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cosReturns are coming in on election night; the race has been close and polls show either candidate could win. Now, with 83% of precincts reporting, candidate A is leading 53% to 47% over B. It's an insurmountable lead, and the race is called for candidate A.
That's where the Democratic primaries are: Of the 3253 pledged delegates available, about 83% have already been voted on, and Obama is leading Clinton by about 53% to 47%. We can call the race now.
Or, look at it another way: There are 566 pledged delegates left from states that haven't voted yet. To catch up with Obama, Clinton needs to win about 65% of those, which means she needs to average about 65% of the vote in the remaining states. She doesn't win by that margin pretty much anywhere. So far, Clinton has received more than 60% of the vote in exactly one state: Arkansas. Her second-best result was 58% in Rhode Island. Her other home state, New York, gave her 57%.
If every state from now on goes as well for Clinton as her home state of New York did, then she will get about 322 of the remaining pledged delegates, and Obama will get about 244, for a net gain of about 78... leaving Obama still ahead by about 80-90 pledged delegates! Remember, that's what will happen if Clinton gets a New York level win in every state. Not gonna happen. She might do that well in Pennsylvania, but the next-biggest state to come is North Carolina. We also have states like Oregon and Indiana coming.
One way to look at it is this: For every state where Clinton gets less than 65% of the vote from now on, she's losing ground! Imagine you're a runner 100 feet from the finish line, and there's someone ahead of you who's only 50 feet from the line. If, in the next second, you run 30 feet while the leader only runs 25, now you're 70 feet from the finish and the leader is 25 feet from it. Sure, you just ran a little faster, but your chances of overtaking the leader before the finish have gotten even smaller.
In other words, even if Clinton wins Pennsylvania 57-43, that actually puts her further away from catching up to Obama, not closer. She'll do considerably worse than that in most remaining states.
It's over: Obama will go to the convention with more pledged delegates, and will be the Democratic nominee for President.
What about the Superdelegates?
Democratic members of the US House and Senate, Democratic governors, members of the DNC, and a few other party leaders, are automatically delegates to the convention and can vote for whomever they choose. They're called "unpledged delegates" or "superdelegates" (informally). Even though Obama will have more pledged delegates (from winning actual votes in actual states) than Clinton, if enough superdelegates vote for her, she could have a higher overall total and get the nomination, theoretically.
It's extremely unlikely, for two reasons. First, for superdelegates to overturn the decision of the voters would be a major scandal. Obama's supporters would not see it as legitimate: they'd mostly feel that he won, and the nomination was stolen from him. Black voters, in particular, would rightly feel that the system is rigged against them: finally a black candidate manages to win, only to have party insiders take it away. Superdelegates know this, and of all delegates, they're the ones with the most to care about the party as a whole. They know that if this happens it will greviously wound the Democratic party, and almost ensure that McCain wins. They won't let that happen.
Second, there just aren't that many superdelegates left to go, either. Of the 794 superdelegates, various polls & surveys show about 220-230 say they'll vote for Obama, and about 250-260 say they've vote for Clinton. That leaves only about 240-250 who haven't chosen yet (plus 68 who haven't been chosen yet). Clinton would have to get an overwhelming majority of those delegates to make up for Obama's 100-200 delegate lead. If those remaining 250 feel so strongly about supporting Clinton that they'd be willing to cause such a major scandal, why have they remained undeclared so long? Obviously, because most of them don't. Clinton will not get an overwhelming majority of them.
What about Michigan and Florida?
Michigan and Florida held their primaries too early, and according to Democratic Party rules, their delegates are not supposed to count, so they're not included in any of the counts above. Clinton's campaign is pushing to have them counted, because she won both states. If they're counted as-is, Obama gets 67 more delegates and Clinton gets 178 more, for a net gain of 111 for Clinton.
That, also, will not happen. To begin with, Obama wasn't even on the ballot in Michigan, and you can't vote write-in in a primary. No credible argument can be made that Michigan's election was fair, and there is no way Michigan's delegation will be seated as-is. They'll probably come up with a compromise, like splitting it 50/50 between the two candidates. Florida did have both candidates on the ballot, but neither candidate campaigned there, and many voters stayed home because they were told it wouldn't count. A compromise is likely there too.
Who decides what is to be done with Michigan and Florida? A committee at the Democratic National Convention, whose membership will be proportional from the pledged delegates: in other words, a committee with a majority of Obama supporters. There's no way they'll give Clinton the full 111-delegate advantage that comes with counting the entirely unfair Michigan primary.
However, even if they did, 111 still probably won't be enough to overcome Obama's advantage. He's 160+ ahead of Clinton now; she's not likely to whittle that down to under 120 in the few states left.
Is there any way Clinton can win?
Yes, there are still two possible scenarios in which Clinton gets the nomination, both very unlikely:
Should Clinton drop out?
Obviously this question would make little sense if the outcome were still unclear. I wouldn't want any candidate dropping out until it became clear that they couldn't win. But since it is now clear that Clinton can't win by continuing to campaign, it's a reasonable question to think about. So here's where I switch from factual argument, to opinion.
Contested primaries have a lot of advantages. Voter registration drives, activating local networks, volunteer recruitment and training: Obama will benefit from having to campaign for votes in more states, particularly swing states like Pennsylvania and Oregon. And since Clinton is using a lot of McCain's arguments against Obama, he's also getting practice in dealing with those. On the other hand, McCain's arguments are getting extra credibility coming from a Democrat, and McCain is getting extra time to establish his message and identity for this election, so it's a mixed bag. And there's that racial division Clinton is exploiting, which also does long term damage.
For Clinton's own sake, she'd do much better to stop campaigning soon. The longer she stays in this when people can see she has lost and is only campaigning for a convention fight, the more enemies she makes in the party and the more bridges she burns. For example, if she wants to become Senate Majority Leader sometime, she's hurting her chances.
But from my point of view, as someone who doesn't particularly care about Clinton's future prospects, I think on balance having a primary in Pennsylvania at least would be good. And possibly a few more. Rather than Clinton abruptly dropping out, I think we'd be much better off if she lost some more primaries. Speaking as someone who wants to see Obama become president, the best thing would be for Clinton to lose more votes. Not good for Clinton, but good for the Democrats and for Obama.
Why you should still vote
If you want a Democratic president and were planning to vote in an upcoming primary, you may wonder: Why bother? If Obama has already won, does it matter? Yes, it still matters, because Clinton is still campaigning. By doing so, she is preventing Obama from getting a lock on the nomination by getting enough pledged delegates for a solid majority even without superdelegates. As I described above, there's only one thing she could still be campaigning for: a convention fight, where she can get enough superdelegates to overturn the pledged delegate plurality, and ensure that she will be the loser in November. The closer to Obama she gets, the more likely she is to think of that as a resonable option; the further ahead of her he is, the more likely she is to give it up.
So you're not voting on whether to nominate Clinton or Obama - as far as the primaries go, that choice is made. What you're voting on is the probability of Clinton trying to take it to a convention fight she would likely lose. If you want her to try that, vote for her; if you don't want her to try that, vote for Obama.
In other words, if you want a Democratic president, you should vote for Obama, regardless of which candidate you prefer.
States that still have primaries coming up:
April 22: Pennsylvania - 158 delegates
May 3: Guam - 4 delegates
May 6: Indiana - 72 delegates
May 6: North Carolina - 115 delegates
May 13: West Virginia - 28 delegates
May 20: Kentucky - 51 delegates
May 20: Oregon - 52 delegates
June 1: Puerto Rico - 55 delegates
June 3: Montana - 16 delegates
June 3: South Dakota - 15 delegates
[ table of delegate counts by state ]
Update: I also posted this on Daily Kos and on MyDD. If you have accounts in either place, please recommend?
That's where the Democratic primaries are: Of the 3253 pledged delegates available, about 83% have already been voted on, and Obama is leading Clinton by about 53% to 47%. We can call the race now.
Or, look at it another way: There are 566 pledged delegates left from states that haven't voted yet. To catch up with Obama, Clinton needs to win about 65% of those, which means she needs to average about 65% of the vote in the remaining states. She doesn't win by that margin pretty much anywhere. So far, Clinton has received more than 60% of the vote in exactly one state: Arkansas. Her second-best result was 58% in Rhode Island. Her other home state, New York, gave her 57%.
If every state from now on goes as well for Clinton as her home state of New York did, then she will get about 322 of the remaining pledged delegates, and Obama will get about 244, for a net gain of about 78... leaving Obama still ahead by about 80-90 pledged delegates! Remember, that's what will happen if Clinton gets a New York level win in every state. Not gonna happen. She might do that well in Pennsylvania, but the next-biggest state to come is North Carolina. We also have states like Oregon and Indiana coming.
One way to look at it is this: For every state where Clinton gets less than 65% of the vote from now on, she's losing ground! Imagine you're a runner 100 feet from the finish line, and there's someone ahead of you who's only 50 feet from the line. If, in the next second, you run 30 feet while the leader only runs 25, now you're 70 feet from the finish and the leader is 25 feet from it. Sure, you just ran a little faster, but your chances of overtaking the leader before the finish have gotten even smaller.
In other words, even if Clinton wins Pennsylvania 57-43, that actually puts her further away from catching up to Obama, not closer. She'll do considerably worse than that in most remaining states.
It's over: Obama will go to the convention with more pledged delegates, and will be the Democratic nominee for President.
What about the Superdelegates?
Democratic members of the US House and Senate, Democratic governors, members of the DNC, and a few other party leaders, are automatically delegates to the convention and can vote for whomever they choose. They're called "unpledged delegates" or "superdelegates" (informally). Even though Obama will have more pledged delegates (from winning actual votes in actual states) than Clinton, if enough superdelegates vote for her, she could have a higher overall total and get the nomination, theoretically.
It's extremely unlikely, for two reasons. First, for superdelegates to overturn the decision of the voters would be a major scandal. Obama's supporters would not see it as legitimate: they'd mostly feel that he won, and the nomination was stolen from him. Black voters, in particular, would rightly feel that the system is rigged against them: finally a black candidate manages to win, only to have party insiders take it away. Superdelegates know this, and of all delegates, they're the ones with the most to care about the party as a whole. They know that if this happens it will greviously wound the Democratic party, and almost ensure that McCain wins. They won't let that happen.
Second, there just aren't that many superdelegates left to go, either. Of the 794 superdelegates, various polls & surveys show about 220-230 say they'll vote for Obama, and about 250-260 say they've vote for Clinton. That leaves only about 240-250 who haven't chosen yet (plus 68 who haven't been chosen yet). Clinton would have to get an overwhelming majority of those delegates to make up for Obama's 100-200 delegate lead. If those remaining 250 feel so strongly about supporting Clinton that they'd be willing to cause such a major scandal, why have they remained undeclared so long? Obviously, because most of them don't. Clinton will not get an overwhelming majority of them.
What about Michigan and Florida?
Michigan and Florida held their primaries too early, and according to Democratic Party rules, their delegates are not supposed to count, so they're not included in any of the counts above. Clinton's campaign is pushing to have them counted, because she won both states. If they're counted as-is, Obama gets 67 more delegates and Clinton gets 178 more, for a net gain of 111 for Clinton.
That, also, will not happen. To begin with, Obama wasn't even on the ballot in Michigan, and you can't vote write-in in a primary. No credible argument can be made that Michigan's election was fair, and there is no way Michigan's delegation will be seated as-is. They'll probably come up with a compromise, like splitting it 50/50 between the two candidates. Florida did have both candidates on the ballot, but neither candidate campaigned there, and many voters stayed home because they were told it wouldn't count. A compromise is likely there too.
Who decides what is to be done with Michigan and Florida? A committee at the Democratic National Convention, whose membership will be proportional from the pledged delegates: in other words, a committee with a majority of Obama supporters. There's no way they'll give Clinton the full 111-delegate advantage that comes with counting the entirely unfair Michigan primary.
However, even if they did, 111 still probably won't be enough to overcome Obama's advantage. He's 160+ ahead of Clinton now; she's not likely to whittle that down to under 120 in the few states left.
Is there any way Clinton can win?
Yes, there are still two possible scenarios in which Clinton gets the nomination, both very unlikely:
- The "Spitzer" scenario: Something very big and very unexpected happens that destroys Obama's viability as a candidate, or forces him to drop out, before the convention. Even if that happens after the last state has voted, superdelegates would still switch to Clinton en masse, and she'd get the nomination. Note, however, that for this scenario it doesn't matter whether Clinton is still running. She could suspend her campaign right now, and she'd still be in position to step back in and accept the nomination if something of that magnitude occurred.
- The convention fight scenario: Clinton keeps camapigning all the way to the convention, whittles down Obama's lead to below 140, and tries to get superdelegates to put her over the top. She can do this with her strategy of racial division. As I explained, this is also very unlikely, but it's the only thing she has left to try for.
Should Clinton drop out?
Obviously this question would make little sense if the outcome were still unclear. I wouldn't want any candidate dropping out until it became clear that they couldn't win. But since it is now clear that Clinton can't win by continuing to campaign, it's a reasonable question to think about. So here's where I switch from factual argument, to opinion.
Contested primaries have a lot of advantages. Voter registration drives, activating local networks, volunteer recruitment and training: Obama will benefit from having to campaign for votes in more states, particularly swing states like Pennsylvania and Oregon. And since Clinton is using a lot of McCain's arguments against Obama, he's also getting practice in dealing with those. On the other hand, McCain's arguments are getting extra credibility coming from a Democrat, and McCain is getting extra time to establish his message and identity for this election, so it's a mixed bag. And there's that racial division Clinton is exploiting, which also does long term damage.
For Clinton's own sake, she'd do much better to stop campaigning soon. The longer she stays in this when people can see she has lost and is only campaigning for a convention fight, the more enemies she makes in the party and the more bridges she burns. For example, if she wants to become Senate Majority Leader sometime, she's hurting her chances.
But from my point of view, as someone who doesn't particularly care about Clinton's future prospects, I think on balance having a primary in Pennsylvania at least would be good. And possibly a few more. Rather than Clinton abruptly dropping out, I think we'd be much better off if she lost some more primaries. Speaking as someone who wants to see Obama become president, the best thing would be for Clinton to lose more votes. Not good for Clinton, but good for the Democrats and for Obama.
Why you should still vote
If you want a Democratic president and were planning to vote in an upcoming primary, you may wonder: Why bother? If Obama has already won, does it matter? Yes, it still matters, because Clinton is still campaigning. By doing so, she is preventing Obama from getting a lock on the nomination by getting enough pledged delegates for a solid majority even without superdelegates. As I described above, there's only one thing she could still be campaigning for: a convention fight, where she can get enough superdelegates to overturn the pledged delegate plurality, and ensure that she will be the loser in November. The closer to Obama she gets, the more likely she is to think of that as a resonable option; the further ahead of her he is, the more likely she is to give it up.
So you're not voting on whether to nominate Clinton or Obama - as far as the primaries go, that choice is made. What you're voting on is the probability of Clinton trying to take it to a convention fight she would likely lose. If you want her to try that, vote for her; if you don't want her to try that, vote for Obama.
In other words, if you want a Democratic president, you should vote for Obama, regardless of which candidate you prefer.
States that still have primaries coming up:
April 22: Pennsylvania - 158 delegates
May 3: Guam - 4 delegates
May 6: Indiana - 72 delegates
May 6: North Carolina - 115 delegates
May 13: West Virginia - 28 delegates
May 20: Kentucky - 51 delegates
May 20: Oregon - 52 delegates
June 1: Puerto Rico - 55 delegates
June 3: Montana - 16 delegates
June 3: South Dakota - 15 delegates
[ table of delegate counts by state ]
Update: I also posted this on Daily Kos and on MyDD. If you have accounts in either place, please recommend?
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The voters in the states that have not yet gone matter. It is not a case of "We know how it will go, so why should Clinton bother?" If we'd followed that scenario, Clinton would be the nominee, because people 'knew' what would happen. In national polls, as well, there is not a strong demand among Democrats for her to drop out - even among Obama supporters.
You present the Super Delegate situation as if those who have announced or been polled are committed. These folks are not committed until they actually cast their votes. Frankly, I think the superdelegates are a thoroughly inappropriate concept, and totally violate the concept of the DEMOCRATIC party.
Then again, so, too, does denying people a voice - whether the remaining states or Michigan and Florida. I really hope that the raw numbers of pledged delegates gets clear enough that Clinton withdraws, because that will make it easier to seat the Michigan and Florida delegates - and they need to be seated, not because Clinton won one of them but because losing Michigan in the general election would be disastrous and an angry electorate is not a predictable one.
You have one piece of false data, as I understand it: "you can't vote write-in in a primary." I know that write-in was an option in my state's primary, and the state to my north, as well. The problem was that campaigning for write-ins in Michigan would have been a violation of the "no campaigning" stance, whereas campaigning for "none of the above" (or whatever it was called there) was not such a violation.
I wish the race were less divisive. I wish BOTH parties behaved differently, but this has been a comparatively clean campaign, looking back to past contests.
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I agree with you about wishing there were no superdelegates, but there are.
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A key difference between what I'm saying and the hypothetical scenario you present in which Clinton would've been the nominee, is that what I'm saying is based on a large majority of the votes already having been cast. Now, I still urge people to vote, and regardless of what I say, as long as Clinton keeps campaigning Obama will keep campaigning and people will continue to vote in high numbers. There's no chance of Clinton winning by default simply because people choose not to vote.
What my argument is, is that it's important to vote for Obama if you want a Democratic president (even if you would've preferred Clinton). I'm not saying "don't vote", I'm saying "vote for Obama".
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Florida and Michigan have already been denied fair elections. It's very unfortunate, but it's a done deal, and since neither state is going to re-vote, it's not going to be undone. Seating those delegations as is won't give either state a fair election. Michigan's delegation, especially, would be extremely unfair to seat as is. What will probably happen is that they both get split 50-50 Obama & Clinton, or maaaaybe they'll both get seated at 50%, and all the uncommitted Michigan delegates will be assigned to Obama.
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Interesting how "it sells newspapers" is morphing into an anachronistic metaphor for "promotes web ad clicks". Kind of like dialing the phone.
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It means that he's still spending his Primary election campaign money til August, and he can follow through on his promise to go on public financing if McCain does with little fear (since his opponent needs to stretch it out longer)... unless I don't understand the way public financing works...
It keeps the Democrats in the news, and it makes people think of the Democratic primary as the interesting race.
I think it's in both candidates' interest to keep this going to August, in the final calculation... Clinton gets, I think, a boost in 8 years, and Obama stays in the news, getting a ton of free campaign ads.
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However, I disagree with you about it being in Clinton's interest: The longer she keeps running after it's clear that she has lost, the worse her position becomes for the future. She'd already gotten as much boost for her possible next run as she can possibly get, by a month ago; now she's just frittering some of that away.
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This conclusion really doesn't follow from your facts, actually, unless you have some statistics that back up an assertion that the number of votes with which a candidate wins a primary has any bearing on the outcome of the general election.
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Edit: Did you miss the part where I talked about a possible convention fight, and why voting in these primaries still matters despite already knowing who's gonna win?
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The problem we have right now is that the supporters of both candidates have convinced themselves that their candidate deserves to win and that any other result will have been a stolen election, either by the superdelegates or by some kind of twisted "OMG how can you not seat the rightfully elected Michigan delegates!!!1" logic that ignores everything Clinton said in the leadup to Michigan.
The last thing we need is for a bunch of Democrats to feel like their election has been stolen from them. We've seen what that looks like -- twice in a row, now -- and it isn't pretty.
Seating delegates from Michigan will help us have a united party in November. But Obama can only agree to it if he knows it won't put Clinton over the top. Yet another reason to vote for Obama in Pennsylvania.
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Furthermore, there's always that slight risk that Clinton would actually win a convention fight. Not very likely, but disastrous enough to be worth a lot of effort to forestall.
Edit: I'm still puzzled by your earlier comment. It seems you disagreed with me about a convention fight being harmful, but your earlier comment suggested you hadn't noticed that was my reason in the first place. You seemed to think I was suggesting people vote for Obama because the margin of victory in a primary affects the general election, even though I said it was because it would help prevent a convention fight which I claim would be harmful. Even if you disagree with that, I don't understand your earlier comment?
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why bother with late primaries
Democratic luminaries have been coming out for the past several weeks saying, in essence, "this race has gone on too long, someone should drop out." If having a primary contest stretch out till April is such a horrible thing, why are primaries scheduled for late April, or May, or June? It's no wonder Michigan and Florida wanted to move up in the voting... Democrats have already told people in Montana and South Dakota that their votes shouldn't count.
Re: why bother with late primaries
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A convention fight, on the other hand, is most definitely damaging for many reasons (some of which I described above). That's why I suggest people vote for Obama in these contested primaries. He's already going to win, but the more votes he gets, the less likely there will be a convention fight. You certainly can't say that the damage has already been done on that front, because we could definitely still have a presumptive nominee in time to plan the convention to launch his campaign, without a fight. If that damage is going to happen, it's definitely something that isn't certain yet, let alone already happened.
Re: why bother with late primaries
As for Michigan and Florida, it turns out that if they'd stayed with their original dates they'd have had much more pull this year. Ironic, huh? Also, the rules merely prevented them from jumping ahead of "Super Tuesday"; they could've joined Super Tuesday at the beginning of February with no penalty. Montana and South Dakota could also, as far as party rules go - the DNC didn't force them to go last.
Part of the problem is that there's no real central authority setting the calendar. The DNC and poke and prod, but each state's party or legislature sets its own dates. This year the DNC tried to use punitive measures to see if it could manage the calendar a little more forcefully, and the result is Florida and Michigan. So another irony: If FL and MI "get away" with it, the DNC's authority and ability to do anything about the primary calendar will be broken and they won't be able to really make it better next time.
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I do not understand your statement. What's the will, in this case, and what counts as crushing it vs. just disappointing the people in question?
A lot of people want Hillary Clinton to be the Democratic nominee. Odds are, they won't get what they want. Is their will being crushed if Obama wins via superdelegates, but not if he wins through a convention fight? Is their will being crushed if people in North Carolina vote against Hillary Clinton because they think her campaign is hurting the Democratic Party, but not if they vote against her because they prefer Obama? I don't get it.
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I do think Obama needs to take this chance to step it up a notch, getting both tougher and more specific. He's doing not enough of either.