Whether the media likes it or not, the real contest is taking place on the ground in Indiana and North Carolina. The polls are fluctuating all around, some showing Obama far ahead in North Carolina and leading narrowly in Indiana, and some showing him losing Indiana and much of his lead in the Tarheel State. Sometimes it pays to step away from the stupid on your teevee and look at the facts on the ground. Let’s look at Indiana. CQ Politics does a full district by district rundown, and it looks like a catastrophe for the Clinton campaign. Why?
There are four Democratic delegates assigned to the Republican-leaning 3rd, 4th and 5th districts and six delegates in each of five districts that are more friendly to Democrats — the 1st, 2nd, 7th, 8th and 9th. The 6th District has five delegates.
It’s notable that eight of the nine districts have an even number of delegates. Because of this, a wide range of vote percentages for the candidates will yield delegate ties of 2-2 or 3-3. In the four-delegate districts, Clinton or Obama would need 62.5 percent of the vote to garner a 3-1 delegate split; anything lower than that would yield a 2-2 tie. In a six-delegate district, the winner would need 58.3 percent of the vote to turn a 3-3 tie into a 4-2 edge.
CQ Politics predicts that Clinton will win seven out of the nine districts and gain a 24-23 delegate advantage. Her problem is that only one of the seven districts she is predicted to win has an odd number of delegates (the 6th). CQ Politics predicts that Clinton will win the 5th District (Indianapolis suburbs) 3-1. But they predict that Obama will win the 7th District (Indianapolis) 4-2. All other districts they predict will provide an even split of delegates. This prediction is not much tied to the actual winner of the popular vote.
Clinton might pick up an extra delegate in the 8th District (Evansville), but it’s also possible that Obama will pick up an extra delegate in the 1st District (Gary, Hammond). Demographically, Clinton should win an extra delegate in the 8th District that hugs the Kentucky border, but the district also includes Bloomington, home of the University of Indiana. Clinton faces a similar obstacle in the 4th District (Purdue University) and the 6th District (Ball State University). It’s not that she won’t win these districts, it’s just that she is unlikely to win by margins big enough to earn her a delegate.
The bottom line is that neither candidate is likely to get much of a delegate advantage out of Indiana.
Meanwhile, a look at Scott in NJ’s district by district analysis of North Carolina reveals that Obama is on course to win a 42-35 delegate victory. That could shrink or expand, but not by much. In the core area of district battles, Obama looks poised to come out ahead in Indiana and North Carolina with a 65-59 advantage. If things go very badly, Clinton might sneak out a victory of two delegates, or so. The Math is still The Math.
Well, Gov. Easley is due to announce his endorsement of Hillary today, and rumor has it that Elizabeth Edwards is leaning toward Clinton too. I fear Elizabeth’s will have some impact…
read ELizabeth is still trying to convince her husband. He can’t be too happy with the tone of the campaign. Also most of his supporters went to Obama.
Seems like JE is angling for a job in the new administration and doesn’t want to back the loser.
If he does endorse Hillary it will just be confirmation to anyone who ever doubted it that he never really believed all the stuff he said about lobbyist money.
Of course, I don’t think this is really about JE. It’s about Elizabeth. (I must be the only person in the blogosphere who is not fond of Elizabeth.)
No your not.
I’m not not fond of her. I just think that the political calculus of supporting Clinton, as presented by the Clinton supporters, isn’t very bright if that would be her reason to support Hillary over Barack. I haven’t gotten a decent answer as to why mandates that require people who live in the U.S. to buy insurance from private companies is constitutional.
If Elizabeth Edwards supports Hillary because she thinks Hillary will win, I don’t like her math skills.
If Elizabeth Edwards supports Hillary because she likes Clinton’s politics then I’ve completely misjudged her character.
to a long life BooMan. just wrote in another post we’re waiting your analysis of the state of play.
WSJ gives Obama the super-delegate edge.
Obama holds a presser on Wright. Hillary goes O’Reilly, tomorrow….as noted she’s not to be outdone.
McAuliffe promises it’ll end June 15th.
He promises what’ll end?
he promises that the contest will end by then.
David Corn had the encounter
Read into it what you will. I’ll fall off my chair if the D word isn’t operative.
Yeah, I know, the math looks good for Obama, but you just know that Camp Clinton will take any win of one vote or more in Indiana as an excuse to keep dragging this thing out. And I want this thing to be done, done, done.
But it seems like I seldom get what I want, especially where politics is concerned.
After NC and IN, there are only 216 pledged delegates left to decide.
And, based on these projections Obama will have a lead of 165 pledged delegates.
Yeah, I know. But Clinton’s campaign reminds me of the guy from Dumb & Dumber:
Yeah, but it’s been obvious forever that he’d win the delegate fight. Clinton knows she has to win, in Markos’s words, with a coup by superdelegates, so I doubt it’ll change anything. She’s going to the convention until she’s forced out.
Yes, the math is still the math, but what about the perception?
The perception that is building is that Hillary is a fighter, someone that can never be counted out. She will be ending the primary on an upswing with popular vote wins in Indiana, W.Virginia and Kentucky. The bubba candidate.
Obama will be coming out of the primary looking weak with supers questioning how he is going to be able withstand the pasting from the Repub machine and the MSM since he has not demonstrated yet that he knows how to fight back. Additionally the perception being placed in voters minds are that Obama is weak and a “latte drinking, arugula eating elitist”. Would you trust him to take on entrenched interests when he caves into Fox who has continuously maligned him and did so as part of the lead up to the interview and in their post-interview analysis? Would you trust him to take down terrorists when he can’t knock out Hillary even with more money and a lead?
IMO, although Obama will have the pledged delegate lead after the primary he has not clinched the nomination since he still needs several super-delgates to get him across the 2025 delegate threshhold. But the even more critical question is does he have the ability to fight the MSM infiltrated right wing smear machine or is he another Kerry – the windsurfing elitist? There are significant questions about this aspect of Obama now. The long drawn out primary has caused the aura of the Obama campaign to diminish.
The most likely outcome right now is that we’ll see the following.
At the end of all this, Obama will have a pledged delegate lead of about, I don’t know, 140. The announced Superdelegates will be fairly evenly split. And Obama will need about 25% of the remaining delegates to side with him.
Perceptions do matter, and it won’t help him to lose any more contests. But unless he loses North Carolina or Oregon or South Dakota and Montana, I can’t see any way that any of this stuff matters. It’s just a waste of resources that builds up ill-will within the party.
Obama’s at my old high school today in NC at a town meeting, it’s about a mile from my parents’ house.
I hope that Dad was able to make it down there.