net gain of 12 delegates in West Virginia (20 delegates to 8 delegates), and a net gain of 23 delegates in Kentucky, it didn't matter anymore. She was way too far back, and even some of her big gains were offset to an extent by Obama wins, such as in Oregon, where Obama got a net gain of 10 delegates (31 delegates to 21 delegates). After a Puerto Rico primary which saw Hillary get a net gain of 21 delegates (38 delegates to 17 delegates), the two final states came, Montana and South Dakota. These two states put the nail in the coffin, Obama won Montana by 2 delegates (9 delegates to 7 delegates), and even Hillary's South Dakota victory of 3 delegates (9 delegates to 6 delegates) couldn't change anything anymore, as Obama successfully passed the number to get the nomination with just South Dakota delegates alone. 4 days later, Hillary conceded the race, and endorsed Obama.

The main thing Hillary did wrong was ignoring small states and putting too much emphasis on big states, where she only secured narrow wins. For example, she won California by 38 delegates, a nice win for sure. But, Obama was able to override that win with just some small states he won massively. In Idaho, he got a net gain of 12 delegates, in Kansas, he got a net gain of 14 delegates, in Utah he got a net gain of 5 delegates, in Alaska he got a net gain of 5 delegates, and in North Dakota he got a net gain of 3 delegates. When you add up the numbers, Obama took five small states, and was able to override the biggest state in the country, with just five states that don't even have half of the population of California. Obama ran a brilliant campaign, and it payed off in the end.

[Chips]

Sure.

[wildviper121]

Obama dying before the Iowa cacus would have led to her coronation.

Obama says in his book that he might not have run in the first place if the whole Jeremiah Wright scandal happened when he was deciding whether to run. Not a far off chance either, since the media was hyping Obama up and was probably digging into his past at the time. I don't think the other candidates had the appeal Obama had, so without him Clinton probably wins.