Below The Beltway

Yesterday, it became official; Barack Obama has passed Hillary Clinton in the race for superdelegate endorsements:

BEND, Ore. — Barack Obama was “east of the mountains” in central Oregon and far from Washington today when he at long last passed Hillary Clinton in the count of party insiders, or superdelegates, who support him. He picked up three more today, including one who switched from having backed her. Obama reacted to the marker with little fanfare, again stressing that the count that matters most to him is the pledged delegate tally in which he has led for months.

“It’s an encouraging sign that the campaign is making progress and the superdelegates are moving in our direction,” he said at an outdoor press conference at an industrial park here, with snow-topped mountains behind him in the distance.

According, to RealClearPolitics, Obama now has endorsements from 274 superdelegates to Clinton’s 271, so let’s look at the delegate math again.

Here’s where things stood in the immediate aftermath of Indiana and North Carolina:

Pledged Delegates

1. Barack Obama — 1,585
2. Hillary Clinton — 1,421

Obama + 164

Total Delegates

1. Barack Obama — 1,842 (183 needed to win)
2. Hillary Clinton — 1,692 (333 needed to win)

Obama +150

And here’s where they stand today:

Pledged Delegates:

1. Barack Obama — 1,591 delegates
2. Hillary Clinton — 1,426 delegates

Obama +165

Total Delegates

1. Barack Obama — 1,865 delegates (160 delegates needed to win)
2. Hillary Clinton — 1,697 delegates (328 delegates needed to win)

Obama +168

With 217 pledged delegates left to be chosen, and 250 superdelegates left to announce their preference, Barack Obama’s path to victory is clear. He needs a mere 34% of the remaining unbound delegates, both pledged and super, to win the nomination.

Hillary, on the other hands, needs 72% of the same 467 uncommitted delegates, and she just isn’t going to be able to do it.

Let’s start in West Virginia, where Hillary Clinton holds an average lead of 37.33 in the three most recent polls, and assume that the delegates will be awarded on a proportational basis based on the percentage of the vote (it’s probably more complicated than that, of course). Based on recent polling, Hillary would get about 18 of the 28 delegates at stake to Obama’s 10, for a next gain of eight delegates.

In Kentucky, where Clinton also holds a large lead (an average of 35% over the three most recent polls), she’d pick up approximately 32 of that state’s 51 delegates to Obama’s 19, for a next gain of 13 delegates.

Then we get to Oregon, where Obama has held a leave of about 10% consistently. There, Obama would pick up 27 delegates to Clinton’s 25 for a net Obama gain of two.

Thus, by the time May is done, and assuming everything goes in Clinton’s favor, she will have picked up, at most a next gain of 19 pledged delegates which would put the totals, not including any additional superdelegate endorsements at:

1. Barack Obama — 1,913 delegates (112 needed to win)
2. Hillary Clinton — 1,772 delegates (253 needed to win)

Obama +141

After that, there are only 86 pledged delegates left to be chosen and even if Hillary won 75% of them, which she won’t, she wouldn’t be any closer to looking like a winner.

But I don’t think it will get to that. Given the speed with which superdelegates are making their choices known, I think we will see, by the end of May that Barack Obama will, unofficially of course, have enough total delegates to proclaim himself the Democratic nominee.