Clinton's Chance of Winning Popular Vote: Over 700,000 Extra in 10 Small Contests

[DrFunkenstein]

(I)t’s assuming a lot to give Clinton anything but the slimmest of chances to lead in the popular vote. It’s impossible to project turnout in the 10 states and territories left to vote, but Clinton will have to close a deficit of more than 700,000 votes. That means, even with extremely high turnout estimates, she would have to win by huge, double-digit percentages in the states where she could have an edge — Pennsylvania and West Virginia — while holding Obama to tiny gains in states such as North Carolina and Oregon, where he is heavily favored.

Obama currently leads by 703,523 votes by the clearest count on the site RealClearPolitics, which excludes the uncontested contests in Florida and Michigan, and also the results of four caucuses that didn’t report participant numbers.

(W)ith the prospect of new votes in Florida and Michigan now dim, Clinton is stuck trying to squeeze more than 700,000 votes out of just 10 states and territories. And interviews with close watchers of Democratic politics in the largest of those states suggest that Clinton will find it extremely hard to make up that ground.

...

A high, rough estimate of all the remaining states then would leave between 5 million and 6 million popular votes on the table.

For Clinton to pick up her lead in the popular vote with 6 million ballots cast, she’d need a 12 percent margin across the states — that’s a 56 percent to 44 percent average win. With 5 million ballots, she would need a 14 percent margin — that’s a 57 percent to 43 percent overall victory, including expected defeats in states counting for well over 1 million votes.

Removing North Carolina and Oregon from the list, Clinton’s wins would likely have to tally well over 60 percent of the vote. So far, however, Clinton has broken 56 percent in just four states, including her home state of New York. Her two best states have been Rhode Island, where she topped 58 percent, and Arkansas, where she won more than 70 percent of the votes.

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0308/9147.html

If Clinton doesn't break the 60% barrier in Pennsylvania with a high turnout, she should just give it up. There are no more rationales for her candidacy. I can't imagine that the superdelegates will stand by a watch to see if she drives up Obama's negatives enough by going all-out nuclear for several weeks. She has already given McCain tremendous fodder for the general election.

With any hope dwindling of presenting a case that doesn't involve destroying the party for the next 12 years, it will be about time for my Senator to return home where she belongs.

Ps - We've already assumed that there is no way that she will win more pledged delegates, which remains the fairest way of determining who should get the nomination.

Pps - Expect more Obama endorsements in the coming weeks.

[DontTreadOnMe]

1. Ring... Ring....

It's 3 AM....


Hello, Hillary... it's time to step down.

[Tom Rinaldo]

2. It is a fantasy to not in some way consider the 1.7 million votes cast in FL

This has nothing to do with DNC rules, since delegates aren't involved, but 1.7 million Floridians voted for the Democratic nominee and hundreds of thousands more voted for Clinton than Obama. That election didn't just vanish down a worm hole, it may not count for delegates but the popular vote tally has nothing to do with delegates won, just like the 2000 Presidential popular vote had nothing to do with electors won. It remains as an indicator is of who won the support of more people, and Super Delegates know that more Democrats in Florida turned out to vote for Clinton than Obama. It wasn't a fluke, Hillary still has vastly more support in Florida than Obama does, and it seems that she does in Michigan also.

I supported revotes in both of those States but it appears as if Obama would rather risk alienating voters in those States than cooperate to make revotes happen, since he wants to freeze the clock on popular vote totals using the logic you gave in your OP. Even if that hurts our chances in November.

[flyarm]

5. I saw my first Obama bumpersticker yesterday in Fla where i live..

it said..

God Damn America..the America had a red line through it and over top of America ..was OBAMA

Every dem i know , and i know alot ..where i am in Fla have all said ..if they don't want my votes counted now..they won't get my vote in Nov!

oh and i was a dem Delegate in 2004 for Fla..so i know alottttttttt of dems here!

Dems in my county are pissed here in Fla!! and pissed at Obama , Dean and Donna Brazile!

many are syaing they are leaving the dem party..

and some are even saying they will vote for McCain..they are that angry.

[quakerboy]

28. So what you are saying

is that the Republican state legislature screwed you(setting aside your local democrats willing aid and appeasement of the pubs)and now you want to blame the Democrats for it.


I hope you will forgive my cynicism, but WTF? If thats what passes for logic and reasons for voting in Florida, then the democratic nominee, be it Gore, Kerry, Obama, Clinton, or Jesus himself, really never had a chance in your state anyway, and claims that need to remake our system to accomidate your whims don't really do much for me.

[Terran]

6. Was Obama's name on the ballot in Florida?

It wasn't in Michigan, but I honestly don't know about Florida. But if it wasn't, I don't see how you can consider those results to be comparable to the other contests. If it wasn't, the results are tainted and Florida becomes a question mark, at best, as Michigan is.

And can we please stop with the "Obama would rather risk alienating voters in those States than cooperate to make revotes happen"?--given that both sides have now conceded that a revote isn't going to happen because of the cost concerns and other practicalities. Let's stop blaming the candidates about FL and MI and just admit that those state parties screwed up massively and it's their fault.

[MonkeyFunk]

7. Yes he was on the ballot

and I don't understand the argument that "We've assigned blame - so it's not a problem anymore".

That's nonsensical. It doesn't matter who's to blame now - but it has to be resolved.

[Terran]

9. Ok, thanks

I didn't know that. Given that, I don't see why Florida's delegates shouldn't be seated according to the results of that vote; that's more important than following the national Party's rules, at this point (IMO), even if my guy's numbers change slightly for the worse because of it; it's a matter of fairness.

I'm not saying it's not a problem anymore; but I do think the candidate's influence over the economics of revoting is non-existent, so I merely advocate not using this whole thing as a vehicle to attack each other. The candidates have their preferences about the outcome, but they can't control what happens (as far as I know). If there's to be no re-vote in MI, then I do see that as a lost cause, because Obama wasn't on that ballot and it's therefore not a valid result, inherently.

edit: typo

[olkaz]

11. Matter of Fairness

"Given that, I don't see why Florida's delegates shouldn't be seated according to the results of that vote; that's more important than following the national Party's rules, at this point (IMO), even if my guy's numbers change slightly for the worse because of it; it's a matter of fairness."

Only Hillary campaigned in Florida. None of the other candidates visited. They followed DNC rules and let it be.

Applying that popular vote total punishes the candidate that followed the rules.

[Tom Rinaldo]

14. A total lie

Hillary did personal fund raisers in Florida and so did Obama in accordance to the agreed upon rules. She also went to Florida to be at a rally there after the polls closed on Florida's Primary day to thank Florida's voters. The only campaign ads that got aired in Florida were for Barack Obama. They were sent into 6.5 million Florida households because only Obama couldn't figure out a way to broadcast his campaign ads in other states without them unfortunately having to be seen inside Florida also.

[Ravy]

29. Remarkable that they ended after the Florida primary, too.

Even though "super Tuesday" was just a week away.

[MonkeyFunk]

19. HIllary did not campaign in Florida

that's a total lie.

[Johnny__Motown]

12. It was a name recognition contest, no campaign. Giving Clinton a win because of her name recognition

is pure BS

[Tom Rinaldo]

13. I rarely call a post outright ill informed or worse

but let's say I am leaning that way with yours. If I recall it was Obama supporters who made such a big deal out of Hillary Clinton's near 50% negative approval ratings earlier in this contest before Obama's negative ratings reached the same range. How did that help her exactly?

Give me a break. Are you seriously suggesting that Florida voters didn't know who Obama is because he did not campaign personally in that state? What cave do you figure Floridians live in? I am told that any day now they are expected to get internet access. Obama would have only goten 6% of the vote in Florida were it not for that last minute Cable TV hook up to Florida that finally went through last December. That's what enabled 6.5 million Florida households to receive those national Obama campaign ads that accidently had to be sent into Florida also because only Obama couldn't figure out a way to prevent his campaign ads from being seen there. Before then I am told most folks in Florida thought Obama was a new brand of after shave lotion.

[DuaneBidoux]

24. If I understand correctly both states have made internal decisions that it is simply impossible...

to do it again. In any case the people who should be blamed are the party leaders in Florida and Michigan. They are the ones who purposely broke the party guidelines by having their elections too early.

Neither Obama nor Clinton is to blame, although both did agree in the beginning that neither state would seat delegates. It is only when it started looking important for Clinton that she wanted to change her mind on that prior agreement.

[grantcart]

26. there was no campaign and no election the attempt to use numbers where

Obama has no chance to introduce himself is an obvious disadvantage to a family that 8 short years ago occupied the most powerful political office in the world.

The obvious inequity of it is clear.

Obama is winning and will win according to the rules that were agreed to by all of the candidates at the start.

Now that she is failing she desperately wants to change the rules.

The corrupt and intellectually dishonest ploys by Florida Democrats have been fully documented and can be seen here

http://blogs.tampabay.com/buzz/files/geller_amendment_fullh.264%20300Kbps.mov

At the time it was a big joke wink and nod.

Everyone agrees that even with Florida and Michigan revotes, because of proportionate distribution by district Hillary Clinton could not possibly catch up with the lead Obama now has.

This leads to yet another equally corrupt intellectual ploy by the Clinton and their lackeys, to change the rules by giving more weight to popular vote. The reason that only intellectually dishonest people would find such a ploy acceptable is that coming up to super and superduper Tuesday it was clear that only the delegates would count. So the Obama campaign devoted significant resources to campaigns in low population states to make sure that they won the delegate race.

Such moves were laughed at in DU mocking Obama's trekking to Idaho and other places. Now those same people want to say let us
only count popular vote. Had that been the goal the Obama campaign would have used its resources like time and advertising with a completely different strategy to run up the popular vote.

It is sad how perfectly respectable people will completely destroy their reputations by becoming grovelling apologists for a failing campaign that now seeks quite simply to change the rules that were agreed upon.

Clinton campaign had senior operatives on all of the committees of the DNC that made the rules. Ickes had a vote on the rules that he now seeks to subvert.

There is financial corruption, moral corruption and intellectual corruption. It is sad to see how destructive the Clinton campaign is to the followers try to keep together a campaign that everyone knows has indeed failed.

[cameozalaznick]

27. Well, since no one campaigned in FL

That means that voters basically had nothing to go on but name I.D. Gee, wonder who would have the advantage there back in January before anyone hardly knew anything about any of the other candidates?

[flyarm]

3. its 3 am and i am scared shitless that Obama answers the phone!

what coutry he says??,..where the hell is that..he says......

http://noquarterusa.net/blog/2008/03/20/obamas-shallow-credentials-on-national-security-are-dangerous-for-the-country/

[rug]

4. If you disregard entirely the Democratic voters of two states.

What's the percentage to overcome a 70,000 vote lead?

[IsItJustMe]

8. More and More it seems that Hillary has become a Republican mole sent in to destroy the Democratic

party and the Democratic nominee in the upcoming election. Sad as hell.

[high density]

10. The problem is the Clinton campaign wants to get in arguments about what is fair

Usually this debate over the word "fair" is something discussed on a Republican vs. Democrat plane, but now it seems we have to have this debate in our own party as well.

I agree that the fairest way is to go with the pledged delegates, but I think if Clinton believed this she would've dropped out by now.

[Tom Rinaldo]

16. The fairest way is to play this out according to the rules

That means that unlike 48 other States, Floridas delegates won't automatically be seated unless the formal rules committee decides that they should be via the prescribed appeals process. That means all those caucus state tallies that many of us feel are less democratic than primaries have to be recorded as fully valid. That means that Super Delegates vote their conscience based on all of the political factors and forces they are presented with, according to the rules all parties played by.

The rules state that our nominee is the candidate winning the majority of delegates, not the majority of pledged delegates. It is not fair to argue against the agreed upon rules.

[quantass]

15. k

[ORDem]

17. One more time....

Popular vote is a red herring. It doesn't properly weight caucus votes, where turnout is small relative to a primary, but represents the caucus states' voting population, nonetheless.

This is why we have delegates elected, to properly weight the votes of each state. If you translated these to popular vote in the caucus states Obama's lead would be much, much larger.

Let the process do its job (whether you agree with it or not) and quite grasping at these pop. vote straws.

:dem:

[Tom Rinaldo]

18. If you are so sure that caucus votes represent the state's voting population

Why then did Hillary Clinton gain more popular votes in the Texas primary but lose the delegate battle due to the Texas caucus? Why did Hillary Clinton win more caucus goers in Nevada but win less delegates from Nevada than Obama? Why did Hillary Clinton finish a much closer second in Washington State's primary vote, with at least 3 times more voters than participated in the Caucus there, but have the delegates distribution much more heavily favor Obama based on the ratio of caucus participants voting?

[DrFunkenstein]

20. Caucuses Are A Pain in the Ass And Drive Down Turnout

Some states choose to stick with caucuses because they measure organizational strength and voter enthusiasm. Clearly, in this election that favored Obama. Primaries may have the simplicity of one vote=one vote, but they are not the only legitimate metric to use in determining who will by the best candidate to represent the Party in November.

Since caucuses are a pain in the ass, though, there will inevitably be less turnout. In that sense, it would be like adding up apples and oranges to see how many apples you have. The pledged delegates are the only fair way of measuring how much fruit a candidate has.

[wileedog]

25. Agreed

So popular vote is an irrelevant number, barring one candidate being ahead by an enormous amount.

Feel free to dump then in 2012, although Hillary won't care by then so I'm sure nothing will get done.

[grantcart]

21. Excellent job on the popular vote question.

While it is helpful if Obama has the most popular vote at the end, it should not be a factor at all.

The reason is that the competition has always been about delegates. When Supersuper Tuesday and Super Tuesday came Obama used his resources to win the most delegates. There were threads in DU who laughed at him for going to places like Idaho. In the end he won more delegates, but if he had given up on those states and concentrated on the popular vote he could have done that and run up the popular vote in more populus areas.

The effort by the Clinton campaign will probably fail as you explain. If however it gets close or even if Clinton gets more popular vote it still should not be considered as a valid argument for anything.

[DrFunkenstein]

22. The Media Never Give Him Credit For Organizational and Strategic Skills

They always say he gives good speech, but they don't mention that his work as a grassroots organizer in Chicago helped him learn how to wage a winning campaign without following the old, tired handbook.

You are right that pledged delegates are the only true indication of the will of the Democratic Party since caucuses measure something besides raw votes by making the process more difficult, thereby measuring organization and voter enthusiasm.

[grantcart]

23. A lot of people underestimate this cat including a lot of people in here