27 (superdelegates) is the magic number
Posted by: Cogito in 2008 Cycle, Barack Obama, Democratic Primary, Hillary Clinton, John Edwards
On March 28, over at Chris Weigant’s blog, Chris asked his readers to place their bets (in quatloos) when Clinton would drop out of the Presidential race. Well, I’ve done pretty well so far. I predicted that Obama would surpass Clinton in Superdelegates before the West Virginia primary (got it right) and several of my delegate totals from the primaries were darn close (I didn’t do so well on my original delegate estimate for Indiana). Also, I was only 1 day off for the John Edwards endorsement of Obama. My final prediction is Clinton drops out on June 16, just 31 days from now.
27. This is the magic number.
Very magic. That is the number of Superdelegates Obama needs to shut-out Clinton for the nomination using the current 2025 delegates needed to secure the nomination.
But wait, you say - Obama needs many more delegates than that, he needs about 140! You are correct. But the 27 Superdelegates are the actual number needed to shut-out Clinton. Why? First, let’s see where they stand in the delegate count:
| Source | Obama | Clinton | |
| DCW | pledged | 1608.5 | 1444.5 |
| supers | 292.5 | 271.5 | |
| CNN | pledged | 1608.0 | 1445.0 |
| supers | 291.0 | 274.0 | |
| MSNBC | pledged | 1599.0 | 1447.0 |
| supers | 291.5 | 276.5 | |
| AP | pledged | 1604.0 | 1445.0 |
| supers | 294.0 | 273.0 | |
| RCP | pledged | 1599.0 | 1446.0 |
| supers | 292.0 | 273.0 | |
| as of 5/16/2008 11:30 am EDT | |||
For this exercise - we will use MSNBC’s current numbers, as they are are almost the most conservative for Obama and most liberal for Clinton. MSNBC’s totals have delegate totals at 1890.5 for Obama and 1723.5 for Clinton. That means Obama needs 134.5 delegates (pledged and super) to secure the nomination at 2025 delegates. Clinton would need 301.5. Now, let’s project the allotment for the remaining primaries:
| Primary | Date | Available | Obama | Clinton |
| Oregon | May 20 | 52 | 29 | 23 |
| Kentucky | May 20 | 51 | 19 | 32 |
| Puerto Rico | June 1 | 55 | 24 | 31 |
| Montana | June 3 | 16 | 9 | 7 |
| South Dakota | June 3 | 15 | 8 | 7 |
| TOTAL | 189 | 89 | 100 | |
| Current pledged (MSNBC) |
1599.0 | 1447.0 | ||
| Current supers (MSNBC) |
291.5 | 276.5 | ||
| GRAND TOTAL (projected) |
1979.5 | 1823.5 | ||
| Needed supers for 2025 |
45.5 | 201.5 | ||
| percent of remaining supers |
20.0% | 88.4% |
Now you are saying: “See, even after projecting out the remaining contests - Obama still needs 45.5 supers to clinch the nomination.”
And you would be correct. But you are missing the big picture. Note how many Clinton would need - 201.5 Superdelegates. There are a total of 796 Superdelegates, after removing already committed to Obama and Clinton (291.5 + 276.5 = 568), there are only 228 Superdelegates remaining for Obama and Clinton to pick up.
So, if Clinton needs 201.5 of the remaining 228 Superdelegates, even after the last five primaries - she cannot allow Obama to get 27, otherwise only 201 are left and that shuts down her chance at the nomination.
Look for Obama to roll out 27 new supers by the evening of May 20.
Just 5 per day (quite close to his average), starting today.
Update: First Read at MSNBC reports CA Rep. Pete Stark endorsed Obama. Now, 26 remaining.
Update 12:40 pm EDT 5/16: First Read at MSNBC has adjusted their counts for Obama/Clinton from NC to +2 for Obama, -2 for Clinton. That moves the Superdelegates needed for the shut out, as well, to 24 remaining.
Update 9:46 am EDT 5/19: Over the weekend, First Read at MSNBC now shows Obama with 1602 pledged and 298.5 supers. That’s about 5-6 less than where Obama should be if he wants to show a shut-out by tomorrow evening - but is still showing well. Just 17 remaining.
Update 5:46 am EDT 5/19: First Read adds another 4 supers. Just 13 remaining.
Entries (RSS)
May 16th, 2008 at 15:12
The bottom line here is in the right ballpark as a prediction. But your claims of producing a “magic number” and being mathematically precise are overstated at best. The details of the math are rather shaky.
1) The supposed big deal is the difference between Obama getting a majority and denying Clinton a majority. If things did end up in that situation, it would mean a deadlock going into the convention - hardly the Obama victory you seem to be implying. More significantly, you don’t explain what the difference between those numbers is - the Edwards delegates. If we assume that all of them will go to Obama (and some already have), then the difference disappears. But some of them could go to Clinton. So any “magic number” needs to get Obama to a majority; the Edwards delegates are just one more piece to fall in place.
2) Your projections of the remaining primaries are totally unexplained. They appear to be based on someone’s idea of the most favorable results possible for Clinton. But they’re clearly not that - especially in Puerto Rico where there isn’t enough precedent to predict accurately. It’s fine to make predictions like this, but don’t convey them as fact.
3) There are plenty of other predictions you could make about specific superdelegates - like those who have stated they’ll vote for the winner of the pledged delegates, or add-ons to be named in various states whose politics are clear.
You’ve made a reasonable predictionm with some mathematical justification. Please call it what it is, and don’t try to mystify it beyond that.
May 16th, 2008 at 16:52
Thanks c_b … I appreciate the commentary.
Is it mathematically precise? No, you are correct. However, I do state in my post that these are based upon MSNBC’s numbers (I chose to use the most Clinton-friendly figures so as to find the highest number of superdelegates for this example - better to be safe, than sorry).
In reference to your notes:
1) The point of this post is to show that once Obama pulls enough superdelegates from Clinton, it denies her claim that it is still possible for her to gain the delegates necessary for her to gain the nomination (and thus can give more credence to the “presumptive” nominee status of Obama). The assumption is that no pledged delegates or superdelegates switch their allegiance. Is this realistic? No, we have seen several Clinton superdelegates already switch (and one pledged delegate - though, officially still a pledged delegate for Clinton). Again, this is based upon numbers we have at hand at this moment in time. Also, Edwards delegates are still “officially” his until the next convention those delegates attend (either state or national).
2) Projected calculations of delegate allotments are based upon previous calculations done on this blog, only updated. These projections are based upon current spreads in poll averages on Real Clear Politics, Pollster.com and FiveThirtyEight.com. I’ve used the statewide percentages and carried them down to each Congressional District, PLEO and At-Large delegate breakdowns. Is it exact? No, however, from past projections done similarly - these have come very close in their estimates.
3) Again, there are plenty of other predictions … the supers that have stated they will wait to pledge the winner of the pledged delegate count should be coming out after May 20 - but most won’t come until after June 3. However, there are enough supers that haven’t stated this that Obama should be able to get 2 dozen supers to come out before the polls close on Tuesday, May 20.
I stated at this front of this entry that this is my prediction. I predict that by the end of the day on May 20th, Obama will have secured enough superdelegates to mathematically deny Clinton the ability to get the # she would need to get to 2025. However, she will stay in the race until past June 3 (and in my original prediction - until June 16).
Thanks again for the comment and I hope a little of this clears up some of the math I didn’t show in my work!
May 16th, 2008 at 17:34
“The Dead Guy”… hmmm…. this wouldn’t be a guy who fell off a roof while replacing its bundles of straw, would it? You know… the “thatcher”?
Heh heh.
Thanks for the citation. As always, I bow to your superior knowledge of the numbers. You are “Numbers Master” in my book…
-CW