Political Snapshot

Obama’s Magic Numbers

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(Via Forbes.com.)

In recent weeks, Trailwatch has repeatedly discussed Hillary Clinton’s poor prospects for catching Barrack Obama in the delegate race for the Democratic nomination. It is starting to look like Obama can now win enough delegates, 2,024, to secure the nomination before the Democrats meet in late August.

As of today, our affiliate Real Clear Politics tells us that Barack Obama has 1,641 total delegates and Hillary Clinton 1,505. So let’s turn to the Forbes Delegate Counter and plug in poll projections for the remaining contests.

The biggest prize ahead is the April 22 contest in Pennsylvania, with 188 delegates at stake. RCP’s latest average of polls has Clinton ahead by nearly 8 percentage points in the Keystone State. Assuming this spread holds once the undecided voters make up their minds, Clinton would win 54% of the vote and 85 delegates to Obama’s 46% and 73 delegates.

A similar exercise in North Carolina, where the polls currently have Obama with a 16-percentage point lead would deliver 67 delegates to Obama and 48 to Clinton. Real Clear Politics shows only three polls for Indiana, of which Clinton has a 9 point lead in two of them. For argument’s sake, we will give her a 10 point lead and 40 delegates versus 32 for Obama.

Real Clear Politics does not have poll numbers for the remaining states, but Obama has a 5.8 percentage point lead over Clinton in RCP’s average of national polls. Even if we were to give Clinton the benefit of the doubt and split those remaining contests 50/50, Obama comes out with 1,922 and 1,787 for Clinton.

These calculations still leave Barack Obama more than 100 delegates short of the total needed for the nomination. So let’s go to the superdelegates.

At present, 315 superdelegates are still up for grabs. Using our Delegate Calculator, it becomes clear that Obama would need to win just 33%, or 104, of the remaining 315 superdelegates to get over the top.