We now have 292 of 370 (79%) of the delegates counted for Tuesday’s Democratic primaries and caucuses. As expected, with more of the results actually in, the advantage Clinton had yesterday has dwindled, but not disappeared. I should note that Obama also picked up five superdelegates in addition to delegates earned in the Tuesday states.
As of today, here is where we stand: Obama 51.2%, Clinton 47.9%, Edwards 0.9%. The gap between them, which had been 4.1% before Tuesday’s results, which had shrunk to 3.0% yesterday, is now back to 3.2%. In raw delegate terms, the gap went from 109 delegates, to 86 delegates, back up to 96 delegates.
With what has been counted so far (including those 5 superdelegates), since Tuesday Clinton gained 155 delegates, Obama gained 142. A net difference of +13 for Clinton. Back in the terms I posted Tuesday this puts Clinton at 52.2% of the delegates awarded… she needed 55% to be on a winning pace. With just yesterday’s results, she accomplished that. But add in today’s count and she is no longer there. If Hillary and Obama split all remaining delegates at the same percentage as the results of the last two days, Obama would win the nomination.
At this point there are 1079 more delegates up for grabs assuming no delegates change their minds. This counts both pledged and superdelegates. To win Obama needs to get 505 of those. Clinton needs 601. In percentage terms, Clinton would need 55.7% of them. Obama only needs 46.8% of them.
On the other hand, momentum does unfortunately really matter. If someone starts to get seen as a loser, then that tends to feed on itself. 56% is a big number. A difficult number But it is not actually completely out of the realm of possibility. And of the states that are left at this point, a bunch do favor Clinton. And if Obama shoots himself in the foot again like he did with that Canada story in the couple days right before Tuesday, then that will make it even more possible.
She would need to have the superdelegates flip in enough numbers to reverse the pledged delegate count most likely. But if Obama loses a big string of these heading into the convention, like Hillary did in February… then those superdelegates may well flip.
What’s left from Tuesday to count on the Democratic side are 11 more delegates from Ohio and all 67 delegates from the Texas Caucuses, which still have not release actual results in delegate terms. That should favor Obama some, so the gap between them may widen a bit more again. But not by too much.
Another election on Saturday. They just keep coming…
I won’t go into a detailed analysis of all the delegate counts on the Republican side. We have 250 of 256 delegates accounted for at this time. And we all know McCain wrapped it up yesterday.
But the important news today? Over the last two days of counting Huckabee picked up 4 delegates in Rhode Island. And 16 in Texas. This brought him to 267 delegates. Which is 12 more than Romney’s 255. So Huckabee wins second place!!
Woo Woo! Go Huckabee!
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