Hillary Clinton is on television as we speak making another one of her never-say-die speeches.
So, it’s time to run the numbers and figure out just how close to death she really is.
Here’s the delegate count now that the numbers from Kentucky and Oregon are in:
Pledged Delegates
- Barack Obama — 1,653 delegates
- Hillary Clinton — 1,499 delegates
Obama +154
Total Delegates
- Barack Obama — 1,959 delegates (66 needed to win)
- Hillary Clinton — 1,778 delegates (247 needed to win)
Obama +181 (a net gain of 13 delegates for Obama since last week)
And, for giggles, let’s include Michigan and Florida:
Total Delegates
- Barack Obama — 2,101 delegates (108 needed to win)
- Hillary Clinton — 1,956 delegates (253 needed to win)
Obama +145 (again, a net gain of 13 for Obama)
There are 56 pledged delegates and 210 uncommitted superdelegates remaining, a total of 266 delegates. If Michigan and Florida are not seated, Obama would need to win only 25% of the remaining delegates to clinch the nomination which is certainly doable under the DNC’s allocation rules and the direction that superdelegates have been leaning. Hillary, on the other hand, would need to get 93% of the remaining delegates on her side. If you include Michigan and Florida, then Obama would need 41% of the remaining delegates and Hillary would need 95% of the remaining delegates.
Put quite simply, there’s simply no way for Hillary to win the nomination at this point.
May 21st, 2008 at 3:26 pm
All Hillary can hope for is an Obama collapse of epic proportions, emphasis heavily on epic, or enough votes to lead to a brokered convention. It might not help her, but at this point, it might be her last hope.
Of course, I would also note that Ron Paul (long since eliminated) and Bob Barr (all he may do is throw the general election to the Democratic candidate) are in similar positions. I wonder when they plan on throwing in the towel.
May 21st, 2008 at 3:50 pm
“Hillary, on the other hand, would need to get 93% of the remaining delegates on her side.”
I completely agree with your point; however since the DNC does not award delegates to candidates winning less than 15% of the vote, I believe Hillery would only(haha) need to win 85% of the remaining delegates (and thereby have the other 15% handed to her) to get the nomination.
May 21st, 2008 at 7:07 pm
CR,
There isn’t going to be a collapse. If there was some smoking gun on Obama, we would’ve seen it already.
Paul is just wacky but Barr is different — even if he doesn’t win the fact that he might deny the election to McCain by attracting small-government and libertarian leaning conservatives should send a message to the GOP. Namely, that it’s pretty much f***ed up the last seven years.
May 21st, 2008 at 7:22 pm
[...] I’ve noted numerous times over the last months, most recently today, there really is no realistic possibility that Hillary Clinton will be the Democratic nominee even [...]
May 22nd, 2008 at 7:50 am
[...] me to wonder about what’s going on in Camp Clinton these days. As I’ve noted before, it’s pretty much mathematically impossible for Hillary Clinton to win the nomination even if F…But I don’t think that matters to Hillary, because it isn’t even about winning, [...]