The Candidates
Or, How Barack wins without even taking this thing to the convention.
Playing around with CNN’s delegate counter gives some clarity to this Dem nomination fight, and shows how Obama could very easily win this thing without it going all the way to the convention. Let’s take a look at the numbers:
Pennsylvania
Let’s give Clinton an 18-point win here. That margin splits the delegates 94-64.
Guam
If Clinton manages a 28-point victory here, the delegates are split 3-1. Anything less than that, and both candidates get 2 delegates (don’t you just love the Democratic Party way of doing things?!?). Let’s put it at the more favorable count for Clinton, just for the sake of argument.
Indiana
Let’s pretend Clinton pulls off a huge 12 point victory here. She still only nets 8 delegates, 40-32.
North Carolina
The latest polls have Obama up anywhere from 13-20 here, but again, let’s be favorable to Clinton and give him a 12 point victory. 65 delegates to him, 50 to Hillary.
West Virginia
Let’s give Hillary a larger-than-expected 22 point win here as well, and give her 17 delegates to Obama’s 11.
Kentucky
If Hillary can pull off an 18 point win, she gets 30 more delegates. Obama still gets 21, though.
Oregon
Let’s make this one close - a 4 point Obama win. He gets 8, she gets 7.
Puerto Rico
Let’s expand Hillary’s lead as far as we can to a 30 point blowout here. That gets her 36 more delegates and gives Obama 19.
Montana
We’ll guess Obama by 10 and split them 9-7 here.
South Dakota
Let’s make this one closer than it will be as well - another 4 point Obama victory, for 8 delegates to Hillary’s 7.
TOTAL
So after all these amazing wins by Hillary — indeed, her best case scenario played out everywhere, where do the delegate totals stand?
Obama - 1,882
Clinton - 1,795
Ouch. She still ends up lagging behind by 87 delegates. Now, let’s play with the Superdelegates. Let’s assume that the SD’s buck the current trends and start going for Hillary more than Obama. In fact, let’s split the rest of the superdelegates 58/42 in favor of Hillary - something that would be amazing, to be sure. Then how do the delegate totals look?
Obama - 2,025
Clinton - 1,992
Oops. Obama just won without having to take the race to the convention - and that is under the best case scenario for Hillary Clinton in every state. Hillary’s only remaining hope in this race is to convince 60% or more of the remaining superdelegates not to vote for Barack Obama. If she can’t do that, then popular vote doesn’t matter. And even if she can, all that does is take the race to the convention, where she will certainly be behind in the delegate count and probably in the popular vote, and have a large portion of the party against her for dragging this process out for so long.
There’s a reason Intrade has the gap growing to 82-15 Obama.
April 1st, 2008 at 8:39 am
Florida and Michigan.
April 1st, 2008 at 8:43 am
FL and MI will give pledged delegates to Obama as well (at least FL), putting him even higher above the 2,024 threshold.
All FL and MI do is give Hillary a better chance of winning the popular vote. That’s it. If she can’t win 60% of the remaining SD’s, that doesn’t matter.
April 1st, 2008 at 8:53 am
Matt C,
This assumes that the remaining super-delegates will commit before the convention. Howard Dean’s protestations notwithstanding, I find it hard to believe that the SD’s will commit to Obama soon after a series of devastating losses. Psychologically speaking it’s a loser. And most of them aren’t going to want to commit to Hillary before she can fully sell the “Obama’s a loser” meme to the public. I’m betting most of them sit on their hands, for at least month after Puerto Rico; they wait to see if Obama has gotten some of his mojo back with the public. If he has, they break for him before the convention. If he hasn’t, they wait til the convention to see if Hil can sell the “i won the popular vote, i won the big states, i won the swing states, and Barack’s been fatally damaged by Wright ergo my amazing comeback” meme.
April 1st, 2008 at 8:54 am
Mrs. Clinton certainly has an uphill battle. It will be difficult to convince the Super delegates to take her side. They do not want to be known for trashing Mr. Obama.
April 1st, 2008 at 8:57 am
Matt C. #2,
What Matthew #3 said… This scenario assumes that the SD’s decide that they want cash in every ounce of power and leverage they have in June.
It seems to me that if they wanted to do what was best for the party, they would commit already and end this. That they have not is telling.
I agree with you that there is no way that Hillary ends up as the nominee though.
April 1st, 2008 at 9:36 am
Kavon,
I actually disagree with that first point. I actually don’t think the super-delegates can commit now. Tuzla-gate notwithstanding, Hillary has the momentum, and until the pendulum swings back in Obama’s direction, they risk looking like they’re strong-arming a woman out of the race, just as she’s on the cusp of “victory” (yeah, yeah, I know). If Obama gets within 10 in Pennsylvania, I have no doubt he’ll claim the momentum, and we’ll see a Super delegate rush to crown him. They’re just waiting to see if he can hit a real high note again.
April 1st, 2008 at 9:40 am
Hillary doesn’t have to get 60% of the remaining superdelegates to vote for her. She has to get them to not vote for Obama. If they don’t vote in the first round, then all bets are off. Also, the Clintons *will* try to get the Michigan and Florida delegates seated and they might be able to pull it off.
That said, I think Miller is right about PA. Clinton needs at least a 12% win.
April 1st, 2008 at 9:59 am
The Super-delegates are weatherveins. No more then a perhaps a 1/4 of them have a strong preference for one candidate; the rest want A.) A candidate that can win, B.) A candidate that doesn’t hurt downballot races, and C.) Some level of patronage from the winner (in form of jobs in the administration or pork to their cities and states). They realize that the best realistic outcome for these goals would be a quick coalescing around Obama, which creates a strong dose of party unity, and a reasonable chance in the general election. So, most of them would be content to get behind Obama right now. But, it’s not at all clear that Obama would be in a position to win the general election after Hillary’s been strong-armed out of the race at the apex of her popularity, and as he’s in a state of real alienation from the Democratic blue-collar base. They could hand him the nomination now, and mostly satisfy C, but A and B are considerably more up in the air. They’re waiting for some good news for Obama and a stronger then expected finish in Pennsylvania might furnish that. And frankly, I think that would be the worst possible outcome for McCain. Because it’ll give the media a narrative to spin “see, Obama really can connect with blue-collar Democrats” and blue collar Democrats will go “huh, I guess since the media said so”. It’s happened before. After Wisconsin he made remarkable progress in Ohio and Texas and likely would have won both without NAFTAGate.
April 1st, 2008 at 10:04 am
weather vanes
April 1st, 2008 at 11:25 am
Leave it to a fellow Rombot to get the math right. When the math hits enough superdelegates over the head, they will realize that their party needs to avoid a convention battle at all costs and rush to crown Obama. It would be ideal if Hillary had a chance to pull this out, inflaming the passions of the Left, and leaving them broken and divided. And this farce will take awhile to play out, given the arithmetically challenged nature of the opposition. When Obama gets the nomination, all Republicans need to do in the fall is ask the following 3 questions:
1) Can you name 1 thing he’s accomplished?
2) What are his qualifications to be president?
3) Do you really think the economy can afford the extra trillion dollars he will spend every year?
April 1st, 2008 at 11:48 am
Matt C, why didn’t you address the chances of Hillary winning the popular vote? THAT trumps pledged delegates.
April 1st, 2008 at 1:49 pm
You are forgetting the fact that the Clinton campaign will be intimidating and threatening every “pleged” delegate they can into switching to her.
April 1st, 2008 at 1:51 pm
Matt C,
The problem with this analysis is that, as we’ve seen time and again, popular vote does not translate directly to delegate counts. There’s something of an exponential effect, because as a candidate moves into the 60-70 range, he starts sweeping some districts. This is why big wins in WV and KY (and PA) could yield even more delegates for Hillary.
Also, there is the matter of Edwards’ 20 or so delegates.
April 1st, 2008 at 3:13 pm
Henry “She has to get them to not vote for Obama. If they don’t vote in the first round, then all bets are off.”
This is a good point. Also, what is the possibility of “committed” superdelegates changing their minds?
April 1st, 2008 at 7:23 pm
1 & 2: If Florida and Michigan are added in, the number of delegates needed to secure the nomination changes to somewhere around 2,300, doesn’t it? Adding them in would probably make it even harder to reach the delegate total because more delegates would likely go to Clinton.
April 2nd, 2008 at 7:20 am
#15, exactly right and going to be my point. If they are added in, the 2025 goes up, otherwise you would see Obama agreeing at this point to include them in.