Obama's popular vote lead: 600K w/o FL+MI | 250K w/ FL+MI

That's right.

1. Excluding Michigan and Florida, Obama has a popular vote lead of 610,000 votes.

2. Including FL's beauty-contest result and an exit poll based estimate in MI (which improves it from a non-contest where Obama wasn't on the ballot to sort of a FL-type beauty contest where no one could campaign), Obama currently has a 251,000 lead in the popular vote.

I posted about this at DK yesterday.

Booman provided excellent analysis last night:

Can Clinton Win the Popular Vote?
by BooMan23
Wed Apr 23, 2008

But, then, the popular vote isn't a fair measure in any case.  If it were, Obama would have spent all his time in cities (where the votes are) rather than campaigning in Alaska and Idaho.  RCP has the announced popular vote from every state that has provided those numbers.  Obama leads by this measure by 500,000 votes.  RCP also estimates that Obama won the combined contests in Iowa, Nevada, Maine, and Washington by about 110,000 votes.  So, excluding Michigan and Florida, Obama has a popular vote lead of 610,000 votes.

It's not really fair to assume that Obama would have only received 35% of the vote in Florida if he had been permitted to campaign there, but for simplicity we'll give Clinton her full measure of votes from the Sunshine State.  That leaves her with a deficit of 316,000 popular votes.  What can we do about Michigan?

Clinton received 55% of the vote in Michigan and 'uncommitted' received 40%.  But according to the exit polls, the people, if given the option, would have voted:

     Clinton 46%
     Obama 35%
     Edwards 12%

There's no perfect solution for counting the popular vote in Michigan, but the exit polls give us something to work with.  With 594,000 votes cast, the exit polls project:

     Clinton 273,146
     Obama 207,900
     Edwards 71,280

This gives Clinton another 65,000 votes.  So, based on the best available evidence and a fair determination of the rules, Obama currently has a 251,000 lead in the popular vote.

Booman then goes on to estimate that Obama is likely to remain the popular vote leader at the end of all contests even after we factor in FL and MI.

Here is my MI math with relevant links:

MI Exit Poll
If these had been the candidates on the ballot today, for whom would you have voted in the Democratic presidential primary?

Category	% Total Clinton Dodd	Gravel	Kucinich Unc.

Hillary Clinton 46	97	-	0	0	 3
John Edwards	12	30	2	-	11	 57
Dennis Kucinich 2	-	-	-	-	 -
Barack Obama	35	18	0	1	2	 79
Bill Richardson 1	-	-	-	-	 -

MI (non-contest) turn out: 594,398

Vote breakdown based on the exit poll:
HRC: 46% x 594,398 = 273 423
Obama: 35% x 594,398 = 208 039

HRC-Obama = 65,383 according to the exit poll.

Therefore, it's not a 328K edge for HRC (as in the uncontested result where Obama wasn't on the ballot. Let's ask the Clinton camp exactly how democratic it is to give ZERO, ZILCH, NADA votes to Obama in MI??), but it's 65K (according to the exit poll) if we're going to count MI pop. vote at all.

Apparently, MI Clinton supporters such as Sen. Stabenow and Gov. Granholm etal helped orchestrate the mess in MI and seemingly something similar happened in FL as well. See Sen. Geller mocking the DNC:

Had the leaders in those states (Democratic leaders included) played by the rules and allowed the regularly scheduled primaries to play out, their states would've played a constructively pivotal role in this presidential contest, instead of being turned into divisive wedge factors.

But, even after we include them in the popular vote (at a beauty contest level; Obama would've done much better had the DNC scheduled primaries taken place and Obama had campaigned there), using the best available estimates, we still have Obama leading the popular vote by 250K votes.

Please help disseminate these facts.

•  Diary RECs will be appreciated.

  thanks!

  by NeuvoLiberal on Thu Apr 24, 2008 at 06:53:13 AM PST

  •  Jerome's post at mydd

    is beyond absurd this morning.

    My own prediction is here

    by fladem on Thu Apr 24, 2008 at 07:02:46 AM PST

    •  thanks for posting i

      I'll bookmark your analysis.

      by NeuvoLiberal on Thu Apr 24, 2008 at 07:04:59 AM PST

•  Thank you

  Many in the media continue to use HRC's ridiculous use of Michigan's results to assert she is in the lead.

  Ridiculous.

  by jkddude on Thu Apr 24, 2008 at 06:56:27 AM PST

•  You forgot to forget caucus results

  Caucus states are undemocratic and should not be counted.

  Illinois is Obama's home state.

  Using these new "Hillarimproved" metrics, she leads by 1 billion votes.  Clearly insurmountable.

  by billysumday on Thu Apr 24, 2008 at 06:56:51 AM PST

  •  That's the beauty of Calvinball.

    It's something different every day.

    by Progressive Witness on Thu Apr 24, 2008 at 07:45:35 AM PST

•  I'm so tired of the changing

  rules and goal posts. Listening to the Clinton campaign defend their primary run is like listening to Bush defend the Iraq War.

  Never the same thing as yesterday--and, I, of course, misunderstood what was said yesterday.

  by jiordan on Thu Apr 24, 2008 at 06:58:17 AM PST

  •  Bush does that when in office

    what I can't recall his the Bush Campaign shifting their talking points and spin DURING the campaigns.

    by pd1969 on Thu Apr 24, 2008 at 07:16:41 AM PST

•  Don't forget that a whole lot of people

  didn't even bother to vote in Michigan because their favorite candidate wasn't on the ballot. If Edwards and Obama had been, the turnout would have easily been doubled. Another factor was Kos's little game to have Dems vote for Romney which decreased the number of Democratic votes slightly.  So, Michigan's numbers are not valid - and should not be awarded.
  We should have never jumped up that primary date - we may have actually had a significant voice in determining the nominee - who would have thought this would drag on so looooooong?

  by moose67 on Thu Apr 24, 2008 at 07:26:41 AM PST

•  enough with analysis of the popular vote already

  The nomination process is not, nor ever was, a popular election. It's a hodge-podge of open, closed, semi-open primaries, and caucuses; which may be firehall ballot affairs, or stand-up-and-be-counted-convince-your-neighbour-shindigs. One thing the nomination process is not is an open suffrage election and all that that entails. The one common denominator is "delegates awarded". Hell, even the election for the presidency does not rely on popular vote. Ask Al. Jeebus!

  by shunpike on Thu Apr 24, 2008 at 07:44:07 AM PST

•  Endlessly dissecting the popular vote

  buys into Clinton's framing. It is immaterial that it is possible at this point in time to come up with some dubious metric by which Clinton is narrowly ahead. After NC votes, Obama will be leading in every conceivable popular vote metric and that won't change again.

  by seandalai on Thu Apr 24, 2008 at 08:01:40 AM PST

•  Why incl FLA & Mich? The candidates didn't

  campaign there?

  by Churchill on Thu Apr 24, 2008 at 08:05:35 AM PST

•  Why not count votes for them in Mexcio?

  by Churchill on Thu Apr 24, 2008 at 08:05:49 AM PST

•  Or Canada? B/C it's not relevant!!!

  Michigan and Florida broke the rules and there votes are not to be counted.  EVER!  EVER!

  So why keep listening them like they should count?

  There was no campaigning in FLA OR MICH!

  These are just name recognition contests, not an issues-based contest.

  by Churchill on Thu Apr 24, 2008 at 08:07:11 AM PST