Now that we FINALLY have a poll from Puerto Rico, I set out to answer once and for all if it was possible for Hillary to claim that she leads in the popular vote after all the states have voted.
This is an argument that she is very, very, very serious about using. So please don't write any comments about how the popular vote is a bullshit metric and we shouldn't even be talking about it. Bill Clinton is in Puerto Rico right now explicitly saying that they want to get a lead in the popular vote out of Puerto Rico so they can steal this nomination.
So...on to the numbers:
A new poll published by the daily El Vocero in Puerto Rico, which holds its primary on Sunday, is out. For those that can’t read Spanish, here is the result:
Clinton: 51 percent
Obama: 38 percent
13 points is the exact same margin as the poll that was taken various months ago, so this is the margin we will use. The pollster also said that half of the responders weren't planning on voting at all, which jives in with what various Puerto Rican posters have said about turnout being far lower than what it would be in a local election.
If turnout is 700,000 which is on the high side of the projection (I will refer you the various diaries that Puerto Ricans have posted over the last few days), and Hillary's margin is 13 points, then she will net 90,000 votes from Puerto Rico.
Will this put her over the top?
The answer is no.
When Hillary claims, as she has been doing, that more people have voted for her than for any other nominee, she is using a popular vote measure that does not allocate any of Michigan's Uncommitted vote to Obama. And that's THE ONLY way that she can claim that lead. When you are dealing with such an irrational universe as the one Hillary lives in, how do argue for your case?
In this case, Uncommitted had 237,000 votes. According to the Michigan exit polls, if all the candidates had been on the ballot, Hillary would have beat Barack by just 9 points. MOST of his supporters voted Uncomitted.
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 - - - - -
When we put all these numbers together, what claim can Obama make on Michigan's Uncomitted? He had three times as much support as Edwards (35% to 12%). And 79% of his supporters voted Uncomitted. So his share of Uncommitted is about 70%.(He could obviously claim as much as 80% of the vote, but let's stick with 70%.)
70% of Uncommitted is 165,000. Having this number means that Barack is currently ahead by 110,000 even when you include Michigan and Florida.
Since Obama will net around 30,000 votes from Montana and South Dakota (this is my estimate that I formed playing around with Poblano's projections), in order for Hillary to claim a popular vote lead, using her own convoluted logic, she would have to gain 140,000 votes out of Puerto Rico.
In order to achieve this she would need either a much, much higher turnout, or a much higher margin. If she gains the 90,000 votes projected by this generous scenario...she falls far short. Barack will have a lead of 50,000 USING HER OWN CONVOLUTED LOGIC. Using regular logic, he leads by almost half a million votes.
Thoughts? Please feel free to tweak my numbers or point out something I am missing. I don't want Hillary to have ANY excuse to claim any kind of victory.