There are still two contests coming up in the next five days, with one in Wyoming, and one in Mississippi, but it's becoming very clear that Hillary Clinton will not be able to close wide gap Barack Obama has opened in delegates thanks to his very strong post Super Tuesday February performance. He built a lead so strong, that it would be nearly impossible for Clinton to catch up. This diary will first take a look at who really won the race on March 4th, and take a detailed look at why Obama has such a commanding lead.
In spite of all of the spin that the Clinton campaign is doing now about her Texas, Ohio, and Rhode Island victories she didn't win with the margins near large enough to win anything except what I think will be a short recapturing of the narrative. The Obama campaign, thinks that after the Texas Caucuses are counted, that Hillary will emerge with only a four delegate gain on March 4th, which Obama quickly gained back in Superdelegates the next couple of days.
From demconwatch
3-4-08 - Added DNC Carol Fowler (SC) , DNC Mary Long (GA) , DNC Roy LaVerne Brooks (TX) for Obama
3-5-08 - Added DNC Rhine McLin (OH) , DNC Jane Kidd (GA) and DNC Darlena Williams-Burnett (IL) for Obama
3-6-08 - Added DNC Connie Thurman (IN) , Rep. Nick Rahall (WV) , DNC Teresa Benitez-Thompson (NV) for Obama
- Added Sen. Barbara Boxer (CA) , DNC Mona Mohib (DC) for Clinton.
So that's Clinton +2, and Obama +9, for a net gain of +7. So overall, the results from March 4th, and the aftermath has yielded a net of +3 delegates for Obama. So Obama won that day!
Just to illustrate why Obama has such a commanding lead, all we have to do is look at the delegate haul from Feburary vs. March. In March, so far Clinton has won the primary vote in 3 out of 4 states or 75%. Obama, in February won 11 out of 11 states for 100%, but really it was the margins that really made the difference.
Super Tuesday
On Super Tuesday, out of 1681 pledged delegates, Obama won 842 (50%), and Clinton won 828(49.2%). This day was basically a wash... things were pretty even going into the next several contests
Rest of February
For the rest of February, Obama just dominated. The reason this happened is that the margins he got were huge. Out of the 454 pledged delegates available, Obama got 287 (63.2%), and Clinton got 165.5 (36.4%).
March
As I mentioned, the Obama camp thinks that they will net -4 delegates from March so far. I previously predicted that the Obama campaign will gain 15 delegates from the next two contests, but that could be as low as 7 or 9 if for some reason he doesn't dominate these contests the way he should. Given that Mississippi has the 2nd largest Black population by proportion in the country next to Washington DC I suspect Mississippi will be as good as I expect, but I'm not sure about Wyoming. So by the end of March, we will probably see Obama come out with a net of around +11 pledged delegates.
So overall, in terms of pledged delegates, if Obama picks up 11 delegates, out of 415 available delegates Obama will win around 212 (51%), and Clinton will win 188(45.3%). This would mean that Obama has won every month so far.
Taking a quick look at Superdelegates, since the Potomac primaries, Obama has been gaining about 15 superdelegates per week, and right now he's only behind in Superdelegates by 39. If we assume that this rate of superdelegate gains continues, and consider that there are about three weeks left in March, Obama will gain 45 superdelegates this month, and be up by 6 when the month is over. So overall his total delegate haul this month could be total net gain of +50.
The bottom line is that Obama will likely win the Month of March.