As expected, Hillary Clinton handily defeated Barack Obama in yesterday’s West Virginia primary:
Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton routed Sen. Barack Obama in the West Virginia primary yesterday, scoring one of her most lopsided victories of the long campaign even as she continued to battle overwhelming odds in her bid for the Democratic presidential nomination.
Clinton’s resounding victory in a state that has slipped away from Democrats in the past two elections added fresh ammunition to her claim that she is better positioned than Obama to capture critical swing states in November. But the primary win may have come too late to have a significant impact on the trajectory of a nomination battle in which Obama has an almost insurmountable lead in delegates.
Clinton advisers hoped the size of Clinton’s victory and signs of dissatisfaction with Obama among West Virginia voters would reopen a conversation about who is the stronger Democrat to take on Sen. John McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee, in the general election. They also hoped the results would tamp down talk that Clinton should consider dropping out of the nomination contest before the primaries end on June 3 to speed the process of uniting Democrats.
Clinton was winning with a margin of better than 2 to 1 in the popular vote in West Virginia. With 28 pledged delegates at stake, that margin would produce a net gain for Clinton of an estimated 12 delegates. That would only partially cut into the gains Obama has made in superdelegates since he easily won North Carolina and narrowly lost Indiana a week ago.
Courtesy of CNN, here are the final numbers:
In other words, Clinton walked away from the Mountain State with a net gain of 9 pledged delegates and a net gain of 147,410 popular votes.
The Clinton campaign, of course, is claiming that this is some sort of game-changer:
“There are some who have wanted to cut this race short,” Mrs. Clinton said at a victory party in Charleston, W.Va., where the crowd at one point chanted, “It’s not over!” “I am more than ever determined to carry on this campaign until everyone has had a chance to make their voices heard.”
Or, as Howard Wolfson put it last night:
Reality, though, is far, far different.
Here’s where the delegate count stands after last night:
Pledged Delegates
- Barack Obama — 1,598 delegates
- Hillary Clinton — 1,442 delegates
Obama +156
Total Delegates
- Barack Obama — 1,882 delegates (143 needed to win)
- Hillary Clinton — 1,714 delegates ( 311 needed to win)
Obama +168 (a net gain of one for Hillary since last week)
And the situation doesn’t change much if you include Michigan and Florida:
- Barack Obama — 2,024 total delegates (205 needed to win)
- Hillary Clinton — 1,892 total delegates (317 needed to win)
Obama +132 (a net increase of 10 from last week)
But, you might ask, what about the last refuge of the Clinton’s the popular vote ?
Well, the numbers there don’t help her either:
It might look like Hillary is leading in the popular vote if you include Florida and Michigan, but, as I noted a few weeks ago, the Michigan numbers don’t include the 238,000+ people who voted uncommitted in that primary. If you give all those votes to Obama, then Hillary’s 26,000 vote lead turns into a 211,552 vote Obama advantage.
So where do we go from here ?
After today, there are 5 states and 189 pledged delegates left to be decided, the three biggest being Kentucky (51 delegates), Oregon (52 delegates), and Puerto Rico (55 delegates). And, there are 239 uncommitted superdelegates.
Based on current polls, it looks like Hillary will win Kentucky by a wide margin. However, Obama is also likely to have a big win in Oregon next Tuesday. This means that whatever gains Hillary makes in Kentucky are likely to be wiped out by Obama’s win in Oregon and that, not counting superdelegates, the delegate math will be about the same next Wednesday as it is today.
Except it won’t because Obama will pick up somewhere between 46 and 52 delegates between Kentucky and Oregon. Meaning that his “needed to win” will drop to somewhere between 97 and 92
Given Obama’s past success in the Mountain West, he probably has a good change in Montana and South Dakota. Which means that Hillary’s last stand will be in a place where people aren’t even constitutionally authorized to vote for President — Puerto Rico.
Let’s say Obama gets about 55% of the delegates from the last three states, that cuts his “needed to win” down below 50, and, between now and then, we’ll see more superdelegates come to his side.
Slowly but surely, the math is working itself out. Barack Obama will be the nominee, and no amount of Clinton arguing, crying, or scheming is going to change that at this point.
