As the Democratic race for the nomination prepares to go into uncharted territory, it’s becoming evident that neither candidate can win the nomination outright without the help of superdelegates:
WASHINGTON (AP) - Hillary Rodham Clinton won’t catch Barack Obama in the race for Democratic delegates chosen in primaries and caucuses, even if she wins every remaining contest. But Obama cannot win the nomination with just his pledged primary and caucus delegates either, according to an analysis by The Associated Press.
That sets the stage for a pitched battle for support among “superdelegates,” the party and elected officials who automatically attend the convention and can support whomever they choose.
(…)
Clinton won three out of four primaries this week, giving her campaign a much-needed boost after a month of defeats.
But she picked up only 12 more delegates than Obama, leaving him with a 140-delegate lead among those won in primaries and caucuses. There are only 614 delegates available in the remaining contests, meaning Clinton would have to win about 62 percent of the them to overtake Obama, according to the AP analysis.
That’s nearly impossible, given the way Democrats award delegates proportionally.
Consider this: Clinton posted a big win in the Ohio primary Tuesday, beating Obama by about 10 percentage points. Her take: nine more delegates than him in the Buckeye State.
In the Texas primary, Clinton’s margin of victory was smaller, about 3 percentage points, and her net gain was smaller, too: four more delegates than Obama. Obama would wipe out most of that advantage if early returns showing him winning in the Texas caucuses hold up. Final results won’t be available until the party’s county conventions at the end of month.
Here’s where the delegate race stands as of this morning:
Pledged Delegates:
- Barack Obama — 1,366 delegates
- Hillary Clinton — 1,222 delegates
Obama + 144
Total Delegates (w/ Super Delegates):
- Barack Obama — 1,575 delegates
- Hillary Clinton — 1,464 delegates
Obama + 111
To put things in perspective, here’s where they stood when I looked at the delegate count on Monday:
- Barack Obama — 1193 delegates
- Hillary Clinton — 1038 delegates
Obama + 155
Total Delegates (w/ Super Delegates)
- Barack Obama — 1389 delegates
- Hillary Clinton — 1279 delegates
Obama + 110
In other words, Hillary Clinton had a net gain of 11 pledged delegates over the past week, all of which is expected to be wiped out by Obama’s expected gains from the Texas Caucuses, not to mention what he’ll get in Wyoming tomorrow and Mississippi on Tuesday.
The remaining primaries, excluding what might happen in Michigan and Florida, are as follows:
- Wyoming (March 8th) — 12 delegates
- Mississippi (March 11th) — 33 delegates
- Pennsylvania (April 22nd) — 158 delegates
- Guam (May 3rd) — 4 delegates
- Indiana (May 6th) — 72 delegates
- West Virginia (May 13th) — 28 delegates
- Oregon (May 20th) — 52 delegates
- Kentucky (May 20th) — 51 delegates
- Puerto Rico (June 1st) — 33 delegates
- Montana (June 3rd) — 16 delegates
- South Dakota (June 3rd) 15 delegates
There are, in other words, only 611 delegates left to be selected. Meaning that neither candidate can possibly win based on pledged delegates alone. If you add in the 366 pledged delegates that would be selected if Florida and Michigan had not broken the rules (210 for Florida, and 156 for Michigan), that leaves 977 pledged delegates on the table. Again, thanks to the Democrats’ proportional allocation rules, neither candidate could possibly win enough pledged delegates to put them over the top. Obama could possibly come close, but only if he quite literally ran the table on the remaining primaries (including Michigan and Florida), which he isn’t going to do.
This is a train wreck waiting to roll into Denver at the end of August.
And, oh yeah, if Florida and Michigan do get to do some kind of re-vote, the math changes in another way:
If Florida and Michigan re-vote, the magic number jumps from 2025ish to right around 2207…depending on a few things.
Meaning that the super delegates become even more important.
April 13th, 2008 at 9:15 am
[...] recent remarks and Clinton’s efforts to exploit them, the delegate math today is as bad for Clinton as it was after Texas and Ohio. She simply isn’t going to be able to overtake Obama in pledged delegates and with re-votes in [...]
April 17th, 2008 at 1:38 pm
[...] Of course, I noted as long ago as a month ago that it was mathematically impossible for either candidate to win based on solely on pledged delegates alone and that the nomination fight was now all about the superdelegates. [...]