A recent diary confirms my own educated guess that Senator Obama, once the last primaries are finished, will need a hundred or so more superdelegates to clinch the nomination. As Howard Fineman had noted on Hardball earlier today, getting to within 100 delegates of the nomination after June is the goal of the Obama campaign. So I did some thoroughly unscientific head-counting, and have questions that need to be answered before we can surely call this a done deal for Senator Obama.
There's a jump right around here...
Per DemConWatch, Obama is 282 from the nomination, as of May 5th, and prior to Indiana and North Carolina. Conservative projections (based on polling cited in the diary above) suggest he earns another 173 pledged delegates from the remaining primaries. I say he gets more than that, but let's say not a whole lot more. Let's say only 9 more, and he needs 100 of the remaining superdelegates to be the first past the post.
So who are the last 100?
I went to DCW's undeclared SD list to try and guess which SDs might go for Obama. These are my best guesses, based on various reasons that are listed for each superdelegate. Also, when I base an assumption on evidence, it's possible I'm recalling something that may not be true (i.e. I may just be trying to recall what I saw from CNN, MSNBC, Drudge, etc.). All who read this are to challenge my assumptions, but know that I tried to be somewhat conservative with who might back whom (i.e. I know very little about each of the DNC SDs); my hope is that if a SD that I name doesn't endorse Obama, someone that I haven't named might.
Anyways, here we go:
Governors - 2
Bill Ritter - CO (Obama won primary)
Brian Schweitzer - MT (Obama comes to MT as a favorite) |
Currently named add-ons - 2
Ray Nagin - LA (Obama won primary)
Jay Nixon - MO (Obama won primary) |
Democratic Party Leaders - 3
Jimmy Carter (near certainty, given previous statements)
Al Gore (gut feeling, given personal history)
DNC Chair Roy Romer (Obama may split remaining DNC chairs with Hillary) |
DNC members - 4
Christine Pelosi - CA (probably won't break with mother)
Donna Brazile - DC (Obama won primary, Brazile has defended Obama)
Keith Roark - ID (Obama won primary, has the other three DNC members from ID)
Howard Dean - VT (succeeded McAuliffe as chairman) |
House members - 13
Nancy Pelosi - CA (will endorse winner w/ most pledged delegates)
John Salazar - CO (Obama won primary)
Mazie Hirono - HI (Obama won primary)
Rahm Emanuel - IL (home state)
John Sarbanes - MD (Obama won primary)
Steny Hoyer - MD (Obama won primary)
Bob Etheridge - NC (Obama splits NC House SDs)
Mike McIntyre - NC (Obama splits NC House SDs)
Jim Clyburn - SC (Obama won primary, perhaps leaning toward Obama)
Nick Lampson - TX (Obama splits remaining TX House SDs)
Jim Matheson - UT (Obama won primary)
Rick Larsen - WA (Obama won primary)
Jim McDermott - WA (Obama won primary)
|
Senators - 12
Ken Salazar - CO (Obama won primary)
Joe Biden - DE (Obama won primary)
Tom Carper - DE (Obama won primary)
Daniel Akaka - HI (Obama won primary)
Tom Harkin - IA (Obama won caucus)
Mary Landrieu - LA (Obama won primary)
Ben Cardin - MD (Obama won primary)
Max Baucus - MT (Obama comes to MT as a favorite)
Jon Tester - MT (Obama comes to MT as a favorite)
Jim Webb - VA (talked about as Obama's running mate)
Maria Cantwell - WA (Pelosi Club: will support winner of most pledged delegates)
Herb Kohl - WI (Obama won primary)
|
All told, Obama should earn the endorsements of no fewer than 36 superdelegates.
The remaining 64 should come from the following:
1) Remaining add-ons
- Assume, conservatively, that half of the 56 remaining, unnamed add-on superdelegates endorse Obama. Add 28 to his support.
2) SDs waiting for a decisive winner of the pledged delegates
- Senator McCaskill's previous statement of House members and Senators withholding their support and waiting for a clearer picture to come from the nomination race. Assume that, at the very least, a quarter of the undeclared House members and Senators (83) endorse Obama after clinching the pledged delegate lead. Rounded down, add 20 to his support.
3) Remaining DNC members
- Taking solace in the fact that the committee will most likely not be voting as a bloc, assume that a third of the remaining committee members (123.5) vote for Obama at the convention. Rounded down, add 40 to his support.
All told, 88 of these three categories, a very conservative estimate, should be expected to endorse Obama, for a total of
124 superdelegates out of the remaining 273.5 undeclared superdelegates.
Note that several factors will influence this number, as well as the number required for Obama to clinch:
- Primary results
- Defections from declared superdelegates
- Addition/subtraction of superdelegates (i.e. resignation, death, special election)
- Seating of delegations from Florida and/or Michigan
- Senator John Edwards' release of pledged delegates
- Random trivia (i.e. news event)
This estimate by no means should suggest that Senator Obama will coast to victory, and that he has already won the nomination. The convention is less than four months away, and many things can happen between now and then. Clearly, with the remaining superdelegates having successfully withheld their endorsements in the most contentious nomination fight in this generation, a lot of work needs to be done by the Obama campaign to sway the final one hundred to join the groundswell of support for his candidacy.
Feel free to challenge any part of this wildly educated guess.