Everybody's talking about Hillary coming in 3rd in Iowa, but I have seen precious little on the fact that Hillary ended up with one less delegate than Obama and one more than Edwards in the Iowa caucuses.
An AP analysis of the Iowa caucus results showed Obama winning 16 delegates, followed by Clinton with 15 and Edwards with 14.
With a solid majority of Michigan's delegates just about locked up and the addition of many superdelegate pledges, Hillary is clearly ahead at this point.
The Democratic National Committee has allotted states a total of 796 superdelegates to the party's national convention this summer.
That's out of a total of the 2,025 delegates needed for the nomination. So far, most superdelegates remain undecided, but of those who have endorsed a candidate, Hillary has a solid lead.
Clinton leads with 160, compared to 59 for Obama and 32 for former Sen. John Edwards.
Of course, these early numbers mean little if the trend at the ballot box continues to favor Obama. That said, currently the confirmed delegate distribution is as follows:
In the overall race for delegates, Clinton leads with 175, followed by Obama with 75 and Edwards with 46.
In the end, anything can happen. Remember, in 1992, Bill Clinton did not win his first 5 primaries. Meanwhile, some extraneous event, like a major stock market crash and sudden, steep recession or an act of strategic terror or some (unlikely) major success story from Iraq etc ad infinitum, or even a Bloomberg independent bid could suddenly rearrange which candidates the public trusts or favors most.
Many future variables may yet inform this race.
Disclosure: I am a Hillary leaner, but am more than willing to support any and all of the leading Democrats to victory in November.
All quotes via RAW.