Delegate Count Update: The add-ons are coming

Drip drip drip.  While we've all been distracted with tax returns and Mark Penn and whatnot, the Superdelegates continue to trickle in for Barack Obama.  The pledged delegates remain largely unchanged (now at 1415 to 1254 for Obama), but as I type this, Demconwatch shows Obama has narrowed the gap in the supers down to 221 to 245, only 24 down.  And odds are he'll continue to close that gap in the 2 weeks leading up to PA.

In my last diaryabout delegate counts, I noted that Obama led 1415.5 to 1253.5 in pledged delegates, but trailed in supers 211-245.  This meant Hillary needed 58.1% of all remaining delegates, but Obama needed only 44%.  There were also those add on supers who states would start naming.

Well, since then we obviously haven't had any primaries, but there has been a little movement.  Barack lost a projected delegate from Texas after the county level caucuses/conventions (although nothing is official until the state convention), he gained a delegate in Mississippi thanks to a wonderful catch by blogger voiceofreason, he gained a half delegate in American Samoa because, apparently, they do the "half delegate" thing for pledged delegates so it's 1.5-1.5 instead of 1-2.  Last, per The Green Papers reporting from a party source, it appears Obama has 33 delegates in Louisiana out of 56 (my spreadsheet had him at 34).

That means that he "lost" a half-delegate on my count, while Hillary gained that half.  Which is good, because I was getting sick of imagining describing how someone could be a "half-delegate".

However, on the superdelegate side...

Quietly, things continue to move towards Obama.  I'll note first that I have decided to use Demconwatch as the counter of supers.  I compared their lists to Politico, and after running through about 2/3rds of the states, found a few disparities, but in each case I agreed with Demconwatch and disagreed with Politico.  The one sort-of exception was in Louisiana, where both DCW and Politico had a Mary Lou Winters as a super supporting Clinton.  However, the official Democratic party list did not have her listed, but did have an "Elsie Burkhalter" listed as a super who was not on either site's list.

Until today, when DCW corrected that, dropping Ms. Winters and adding Ms. Burkhalter, who is "uncommitted".  However, Ms. Burkhalter was voted in as a pledged delegate in LA in support of Hillary and all the alternates in that district are Obama supporters, so either A) she goes as a pledged delegate and the total super number drops by 1, or B) she goes as a super and Obama goes back up to 34-22 in LA.

Strange days indeed.

OK, enough minutiae.  The main point is that, just over a week, Obama has gained 10 superdelegates, while Hillary has effectively gained zero.  Of those 10, 4 are add-ons (1 fr. DC, 1 fr. MO, 1 fr. DE, and 1 fr. ND).

Over the next few weeks, more add-ons will be selected, and the majority of these should end up in the Obama camp.

What does all this mean?  Well, the total delegate count now looks to be 1636 for Obama to 1499 for Hillary.  There are 893 delegates left, and 2023.5 are needed to win the nomination.  So Obama needs 387.5 more delegates, or 43.4% of all remaining, and Hillary needs 524.5, or 58.7% of all remaining.

To put this into perspective, the Pennsylvania primary (that's still over two weeks away, fer cripes sake.  Geez, can we finally have some voting!) has 158 delegates at stake.  Al Giordano at The Field ahs an excellent article in which he projected that Hillary could win 92 of the delegates at stake, which would be "a big, big win" (I'll note that Giordano generally seems to be pretty respected around here and is certainly not a "shill" for either candidate).  Granted, that was in early March, and polls since then have shown the margin in the state closing, but let's just assume that Hillary does win 92 delegates to 66 for Obama.

Guess what, that's 58.2% of the delegates.  Hillary would need to do slightly better than that, for every remaining race and among all undeclared superdelegates.  And that's before counting any more add-ons.  Meanwhile, although Hillary looks to have an edge in Indiana, the North Carolina polls show Barack Obama with a huge lead. (Rasmusssen shows him up 56-33).  It doesn't look like Hillary will be making much headway with pledged delegates any time soon.

Meanwhile, it's quiet and under the radar, but the supers gradually keep declaring for Obama.  An average of one a day right now.  And with every declaration, the odds of his winning increase, while the odds for Hillary grow longer.

Drip drip drip.