The Dead Guy

My first post in the blog is the math to the Democratic Presidential Nomination between Senator Barack Obama and Senator Hillary Clinton. This has been a highly contentious and very close race between two strong candidates and their campaigns.

The nomination, by DNC rules, is decided by delegate majority. Currently the magic number is 2,024 delegates to win the nomination. Neither Obama nor Clinton are able to attain that number of delegates without a certain amount of superdelegates. However, Obama currently holds the lead in elected delegates, while Clinton holds the superdelegate lead. More importantly is that Clinton’s lead in superdelegates has been greatly reduced since Super Tuesday, so that she holds a lead of approximately 30 superdelegates (at one time, that lead was over 100).

Another contention is the seating of the delegations from Florida and Michigan. Both states moved their primaries ahead of Super Tuesday (February 5th), which is against DNC rules. The result is both Florida and Michigan delegations will not be seated at the National Convention in August, per the current decision of the DNC (which could change). I am sure I will go in depth at some time in the near future the details and timeline of these actions. However, I am not going to exclude them from the delegate math below.

Again, let me restate - by DNC rules state that the nomination is to be determined by delegate count. Not by states won, not whether they were primary or caucus wins, not whether they are “red” or “blue” states, and, finally, not based upon the popular vote. Both remaining candidates, and their campaigns stated in the beginning that the nomination is about the delegate count. Only recently, when one campaign began to see their chances slipping in gaining a delegate lead did that campaign want to change the rules they had agreed to work by. However, rules are rules and they are there for a reason - so that there is no doubt and no ambiguity in who the nominee is to be.

Below is a table of current delegate and superdelegate estimates includes numbers found on Real Clear Politics and The Green Papers web sites. The remaining 10 states/territories left to vote in their elections for the Democratic nomination are also listed with my estimate of results in each state.

How did I figure the remaining 10 states? First, I viewed recent polls, where available. Then, I applied rough approximate percentages to each of the sets of elected delegates available in that state, usually:

• Pledged PLEOs (based upon state-/territory- wide percentage of votes)
• Pledged At-Larges (based upon state-/territory- wide percentage of votes)
• Each Congressional District (based upon percentage of votes within CD)
  • Each CD has its own count of delegates to be sent - from 2-9 delegates per CD, varies by CD and state/territory

As you will see - At no time in the coming 10 contests will Clinton be able to get close to, let alone catch up or surpass Obama in the elected delegate count:

DELEGATE COUNTS PER REAL CLEAR POLITICS (April 6, 2008)
State	Date	Delegates	Obama	Clinton	Edwards
Iowa	3-Jan	45	25	14	6
New Hampshire	8-Jan	22	9	9
Nevada	19-Jan	25	13	12
South Carolina	26-Jan	45	25	12	8
California	5-Feb	370	166	204
New York	5-Feb	232	93	139
Illinois	5-Feb	153	104	49
New Jersey	5-Feb	107	48	59
Massachusetts	5-Feb	93	38	55
Georgia	5-Feb	87	60	27
Minnesota	5-Feb	72	48	24
Missouri	5-Feb	72	36	36
Tennessee	5-Feb	68	28	40
Colorado	5-Feb	55	35	20
Arizona	5-Feb	56	25	31
Alabama	5-Feb	52	27	25
Connecticut	5-Feb	48	26	22
Arkansas	5-Feb	35	8	27
Oklahoma	5-Feb	38	14	24
Kansas	5-Feb	32	23	9
New Mexico	5-Feb	26	12	14
Utah	5-Feb	23	14	9
Delaware	5-Feb	15	9	6
Idaho	5-Feb	18	15	3
North Dakota	5-Feb	13	8	5
Alaska	5-Feb	13	9	4
American Samoa	5-Feb	3	1	2
Washington	9-Feb	78	52	26
Louisiana	9-Feb	56	34	22
Nebraska	9-Feb	24	16	8
Virgin Islands	9-Feb	3	3	0
Maine	10-Feb	24	15	9
DC	12-Feb	15	12	3
Maryland	12-Feb	70	42	28
Virginia	12-Feb	83	54	29
Wisconsin	19-Feb	74	42	32
Hawaii	19-Feb	20	14	6
Democrats Abroad (3 delegates tba)	21-Feb	7	3	1
Vermont	4-Mar	15	9	6
Rhode Island	4-Mar	21	8	13
Ohio	4-Mar	141	66	75
Texas	4-Mar	193	99	94
Wyoming	8-Mar	12	7	5
Mississippi	10-Mar	33	20	13
Elected Delegates To Date			1415	1251
Remaining States					% victory
Pennsylvania	22-Apr	158	70	88	45%/55%
Guam	6-May	4	1	3	40%/60%
Indiana	6-May	72	34	38	45%/55%
North Carolina	6-May	115	61	54	51%/49%
West Virginia	13-May	28	10	18	40%/60%
Kentucky	20-May	51	19	32	40%/60%
Oregon	20-May	52	28	24	51%/49%
Puerto Rico	3-Jun	55	25	30	40%/60%
Montana	3-Jun	16	9	7	51%/49%
South Dakota	7-Jun	15	8	7	51%/49%
Remaining Elected Delegates			265	301
Elected Delegates To Date			1415	1251
Remaining Elected Delegates			265	301
TOTAL ELECTED DELEGATE EST.			1680	1552	(128 lead)
Superdelegates (PER RCP)			221	251
TOTAL EST. DELEGATE STRENGTH			1901	1803	(98 lead)
Florida & Michigan per THE GREEN PAPERS (April 6, 2008)
Michigan	15-Jan	128	0	73	unc-55
Florida	29-Jan	185	67	105	Edwards-13
FL & MI Totals			67	178
TOTAL ELECTED DELEGATE ESTIMATE IF FL & MI WERE COUNTED
Elected Delegates To Date			1415	1251
Remaining Elected Delegates			265	301
TOTAL ELECTED DELEGATE EST.			1680	1552
FL & MI Totals (per The Green Papers)			67	105
TOTAL W/ FL & MI SEATED			1747	1657	(90 lead)
Superdelegates (PER RCP)			221	251
TOTAL EST. DELEGATE STRENGTH			1968	1908	(60 lead)

Even if the DNC reversed its ruling on Florida and Michigan (which is something I will not address is either right or wrong in this post), Obama still has the elected delegate lead after all is said and done on June 3 - by 90 delegates. The superdelegates would be in a very tenuous situation to erase this lead and give Clinton the Democratic Party nomination.

Tags: Alabama, Alaska, America, American, American Samoa, amp, Arizona, Arkansas, august, Barack, Bee, California, campaign, caucus, Center, clinton, Colorado, congress, Connecticut, convention, DC, Delaware, delegate, delegate count, democrat, Democrats Abroad, dnc, election, February, Florida, Georgia, Guam, Hawaii, Hillary, Hillary Clinton, Idaho, illegitimate, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, June, june 3, Kansas, Kentucky, law, Louisiana, magic number, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, math, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, National, Nebraska, Nevada, New, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Nominee, North Carolina, North Dakota, obama, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, percent, politics, poll, Popular, popular vote, preference, president, Presidential, Primaries, primary, Puerto Rico, race, rcp, real clear politics, Rhode Island, Senator Hillary, South Carolina, South Dakota, state, super, superdelegate, superdelegates, Tennessee, Texas, the green papers, Utah, Vermont, Virgin Islands, Virginia, War, Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin, work, Wrong, Wyoming

This entry was posted on Monday, April 7th, 2008 at 1:19 and is filed under 2008 Cycle, Barack Obama, Democratic Primary, Hillary Clinton. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.