Delegate Mirth ( the end has come! )

[Faramond]

Right now according to CBS ( by way of wikipdia ) the Democratic pledged delegate count is:

Obama 999
Clinton 922
Edwards 26
Unknown 33

The unknowns are delegates, mostly from CO, that have yet to be awarded. Below are the state contest of the next 30 days, with pledged delegate totals along with my guess of the vote breakdowns. Obama listed first.

DC --- 15 --- 70-30
VA --- 83 --- 60-40
MD --- 70 --- 60-40
HI --- 20 --- 60-40
WI --- 74 --- 50-50
OH --- 141 --- 40-60
RI --- 21 --- 50-50
TX --- 193 --- 40-60
VT --- 15 --- 45-55
WY --- 12 --- 65-35
MS --- 33 --- 65-35

Obama is expected to take DC, VA and MD handily today. The question is by how much; my estimates may be too low. But that's what the polls have, so I'm going with it. I saw a Wisconsin poll that place the candidates about even, so I'm going with that. It just seems to me like a state where Clinton should do well. The most important states here are Texas and Ohio. I have Clinton winning 60% of the vote in each. Is that too much? Well, a new Ohio poll out today has her up by 20%. And these are the kind of states where Hillary did very well in on Super Tuesday, often much better than expectations.

If my forecasts are in the ballpark, and if delegates are awarded mostly in line with vote totals, then the standings from these contests would be the following:

Obama 331
Clinton 346

That's how important Texas and Ohio are. By themselves they can make this a good 30 day stretch for Clinton. Hillary has to win big in those states.

So by the middle of March, Obama may lead by something like 50 delegates among the pledged. Right now Hillary has about 70 more superdelegates who have stated a preference, though this can change at any time. In any case about half of the 800 superdelegates have yet to publicly state a preference.

Florida and Michigan have lost 313 pledged delegates between them, and 54 superdelegates between them. ( Yes, even the superdelegates were stripped! ) Hillary "won" most of them, so if they were seated she would have a huge advantage there. ( Obama wasn't on the MI ballot so he wouldn't get any from that state. ) Of course it would be unfair for the delegates from these states to be seated based on votes held in which Obama in good faith did not campaign. But there is another side to this: if these states had been contested, Hillary likely would have won them anyway, and thus she is deprived through no fault of her own of maybe a net pickup of around 40 delegates. I think these states really ought to hold Caucuses in a few months to select slates of delegates, as the DNC has suggested they do.

By the way, I've read a few times how it's unfair to penalize FL democrats for something the Republican legislature did when it moved the primary up ahead of Feb 5. However, only two FL legislators voted against the move, so it's not as if the measure was passed against Democrat objections!

Bottom line --- nothing is settled on the Democratic side, nor is likely to soon be. And with the FL/MI delegates, superdelegates, and Edwards delegates, it's much more complicated than just the upcoming votes.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Excellent analysis, as always, Faramond. I would say that the only way that there will be any clarity would be if Obama ends up doing much better than expected in Ohio and Texas (and later, Pennsylvania). If he comes close to an even split of delegates in those states, I can't see how he will be denied the nomination. But I doubt that will happen.

I certainly don't place the blame for the Florida debacle on the Republicans. The demos knew what they were getting into and happily walked right into it.

[Faramond]

Excellent analysis, as always, Faramond. I would say that the only way that there will be any clarity would be if Obama ends up doing much better than expected in Ohio and Texas (and later, Pennsylvania). If he comes close to an even split of delegates in those states, I can't see how he will be denied the nomination. But I doubt that will happen.

I think if Obama splits those big states then enough superdelegates will go to him to give him the nomination.

I certainly don't place the blame for the Florida debacle on the Republicans. The demos knew what they were getting into and happily walked right into it.

I should say I've read this outside of HoF. I thought it might even be true that only the Reps wanted to move it foward until I saw the vote totals listed of Wikipedia!

[Primula Baggins]

Thank you for this, Faramond. I agree that it would be a good thing if FL and MI held caucuses to bring some clarity to this situation. Certainly it wouldn't be fair to simply seat delegates "won" in an uncontested primary.

I am beginning to feel some hope that we will have a clear nominee before the convention. And though I favor Obama, I would much rather see Hillary nominated indisputably than Obama with an asterisk.

Though it may not come to that.

[Faramond]

For Entertainment Purposes Only:

Exit polling

Obama up 2:1 in VA and MD
Obama up 3:1 in DC

Huckabee nearly tied with McCain in VA
McCain up comfortably in MD

Remember, the exit polls were sometimes way off last week!

[Primula Baggins]

Polls close at 7 Eastern in VA, in 27 minutes, and if the voting reflects the exit polls to any degree, they will call it for Obama at 7:01.

Edit: I'm reading that some Republicans are voting in the Democratic primary rather than "wasting" their votes on McCain, whom them see as safely in. An example from the National Review (quoted on the Huffington Post):

My wife and I have never voted for anything left of Republican, frequently voting on the Conservative party line when available. Yet today, we both voted for Hillary in the VA primary. Why? Because it seems McCain has it wrapped up, so why waste our vote on the Republican side; she is a lot less scary than Obama in many ways (better the Devil you know), and I think she is more easily beaten with her high negatives and lack of charisma. So we were part of the high Dem turn out today which I am sure you will hear about. And there is no way we will ever vote Dem in November.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Polls close at 7 Eastern in VA, in 27 minutes, and if the voting reflects the exit polls to any degree, they will call it for Obama at 7:01.

That's precisely what happened, Prim. Obama is currently listed as being up 62%-37%. On the Republican side, McCain and Huckabee are currently tied at 46%.

The Maryland polls are being kept open an extra 90 minutes, to 9:30 Eastern time. D.C. polls closed, but no results yet.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Exit polls in Virginia show that Obama has won the female vote, and split the white vote 50/50.

[Faramond]

CNN says that most of the returns yet to come in for Virginia are in McCain counties, so he should come away with a narrow win.

Nothing is certain yet, of course.

Let's say McCain wins by a narrow margin. Does it mean anything? In terms of delegates, no, since VA is winner takes all. Huck might get some momentum from beating expectations, but since most of the primaries left aren't winner takes all, he'd have a very hard time overcoming McCain's massive delegate lead even if he won most of the remaining primaires.

As for what it might mean for McCain's general election chances, who knows?

[Voronwë the Faithful]

CNN just called Virginia for McCain, although it is still very close.

[Faramond]

Yeah, I saw that. Huh. I guess the outstanding votes are in McCain controlled areas.

[Primula Baggins]

You know, if some Republicans are voting for Clinton because they see her as weaker than McCain, they may be shooting themselves in the foot. People will look at the numbers and think, so Obama's real win was even bigger than that?

Even if we're talking a tiny number of votes (and I think we are), someone is going to point that out.

[axordil]

Now here's one to make your head spin--from the NYT:

In Texas, Mr. Penn said Mrs. Clinton would be helped by the Latino vote — which he said could ultimately be as much as 40 percent of the electorate.

But Mrs. Clinton faces another problem there in the form of that state’s unusual delegation allocation rules. Delegates are allocated to state senatorial districts based on Democratic voter turn-out in the last election. Bruce Buchanan, a professor of political science at the University of Texas at Austin, noted that in the last election, turnout was low in predominantly Hispanic districts and unusually high in urban African-American districts.

That means more delegates will be available in districts that, based on the results so far, could be expected to go heavily for Mr. Obama. Mrs. Clinton, Dr. Buchanan said, “has got her work cut out for her.”

I had no idea TX worked like that.

[Primula Baggins]

That's really . . . odd.

So turnout in an election where many people were not exactly motivated determines delegate allocation when turnout is likely to be huge.

Bets that the rule will be changed before 2012?

[solicitr]

What is motivating Huckabee to stay in?

Delegates Huck needs for the majority: 900 plus
Delegates still available in all remaining states: 700-odd.

[axordil]

Hey, it's Texas. They have their own ways. It does feel kind of punitive to me, I confess, but I can understand the reasoning behind it. I think.

[Faramond]

How about bets that the Democrats take a look at the entire primary system including superdelegates before 2012?

With Obama perhaps pulling away it may not result in disaster this time around, but the potential is clear. No political party can want the nomination to come down to the convention and unpledged delegates.

The Republicans should also reform theirs, with all the different state rules, but they haven't had a brush with disaster to motivate them. Unless McCain winning the nomination is disaster.

[Túrin Turambar]

What is motivating Huckabee to stay in?

Delegates Huck needs for the majority: 900 plus
Delegates still available in all remaining states: 700-odd.

He majored in miracles, not math .

[River]

Either he likes campaigning or he just wants to stick a thorn in McCain's paw.

[Primula Baggins]

I think there are a fair number of Republicans who see a McCain nomination as a disaster.

However, I think there are also some Republicans who are just as glad that it's McCain and not one of the faithful who is thrown to the wolves in this election.

(I'm not saying that I believe a Democratic victory is inevitable.)