Here's what we know about the March numbers:
Obama's campaign says they raised $40 million in March. If you do the math on the average donation and the number of donors they supplied, it's over $42 million.
And that's all we know for certain.
Obama's statement didn't break down how much of the total is for the primaries, and they didn't say a word about how much they have left.
Clinton's campaign is saying even less. They won't officially release any numbers until the FEC reporting deadline on April 20. A Clinton adviser told Michael Duffy at Time that the March take will "come close to $20 million." (Emphasis mine.)
So far the press is treating this as just another month where Obama beats Clinton by $20 million. If you analyze the numbers, however, a much bigger story emerges.
From what has been reported it is very likely that Obama finished March with at least as much primary cash as he had at the beginning. It's possible that he had a net gain for the month.
Here's how that breaks down: Obama's monthly take has been no worse than 90/10 between primary and general election donations. Applying that would give him $36-$38 million in primary donations for March. If he spent less than that between Texas and Ohio and the travel after, he added to his $33 million primary warchest.
I think its pretty likely that he spent substantially less than that. His spending for all of February was $43.5 million, which covered all of the Super Tuesday races and the eleven following races that which he swept. Even if he was throwing everything at Texas and Ohio it would be hard to spend over $30 million, and that's a stretch. I won't be surprised if the FEC reports show that he spent $27 million and increased his primary COH by ten million in March.
The story on the Clinton side is a lot different. "Close to" twenty million means the number would be in the high-teens. That huge gap between her total and Obama's is made a lot worse by the difference in their split between primary and general donations. A typical month for Clinton has a 2:1 split between primary and general donations, and some months have dropped below that.
Let's say she did get to $20 million in March and she had an unusually high percentage of primary donors at 75/25. That would mean she pulled in $15 million for the primary, which is about the best-case scenario I can see for her. If the total take was $18 million and the split was 2:1, that would mean she had just $12 million for the campaign.
Here's where it gets interesting. If it's unlikely that Obama spent over $30 million in March, it's even more unlikely that Clinton spent less than $15 million. She made some big ad buys in expensive media markets, did a lot of direct mail, and travel she did in Texas, Ohio and after is hugely expensive. I'll be amazed if she spent less than $20 million (including new unpaid debts) and I expect it to come in closer to $23 million.
Spending anything over her take for March cuts into her thin primary COH reserves, and that's where the damage is really done. She ended February with just over $12 million in primary cash if you didn't count the nine million in debts. That doesn't put her in a good position for March. If she took in $15 million for primaries and spent $20 million - the best case scenario - her campaign started April either with no cash or millions of dollars in new debt that makes her technically insolvent.
This is going to substantially affect her ability to compete in Pennsylvania. It's only one race and she doesn't have to fly everywhere like in Texas, but Philly is still an expensive media market and she has to stage multiple events almost daily for three weeks. On top of that, Bill is racking up big travel expenses going to Indiana, Oregon, North Carolina and the other remaining states.
Clinton is sure to put everything she has into Pennsylvania because it is her last chance to score a decisive win and capture the lead in the popular vote. But win-or-bust in Pennsylvania is going to leave her with nothing when Indiana and North Carolina roll up just two weeks later. I expect Clinton to abandon NC and try to paint Indiana - as red a state as you can find in presidential races - as the last, last, last, last stand.
I think this is how its going to end. Clinton might hang on for a victory in Pennsylvania, but unless she's saved cash for big last-week ad buys it's entirely possible that she could lose. The chances of her posting a win by more than ten points has practically evaporated. She doesn't have the money to compete in the Philly media market and she can't afford a huge GOTV operation in central and eastern Pennsylvania.
The only way out for Clinton is if Obama gives her some bulletin board material. She's played this masterfully in the past but it seems the Obama camp has learned its lesson in the past month or so.
Otherwise, the Clinton campaign ends the same way as every other failed campaign. This isn't going to the convention, it's not even going to June.