Could Hillary Win the Popular Vote?
[Guest post by DRJ]
Most analysts say that Obama’s delegate lead is insurmountable and it probably is, but a couple of stories out today suggest that Hillary could still win the popular vote in the Democratic primary. This article by Sean Oxendine published at RealClearPolitics analyzes the remaining primary states on a county-by-county basis to show why Hillary has a shot at winning the popular vote:
“One of the most common arguments against Hillary’s ability to win the popular vote, and hence have an argument to present to Superdelegates, has been the fact that she hasn’t won over 60% of the popular vote in more than a handful of states. To win the popular vote, she will have to win over 60% of the popular vote in at least a couple of states, maybe more. Contrary to many people, I think this is possible, given this map [of remaining primary states].”
Oxendine’s analysis finds support in a blog post at The New Editor that shows Obama’s raw vote lead is largely due to his home base of Cook County:
“In the race for the most popular votes in the Democratic Party’s presidential primary contests, Sen. Barack Obama’s lead over Sen. Hillary Clinton is about 711,000 votes — not including Florida or Michigan — according to Real Clear Politics.
Of Sen. Obama’s 711,000 popular-vote lead, 650,000 — or more than 90% of the total margin — comes from Sen. Obama’s home state of Illinois, with 429,000 of that lead coming from his home base of Cook County. That margin in Cook County represents almost 60% of Obama’s total lead nationwide.
Interestingly, Sen. Obama’s 429,000-vote margin in Cook County alone is larger than the winning margin of either candidate in any state.”
What if Hillary Clinton ends up winning the popular vote? It seems to me that she has a good argument that denying her the nomination is no different than what Democrats claim happened to Al Gore in Florida and the 2000 election.
— DRJ
The popular vote is not relevant. Even if Hillary does amazingly well from here on out, she will still have to win the remaining superdelegates by 25%. The is an impossible wall to climb, even with the popular vote. The remaining supers will split more or less down the middle. the race is statistically over, and it is only due to our society’s in ability to understand math that Hillary is still in the race.
Andy Schmidt (054f8f) — 4/3/2008 @ 3:36 pmAndy-
It’s only due to the Democratic Party’s inability to design a system that actaully chooses bewtween two competitive candidates that Hillary (or Obama) is still in the race.
A system that assigns delegates proportionally and includes 20% of delegates as free agents will always be undetermined as long as the vote totals are in the 45-55% range.
Hillary can do math. she knows that Obama has the same chance as she does of coming into Denver with enough pledged delegates to win-zero.
MartyH (52fae7) — 4/3/2008 @ 3:51 pmI crunched the numbers very recently and I have to conclude Andy is right.
He currently has 1615 pledged and superdelegates. Under the plan for seating the Fla and Mich delegatation Hillary herself proposed (ie: where Obama gets all the NOTA votes in Mich) Obama would get another 110 or so — so those delegates are pretty much Obama’s for the taking (he’d have to agree to her getting a larger share, of course, but when you are this close to the finish line, running out the clock is the best strategy).
That adds up to about 1720 delegates. There are 592 pledged delegates up for grabs and about 370 uncommitted super-delegates. He only needs a hair over 300 from both groups. If he gets at least 40% from pledged delegates (ie: 237) all he needs is 65 more delegates to lock up the nomination. That’s just 18% of the remaining uncommitted super-delegates or even less if Edwards throws his support. And there is NO WAY Hillary will get 60% or more from the rest of those delegates. She didn’t even top 60% in her “home” states, she certainly won’t do it in EVERY SINGLE remaining state, especially now that her campaign has cash trouble.
Sean P (e57269) — 4/3/2008 @ 4:48 pmThis is an interesting discussion but I’m not sure if we are on the same page. I think it’s possible the Democrats may be putting themselves in a position where, after the primaries are over, the Party’s nominee will not have won the most votes.
I understand Obama likely will win the nomination under the current Democratic primary system, but I don’t think it will make the rank-and-file happy if Democrats pick Obama over Clinton if he has fewer total votes. That won’t be easy to sell after all the hullabaloo the Democrats raised in the 2000 election over Al Gore.
DRJ (a431ca) — 4/3/2008 @ 4:56 pmI call BS on that Cook county vote total. This is just another example of Boss Tweed’s first rule of politics. “The ballots don’t make the results, the counters make the results.” Obama men did the counting.
papertiger (81e410) — 4/3/2008 @ 5:04 pmIf I were the Hildabeast I would audit ever single vote in that county.
After all it’s how Barry won most of his elections.
“I don’t think it will make the rank-and-file happy if Democrats pick Obama over Clinton if he has fewer total votes. That won’t be easy to sell after all the hullabaloo the Democrats raised in the 2000 election over Al Gore.”
Consider this: did the fact that George Bush undisputably won the popular vote in 2004 play any factor at all in the Bush stole 2004 conspiracies? Not really — yeah, fewer people believed the 2004 ones, but those that did didn’t consider Bush’s popular vote win to be relevant anymore. The outrage in 2000 was outcome determinative, not process determinative — the activists were angry because the wrong guy won, the way he won was just a post hoc rationalization.
Sean P (e57269) — 4/3/2008 @ 5:30 pmCrooked counting?
Running up the score in one county?
Wright/scandal now dogging the frontrunner?
No one gets a majority coming in?
Superdels who blow in the wind will decide the race?
Al Gore lurking in the shadows?
No holds barred?
We can crunch numbers all we like but it’s like trying to tote up the score in a good crime drama; interesting to do, but better to see it play out, and this one’s a doozy.
If I had to give odds, I’d go with 2:1 Obama at this point, but that’s far from a sure thing.
ras (fc54bb) — 4/3/2008 @ 5:36 pmSudden…hunger for popcorn….
Foxfier (74f1c8) — 4/3/2008 @ 5:48 pmSean P,
I agree that Democrats were angry at the 2000 election result but the “stolen election” theme stayed around because it rang true to many Democratic voters. If it happens in this Democratic primary (and we don’t know that it will), I think it’s a theme that will ring true again.
DRJ (a431ca) — 4/3/2008 @ 5:53 pmNext you’re gonna tell me the NY Giants beat the Patriots. Get real.
There’s a lesson in there somewhere.
Here’s a never happen scenario, yet just too scrumptious not to imagine: That’s correct, your honor. We’re Democrats and we’re suing our ourselves.
allan (8f1bf1) — 4/3/2008 @ 6:15 pmThe simple fact is that neither candidate will have the required number of delgates to secure the nomination prior to the convention. There is no reason for Hillary to quit. The nomination does not go to the person that comes the closest.
JD (5f0e11) — 4/3/2008 @ 7:54 pmsean P–the “Bush stole 2004” folks believe that Bush (or at least Diebold) cooked the books, and that therefore the apparent popular vote win was itself part of the “theft”.
kishnevi (3cf898) — 4/3/2008 @ 8:07 pmi disagree. the primary system elects delegates to a party convention. the popular vote is really just spin by the loser of the delegate battle. ditto the spin about “what if” on electoral college numbers.
james conrad (7cd809) — 4/4/2008 @ 12:54 amThe name of the game is the delegate count. The candidate with the highest delegate counts should be the winner. This is America, not the House of Lords, so the superdelegates are obligated to follow the will of the people… and the people has said Barack Obama is the winner. He beat Hillary fair and square. Period!
Cookie Crumbs (da0864) — 4/23/2008 @ 5:36 pm