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An update of my Obama numbers

Taking the data from Real Clear Politics today (14 March), here is an update of how Obama and Clinton have been going in running totals of pledged delegates:

obama-ahead-08-03-14.jpg

As always, when calculating the percentages in the centre column, I’m ignoring pledged delegates that are too close to call and those with John Edwards.

Date Barack Obama: running total Barack Obama: share of pledged delegates Hillary Clinton: running total
3 Jan (IA) 16 51.6% 15
8 Jan (NH) 25 51.0% 24
19 Jan (NV) 38 51.4% 36
26 Jan (SC) 63 56.8% 48
5 Feb (Super Tuesday) 913 50.9% 879
9 Feb (LA, NE, WA, Virgin Is.) 1019 52.2% 934
10 Feb (ME) 1034 52.3% 943
12 Feb (DC, MD, VA, Dem.s Abroad) 1144 53.3% 1004
19 Feb (HI, WI) 1200 53.5% 1041
04 Mar (OH, RI, TX, VT) 1380 52.9% 1227
08 Mar (WY) 1387 53.0% 1232
11 Mar (MS) 1406 53.0% 1246

There are now 566 pledged delegates to fight for (assuming that Florida and Michigan don’t get redone), 26 with John Edwards and 9 that have been voted on but are still too close to call.

The gap in pledged delegates between the candidates is now 160.

I assume that the 35 delegates that are with Edwards or too close to call will be split 50-50 between Obama and Clinton. I actually believe that Obama will get more than half of them (22 of Edwards’ delegates came from states where Obama won) but let’s be generous and say that 18 go to Clinton and 17 to Obama.

That means that Clinton needs to close a gap of 159 with only 566 pledged delegates to come. She needs to win 363 or 64%. To stay in front, Obama only needs to win 204 or 36%.

If Florida and Michigan are redone, then we have 879 delegates to come, from which Clinton would need to win 519 or 59%. To stay in front, Obama would only need to win 361 or 41%. Given its large population of Hispanics, it seems clear that Clinton would do well in Florida, so it’s pretty obvious why she wants these two states back in play.

But is it plausible to think that she can win among pledged delegates? No, not really; not even if Florida and Michigan do get redone.

On the basis of pledged delegates, Clinton has only won 13 out of 46 contests so far. On the basis of popular vote, she has won 14 out of 40; 16 if you include Florida and Michigan (Iowa, Maine, Nevada and Washington haven’t released their popular vote counts).

In those states she won in pledged delegates, Clinton has averaged 57% of the delegates on offer: she got 688 to Obama’s 517.

So in order to win overall among pledged delegates, Clinton needs to win all 12 (if FL and MI are included) remaining contests and do better in every one of them than she has previously in her winning states. If she loses any of them, then she’ll need to absolutely blow Obama out of the water in the rest. I just can’t see this happening.

My past ramblings on this topic: [1], [2], [3], [4], [5]

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Garfield minus Garfield = ?

This is simply wonderful.

Who would have guessed that when you remove Garfield from the Garfield comic strips, the result is an even better comic about schizophrenia, bipolor [sic] disorder, and the empty desperation of modern life? Friends, meet Jon Arbuckle. Let’s laugh and learn with him on a journey deep into the tortured mind of an isolated young everyman as he fights a losing battle against lonliness [sic] in a quiet American suburb.

Thanks to Adam B for pointing me towards it.

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Barack Obama will still win the Democratic nomination

There’s my prediction. The idea that Democratic Party super-delegates will side with the winner among pledged delegates has gone mainstream, with Jonathan Altar writing yesterday in Newsweek: “Hillary’s New Math Problem“.

Superdelegates won’t help Clinton if she cannot erase Obama’s lead among pledged delegates, which now stands at roughly 134. Caucus results from Texas aren’t complete, but Clinton will probably net about 10 delegates out of March 4. That’s 10 down, 134 to go. Good luck.

I’ve asked several prominent uncommitted superdelegates if there’s any chance they would reverse the will of Democratic voters. They all say no. It would shatter young people and destroy the party.

I’ve been saying this for a while (here, here, here and here). Altar suggests that if Clinton can at least win the overall popular vote, she might have an argument, but even that’s going to be hard, to say the least. Obama will certainly win a majority of states (he already has), will almost certainly win a majority of pledged delegates and will probably win a majority of the popular vote. There is no way that the super-delegates won’t come down on his side.

As it stands, using the Real Clear Politics figures, 2642 out of 3253 pledged delegates have been decided: there are 611 left to play for, 28 unallocated yet because they’re still too close to call and 26 are with John Edwards. Assuming that the unallocated and Edwards delegates split 50-50, Obama currently has a pledged-delegate lead of 144. To catch up, Clinton needs to win 378 of the remaining 611, or 61.8%. To stay ahead, Obama only needs to win 234 of the 611, or 38.3%. It would take a minor miracle for Obama to lose the pledged-delegate race.

On the popular vote side, it’s a little hard to make a fair comparison. Several states have not released the number of voters, while Michigan and Florida make things complicated. With all of those states ignored, Obama still has a serious, albeit smaller, lead (N.B: popular-vote figures prior to 26 Jan should be taken with a very large grain of salt):

obama-ahead-08-03-06_2.jpg

People looking to a Clinton win in the popular vote are eyeing off her performance in Michigan and Florida, but Obama did no campaigning in these states (he wasn’t even on the ballot in Michigan) and for these states to be counted, they will need to be rerun. Florida does have a large Hispanic population, but even if Clinton expands her winning margin there, it probably won’t make up for her losses in Michigan.

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I was right, pretty-much-right and wrong all at once!

The girl’s got spunk. Back on the 20th of Feb, I predicted that while Hillary Clinton would win the popular vote in Ohio and Texas, she would barely win in the pledged delegates from those states. On that basis, I further predicted that Clinton would be written off by the 10th of March, even if she hadn’t conceded yet.

As evidence that you should always quit while you’re ahead, I was right on the first prediction, pretty-much-right on the second and, it would seem, not even close to being right on the third. Clinton won the popular vote in both states (1.46 million vs. 1.36 in Texas, 1.21 vs. 0.98 in Ohio). In the pledged-delegate counts, Clinton currently leads 92-91 in Texas (10 still too close to call) and 74-65 in Ohio (2 still too close to call). My prediction was bang on the money in Texas, but arguably a bit wide of the mark in Ohio. But when it comes to considering the on-going Clinton campaign, nobody is talking about Howard Dean tapping Clinton on the shoulder for a quiet chat now; all talk is about Pennsylvania in six weeks’ time.

That is a remarkable story and not because of the 3am telephone call or Obama’s views on NAFTA (although those certainly helped Clinton), but because of the successful lowering of expectations that the Clinton campaign managed to bring about. Immediately after Wisconsin and Hawaii, all talk was that Clinton needed to win, and win big, in both Texas and Ohio in order to go on. A week ago the talk was that she could justify going on if she won with a wide margin in at least one of them. In the day or two before, the word was that she would push on if she at least one the popular vote in one of the two. That lowering of expectations meant that when she won both popular votes by a solid margin and both delegate counts (albeit by small margins), it looks like a blow-out for her and gives the impression of renewed momentum.

My original observation, that Barack Obama has been in front since day one, still holds true. Using the data at Real Clear Politics, the running totals for pledged delegates have been:

Date Barack Obama: running total Barack Obama: share of pledged delegates Hillary Clinton: running total
3 Jan (IA) 16 51.6% 15
8 Jan (NH) 25 51.0% 24
19 Jan (NV) 38 51.4% 36
26 Jan (SC) 63 56.8% 48
5 Feb (Super Tuesday) 906 50.8% 876
9 Feb (LA, NE, WA, Virgin Is.) 1012 52.1% 931
10 Feb (ME) 1027 52.2% 940
12 Feb (DC, MD, VA, Dem.s Abroad) 1137 53.2% 1001
19 Feb (HI, WI) 1193 53.5% 1038
04 Mar (OH, RI, TX, VT) 1366 52.8% 1222

obama-ahead-08-03-06.jpg

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My my …

The Obama camp must be pissed at this:

March 2 (Bloomberg) — Florida Governor Charlie Crist said he’d support a repeat of the Democratic presidential primary so the state’s delegates can be counted at the party’s national convention.

Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean said he’s open to the possibility. Primary elections are paid for by a state’s taxpayers, so the offer from Crist, a Republican, is “very helpful” because money is an issue, Dean said.

“We’re very willing to listen to the people of Florida,” Dean said on CNN’s “Late Edition” program today.

The Democratic Party stripped Michigan and Florida of their delegates to the convention as punishment for holding votes before the sanctioned date of Feb. 5. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, head of the Democratic National Convention, said last month that delegates from those states shouldn’t decide the nomination.

New York Senator Clinton beat Illinois Senator Barack Obama in the Florida contest Jan. 29, though neither campaigned there in accordance with the party’s decision. Clinton won in Michigan after her rivals withdrew from the ballot.

Clinton said Jan. 25 that delegates from Florida and Michigan should be seated at the Democratic National Convention in August.

Dean said the dispute over seating delegates is the fault party leaders, not Florida voters.

“If they would like to fix that problem so that we can seat Florida without any problems, of course we would like to seat Florida,” he said.

Crist said, “I think it’s very important though that those delegates are seated.

“I’m hopeful that the Democratic National Committee comes to the conclusion it’s the right thing to do,” he said on CNN today.