Daily Kos

Brokered? "The" Math

by el ganador

Wed Jan 23, 2008 at 10:40:49 PM PDT

OK, I don't actually mean to have "the Math" in a Rovian sense.

But I'm looking at what we've seen so far in the race, and I'm wondering more and more if we're going to have a brokered convention.

As we approach South Carolina, it looks like BHO might win solidly, which will then mean we go into Feb 5th with 2 wins for Hillary, 2 wins for Barack, and John in 3rd, collecting delegates.

NOTE: Yes, I know we had MI and will have FL before 2/5 - but with no delegates awarded they are meaningless.

So, what, I thought, would it look like on the morning of Feb 6th, if this pattern continues?

Before I go further, I should note for clarity that I'm partial to both Obama and Edwards, and while I'll support Hillary if the nominee, I'm really dreading that possibility.

So - as I am wont to do - I whipped up a spreadsheet to model the future for me.

Now, I could have been complicated, and assigned percentages based on polls and whatnot to date, where such data existed.

But I wanted a quick and dirty, so I hacked it out like this:

Assume that either BHO or HRC wins every state of all 22 on Feb 5th. JRE always comes in 3rd; DK is always 4th.

Just for simplicity sake (again, you can debate my logic in the thread, but I was going for rough order of magnitude of accuracy) I assume that whoever wins a state wins at 49%, and the second place finisher comes in at 40%. That means JRE always gets 9% (yes, I hear you screaming!) and Kuicinich always gets 1%.

So what I ended up with was a table something like this:


 
 
                               
                               
                               
                               
                               
                               
                               
                               
                               
                               
                               
                               
                               
                               
                               
                               
                               
                               
                               
                               
                               
                               
                               
                               
                               
                             
STATEWINDELEGATESHRCBHOJREDK
Alabamao60252960
Alaskah189720
Arizonah67332860
Arkansaso47192440
Californiah441216181444
Coloradoh71352971
Connecticuth60292561
Delawareh23111020
Georgiao1034150120
Idahoh23111020
Illinoiso18559100192
Kansash41201740
Massachusettsh1215950121
Minnesotah88433781
Missourih88433780
New    Jerseyh1276252130
New    Mexicoo38151940
New Yorkh281141100283
North    Dakotah2110920
Oklahomah47232040
Tennesseeo85354280
Utahh29141230
Democrats    Abroadh115510
96089020615
46%43%10%1%

Assume that SC follows this rule, and add in the other early states:

 


                           
                           
                           
                           
                           
                           
                         
STATEWINHRCBHOJREDK
Iowao1817170
NHh111240
MIh0000
NVh141400
sco232650
FLh0000

And you end up with something like this for total numbers (not including Superdelegates)

 


                   
                 
HRCBHOJREDK
102695923215

That's with 2232 delegates elected out of the 3,253 "pledged" (non-super) delegates.

That means, post Tsunami Tuesday, HRC would have 32% of pledged delegates, BHO would have 29%, and JRE would have 7%. That's amazing, and to me, it would mean almost certainly a brokered convention.

So - once again, I don't expect these numbers to be accurate.  But as an order of magnitude view into what our world could look like on the morning of Feb 6th...

Well, let's just say the unthinkable might suddenly become thinkable - where we have a long, hard battle to the convention where every state and every delegate matters.

And, perhaps, we might just see the first brokered Democratic convention in nigh on sixty years.

update: I've tried fixing the tables, but have no idea why there is this weird gap above them. Sorry for the awkward formatting. I hate that to get in the way of the point.

Poll

Brokered convention

6%7 votes
46%50 votes
37%40 votes
5%6 votes
3%4 votes

| 107 votes | Vote | Results

Tags: Brokered Convention, Math, John Edwards, Barack Obama, Dennis Kucinich, Hillary Clinton, 2008 (all tags) :: Previous Tag Versions

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