Pennsylvania is a must win.
By the end of the primary season, neither candidate will have enough ‘Pledged’ delegates to win the nomination. Obama is leading, but leading is not enough to win. The Super Delegates will decide the nomination.
Who will they go for? They will likely go for the ‘perceived’ winner.
As of now, the pledged delegate count and the popular vote are within ~1-2%, with Obama leading both.
If HRC wins Pennsylvania, she will still be behind in the delegate count, but she will likely take a popular vote lead. She will also have taken most of the big Electoral College states. She will also have officially taken two out of the three BIG problematic states for Dems: Ohio and Pennsylvania. Florida being the third. (She’ll argue that she won that also!) This may be enough for her to be the perceived winner.
If BHO wins Pennsylvania. He will have the delegate lead, the popular vote lead and one of the problematic states. That should be enough to be the perceived winner. But Florida may then come back into the equation. Each will have won one of the three big ones. The winner of the Florida delegates will make it 2 out of 3.
Who will they go for? They will likely go for the ‘perceived’ winner.
As of now, the pledged delegate count and the popular vote are within ~1-2%, with Obama leading both.
If HRC wins Pennsylvania, she will still be behind in the delegate count, but she will likely take a popular vote lead. She will also have taken most of the big Electoral College states. She will also have officially taken two out of the three BIG problematic states for Dems: Ohio and Pennsylvania. Florida being the third. (She’ll argue that she won that also!) This may be enough for her to be the perceived winner.
If BHO wins Pennsylvania. He will have the delegate lead, the popular vote lead and one of the problematic states. That should be enough to be the perceived winner. But Florida may then come back into the equation. Each will have won one of the three big ones. The winner of the Florida delegates will make it 2 out of 3.
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I think you might be forgetting that there are other (smaller) states where Obama will win decisively, preventing Clinton from picking up the popular vote even if she wins Pennsylvania by 10 points.
March 6, 2008 1:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
Possibly. The caucuses don't typically bring out many voters. (There will be ~2,000,000 in PA alone.) Plus, the calendar gets very short after PA: 2 wks to IN and NC (another 1.5 M votes maybe). A victory by either side will give that candidate a bounce in those.
After that, the number of voters drops off.
March 6, 2008 1:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
>> As of now, the pledged delegate count and the popular vote are within ~1-2%
Popular vote, perhaps. But I do not see how you are arriving at the math that the pledged delegate count is within ~1-2%. Please explain?
The smallest estimated differential of pledged delegates I have seen anywhere is 118.5 in the
NYTimes, and this is even less than the differential claimed by Senator Clinton's campaign.
Using this value in conjunction with the total number of pledged delegates, I get:
118.5/3253 ~ 3.6%
Perhaps you are using the ratio of differential to total delegates (including supers)?
118.5/4049 ~ 2.9%
Much closer to 3% than 2%. By election standards a 3% differential is quite significant.
March 6, 2008 1:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
I agree somewhat with your analysis. Pennsylvania will be the make or break race. Obama needs to win it but so does Hillary. Obama needs to PROVE that he not only attracts females and older voters but he actually keeps them. Right now, these folks are tripping right back to Hillary--and voting for her.
Hillary needs to prove in the remaining races that she can attract and keep younger voters, guys and perhaps AAs (that last one is real iffy, IMO). If she does and wins in these smaller states, Hillary will win the Prez prize.
The super delegates are not just going to roll over. These are experienced politicians who are really going to look at how these races were won. They will also look at how flexible the two candidates are in terms of their responses. On the last point, I would submit that Hillary has certainly proven her flexibility--she cleaned house in her campaign, retooled her messages, and came out to win Ohio and Texas. Obama proved he couldn't hold his coaltion together for a win.
March 6, 2008 1:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
The Super Delegates will pick the one most likely to win in November.
That will be Obama. He's raised more money, has more broad-based appeal, and has the delegate lead.
He'll probably have the pop. vote lead as well, but I'm not convinced that a pop. vote lead will sway the Superdelagate 2 to 1, as Hillary needs them to go.
In short: Clinton is running out of options to win.
March 6, 2008 1:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
No one can tell who will win in November. T
he polls against McCain keep changing. Today, SUSA shows HRC ahead, BHO tied.
I think they will have to go with the perceived winner of the primary season
March 6, 2008 2:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
Okay, nevermind - think I have answered my own question...
When you use the term "pledged" delegates, you must actually be referring to the total allocated delegates (including committed supers). In which case the smallest differential I have seen is 88.5:
88.5/4049 ~ 2.2%
Yes?
March 6, 2008 1:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yes, although the point is that they are pretty damm close looking at delegates or popular vote. Neither is running away with it.
March 6, 2008 2:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
Clearly not running away with the nomination, no. Otherwise, many of the threads on this blog would not exist, no?! :)
However, a 2% margin is significant by election standards (as anyone who may have voted for Gore in 2k will attest). Obviously, it is innacurate to directly extrapolate delegate differential percentage to the popular vote totals, but doing so for the 27+million dem voters, 2% would be translate to over a half-million people!
March 6, 2008 2:21 PM | Reply | Permalink