I'll start with the end: even without re-voting in Michigan and Florida, Barack Obama can win the Democratic nomination, somewhat easily, and Hillary Clinton cannot.
I'm going to run through the delegate situation so far and show you the math. I'll incorporate a few safe assumptions in an attempt to make sense of the situation.
At this very moment, the estimated pledged delegate situation (not including superdelegates yet) looks like this, according to AP:
1112 have been awarded to Barack Obama.
979 have been awarded to Hillary Clinton.
1075 will be awarded through the primaries and caucuses still to come. There are 16 states and 2 territories (Guam and Puerto Rico) voting between this Tuesday and June 7th. I'll detail those below.
26 still "belong" to John Edwards.
61 from previous primaries and caucuses are still to be awarded.
That's 3,253 pledged delegates total. The remaining 795 are superdelegates, but for the moment, we're going to ignore those.
A candidate needs 2,025 (majority of the total 4,048) to win the nomination, assuming that each pledged delegate votes for the person their supposed to vote for at the convention.
Very important note: if Michigan and Florida were to suddenly be factored back into the equation, a candidate would need 2,207 delegates to win the nomination, because in this case, 4,412 total delegates would be seated at the convention.
If you're with me so far, you're in great shape.
So let's focus on the 1,075 delegates that have yet to vote, as well as the 26 Edwards' delegate who will, theoretically, move to another candidate. That's 1,101 delegates up for grabs.
To get 2,025, Obama would need 82.9% of those 1,101 delegates.
To get 2,025, Clinton would need 95.0% of those 1,101 delegates.
Because Democrats award delegates proportionately based on vote, neither of those two things can happen as long as they are both in the race.
So let's assume that Obama and Clinton continue to split pledged delegates as they have so far, with Obama getting 53.2% and Clinton getting 46.8%. Adding in that split among the 1,101 "outstanding" delegates gets us this:
Obama: 1,112 delegates (current) plus 586 delegates (53.2% of 1,101) = 1,698 (327 short)
Clinton: 979 delegates (current) plus 515 delegates (46.8% of 1,101) = 1,494 (531 short)
Remember about the 61 delegates still to be awarded from prior primaries and caucuses. All but 2 of those are in states that Obama won, so he will get the majority of them. So let's split those 2-1 for Obama and re-total:
1,748 Obama (287 short)
1,515 Clinton (510 short)
Still with me?
So let's go back to the superdelegates. In this case, Obama now only needs 36.1% of those to win the nomination. Clinton needs 64.1% of the superdelegates to win.
That scenario is reasonable for Obama because he's doing better than that with superdelegates already. It is an unreasonable scenario for Hillary Clinton.
Remember the main assumptions:
- Obama gets two-thirds of the 61 still-to-be-awarded delegates, because they are from states he has already won;
- Obama continues to pace 53-47 in the remaining 18 contests.
The only thing that throws this scenario off is Clinton winning Ohio, Texas and Pennsylvania by significant margins. And now you know why she is staking her entire campaign on those three states. At present, Clinton is leading the polls in all three of those states, but we have a long way to go before they vote.
If you want to do your own math, here are the states/territories still to vote, and the number of pledged delegates available in each.
This Tuesday:
(20) Hawaii
(74) Wisconsin
March 4th:
(193) Texas
(141) Ohio
(21) Rhode Island
(15) Vermont
March 8th:
(12) Wyoming
March 11th:
(33) Mississippi
April 22nd:
(158) Pennsylvania
May 3rd:
(4) Guam
May 6th:
(72) Indiana
(115) North Carolina
May 13th:
(28) West Virginia
May 20th:
(51) Kentucky
(52) Oregon
June 3rd:
(16) Montana
(15) South Dakota
June 7th:
(55) Puerto Rico
So, all that being said, I think Obama wins the nomination on May 6th with the strength of North Carolina.
That is, if Michigan and Florida don't re-vote. :)
What say you?