According to the a projection by CQ Politics, the end result of the Indiana Primary, regardless of who wins, is likely to be something close to a 50/50 split of the state’s delegates:
There are 72 pledged delegates at stake in the Indiana primary, along with 13 of those officially unpledged party leaders and elected officials known as “superdelegates.” Of those 72 pledged delegates, 47 are allocated among the state’s nine congressional districts and will be apportioned between Clinton and Obama based on how well they do in those individual districts. The other 25 pledged delegates will be divided between Obama and Clinton based on the statewide vote.
Following up a similar projection published prior to the April 22 primary in Pennsylvania, CQ Politics below has performed an analysis of the Democratic presidential primary in Indiana that projects how many delegates the candidates will win in each of the nine congressional districts.
This analysis gives Clinton a 24 to 23 edge over Obama in the race for the 47 district-level delegates — with the disclaimer that this is a projection and not a hard-and-fast prediction, because of the convoluted way in which the delegates will be distributed can produce some unpredictable results.
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The other 25 pledged delegates at stake — 16 “at-large” delegates and nine party leader and elected officials (PLEOs) — will be distributed in proportion to the statewide vote. The 16 at-large delegates will split 8-8 if the winner takes less than 53.1 percent of the vote. The statewide winner is guaranteed a 5-4 victory among the nine PLEOs; it would require 61.1 percent of the statewide vote for a 6-3 edge.
So a contest in which the popular vote winner prevails by a 6 percentage-point margin — an entirely plausible outcome — could give him or her just one more of Indiana’s pledge delegates than the loser.
Given the recent polls, which show an average spread of 3.3% in favor of Clinton, a 6 percentage point margin is not only plausible but entirely probable; and anything smaller is likely to mean an even smaller impact on the delegate count.
Of course, we’re not just talking about the delegate count here. We’re talking about things like momentum, and electability. If Clinton manages to win Indiana, even if it’s only by a small amount, it will be further evidence that her campaign will point to in their argument that she is more electable in November than Obama is, especially if she continues to do well among the white, union, middle-class households that handed victory to her in states like Ohio and Pennsylvania. More importantly, a win in Indiana will help with fundraising.
A Clinton loss in the Hoosier State, no matter what the margin is, could be fatal to the campaign. Yes, it’s true that many of the remaining primaries are in states where Clinton has a chance to do well (i.e., Kentucky and West Virginia), and she’ll want to stay in the campaign. But if the fundraising problems she was having before Pennsylvania come back, she may have no choice but to bow to the inevitable.
H/T: Donklephant
