Sorry for the delay!
I've been away on business for a week, and hadn't posted new numbers for 2 weeks before that, so I've got lots of new information. Sorry it took me so long to get caught up!
There have been some dramatic numbers changes. Back on the 20th, I predicted, at his current rate, Dean would have enough delegates to "clinch" (2162) by New Year's.
I was wrong.
In fact, Clark has made some significant gains in the Delegate counts, based on his consistent high performance in recent polls.
While trying to use polls to predict delegates is silly, using delegate changes over time to show trends is probably even sillier, but here goes:
Dean had 2003, and Clark 623, on the 20th. At that point Dean had been gaining at the rate of about 30 per day. I had been tracking from November 28th to 12/20 (a period of 22 days.)
Another 22 days later, based on current polls, Dean now has 1859, and Clark 920. Dean has dropped about 6.5 delegates a day since 12/20.
However, since 11/28, he's gained an average of 11.2 delegates a day. It's anyone's guess what will happen in the next 8 days: whether his current short term trend of losses will continue, or whether his longer term trend will return. After Iowa, however, there are going to be some dramatic shifts almost immediately, and it all depends on how the caucuses go.
Click on "There's more" to view further analysis and the graphic showing the numbers and breakouts by primary date.
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