superdelegates

By way of demonstrating the impossibility of Hillary Clinton winning the Democratic nomination, here’s a scenario for the remaining contests.

West Virginia, Kentucky, Oregon: We’ll put Clinton in the win column 70/30.
Montana, South Dakota: We’ll project Clinton 52/48.
Puerto Rico: We’ll write in Clinton for a 60/40 win.
Superdelegates: Clinton picks up 64% of all remaining.

End Totals:
Clinton, 1993
Obama, 2026

The margins in WV, KY and OR are larger than anyone is projecting. The wins in MT and SD would be huge and entirely unexpected. And, Obama has been picking up superdelegates in nearly inverse numbers of this projection since February. So, under the worst case (Clinton wins all remaining primaries and a majority of undeclared supers), Obama still reaches the 2025 magic number.

In the real world, this thing is over.

[Calculations based on CNN's Delegate Calculator.]

(Via AmericaBlog.)

This is a huge point. Huge. Earlier today, Hillary’s people tried to argue that even if Obama reaches the 2,025 delegates he needs to become our nominee, Hillary will continue to contest the election until Florida and Michigan are seated. Yeah, only one little problem. NBC’s Chuck Todd, who is brilliant and highly respected on such things, just said that you can give Hillary Florida and Michigan - on her terms - and she still loses the nationwide delegate count and the popular vote. She still loses the nomination.

Full story here.

(Via The Huffington Post.)

Throughout their contentious debate on Wednesday, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton tried again and again to put Senator Barack Obama on the defensive in a pointed attempt, her advisers say, to raise doubts about his electability among a small but powerful audience: the uncommitted superdelegates who will most likely determine the nomination.

Yet despite giving it her best shot in what might have been their final debate, interviews on Thursday with a cross-section of these superdelegates — members of Congress, elected officials and party leaders — showed that none had been persuaded much by her attacks on Mr. Obama’s strength as a potential Democratic nominee, his recent gaffes and his relationships with his former pastor and with a onetime member of the Weather Underground.

(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.

(Via CNN.com.)

MoveOn.org, a grassroots powerhouse that supports Sen. Barack Obama for the Democratic presidential nomination, launched a fundraising drive Thursday to counter Sen. Hillary Clinton’s wealthy supporters.

Her supporters have recently argued with their checkbooks that superdelegates should vote their conscience at the Democratic National Convention in August.

MoveOn’s drive sets up a face-off that illustrates the widening gap in the Democratic Party between some of its traditional financial backers, many of whom support Clinton, and a Netroots donor base that leans toward Obama.