With the Indiana and North Carolina primaries now history, it’s becoming even more clear that Hillary Clinton’s chances of winning the nomination are somewhere between slim and none.
First, let’s take a look at the delegate math.
Here’s what it looked like after Pennsylvania:
Pledged Delegates
- Barack Obama — 1,479 delegates
- Hillary Clinton — 1,328 delegates
Obama + 151
Total Delegates
- Barack Obama — 1,713 delegates (311 needed to win)
- Hillary Clinton — 1,586 delegates (438 needed to win)
Obama +127
And here’s how it looks today:
Pledged Delegates
- Barack Obama — 1,585
- Hillary Clinton — 1,421
Obama + 164
Total Delegates
- Barack Obama — 1,842 (183 needed to win)
- Hillary Clinton — 1,692 (333 needed to win)
Obama +150
In other words, since Pennsylvania and thanks both to last night’s victory in North Carolina and a large number of superdelegate endorsements over the last two weeks, Obama has picked up a net of 23 total delegates and is 128 delegates closer to winning the nomination.
And it only gets worse from there if you’re a Clinton supporter.
Between now and June 3rd, we will see the final six primaries (West Virginia, Kentucky, Oregon, Puerto Rico, Montana, and South Dakota) at which a total of only 217 pledged delegates are at stake. While Clinton is strong in many of these states, Even if Clinton wins 55% of those remaining pledged delegates, that would end the race with Obama having 1,683 pledged delegates (1,940 total) to Clinton’s 1,540 (1,811 total).
And then there are the superdelegates. As of today, there are 267 officially uncommitted superdelegates. In order to win the nomination, Clinton would have to gain the endorsement of nearly 80% of these uncommitteds. Given the fact that she fell far short in yesterday’s primary results, and the delegate numbers that are so strongly against her, I don’t see that happening.
But what, you might, ask, about the popular vote ? After Pennsylvania, the Clinton campaign touted the fact that they had passed Barack Obama in the total popular vote if you include Florida and Michigan.
Well, even that isn’t the case anymore:
The odds that Clinton will be able to catch up in the popular vote, regardless of which scenario you look at it, is, by now, virtually impossible.
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