Wednesday, May 07, 2008

New Magic Number after May 6

The results below are based on the Obama website, with the Dems Abroad split corrected from 5-2 to 4.5-2.5.

Delegates:PledgedSuperTotalNeeded
Obama1,592.52591,851.5172.5
Clinton1,424.52761,700.5323.5
Remaining217260477
(2,024.5 delegates needed for victory)

Tonight Obama clinched a majority of pledged delegates

With tonight's results in Indiana and North Carolina, Barack Obama has now clinched a majority of pledged delegates. He won 66 in NC and 34 in IN.

After today there are 37 mini-races left in the remaining primary states and PR. Obama will be viable in all of them.

The percentage threshold for viability is very low, and Obama has been viable in every single district in the country where delegates have been awarded. That means the bare minimum number of pledged delegates he will get in the last six primaries is 37.

That, together with tonight's results, put him over the 1627 delegates needed to win a majority of the pledged delegates.

  • The Obama website says that he has 1593 pledged delegates after tonight. Add 37 and that is 1630.

  • If you use the Obama pledged total from the Green Papers, which is 1589.5 and then add 37, the result is 1626.5. Demconwatch uses GP as its source, so they show exactly what GP shows, by hook or by crook.

  • However, Amot, one of the Demconwatch bloggers, made a convincing case that the real Obama total was 1.5 more than what GP showed at the time of Amot's posting. GP had shown America Samoa and Louisiana as having 0.5 and 1 fewer Obama delegates, respectively, than he believed was correct. GP now has the correct AS split of 2-1. So just correct for LA (i.e., add 1) so that 1590.5 is the Obama total, in which case 37 more is 1627.5.

  • GP also shows 1 fewer Obama delegate each for Texas and Washington, as well as 0.5 delegate less for Democrats Abroad, as compared to Obama's site. Amot says that the results of the caucuses in those two states are not final yet, and apparently GP and Obama have different sources. He also says that the 4.5 - 2.5 split for DA is correct, not the 5-2 split that Obama's site has. So subtract 2.5 from 1593 to get 1590.5, which agrees with the previous bullet item.