Delegate Math

This post is a little wonky, but stick with it. I’ve done a few back of the large envelope calculations. Here they are:

Right now – and the estimates vary, so it’s hard to get a lock on these numbers, which is really unnerving in and of itself – Obama seems to have something close to 878 pledged delegates, and Clinton has 865. She appears to be leading in most delegate counts because about 300 out of the 800 superdelegates have declared their intentions, and she’s got 2/3 of them.

I took a look at those numbers state-by-state to try to get a sense of where the pledged delegate count might be headed in the second half of the voting. Bottom line: Unless one of them does something to destabilize this race and seriously tip the scales one way or the other, the proportional system for allocating delegates is going to make it very, very hard for a winner to emerge without input from the superdelegates.

Looking at the results in terms of pledged delegates won, Hillary has been winning big states by small margins, and Barack has been winning small states by big margins. If we take each of their top 6 margins of victory, throw out the very highest one, and average the other five, we get a number for Hillary of 59.3%, and 69.1% for Barack. In other words, in states that Clinton wins decisively, she seems to get about 59% of the pledged delegates, and in states that Obama wins decisively, he seems to get about 69% of the same.

So let’s take a look at the remaining states. If we categorize each state as either Clinton, Obama, or Split, based on the demographic trends so far, and then give each of the candidates 50% of the pledged delegates in Split states, and their average margin of victory for clear wins as calculated above in states that we can reasonably expect each of them to win, we see more of the same – things come out very close, with a slight edge for Barack.

What does this mean? Well, it’s a very crude calculation, but it means that, again, barring a destabilization of the balance of power in the race, the margin for one candidate of the other among pledged delegates is going to be very close. Even if we assume that one of the two candidates wins all the remaining states by something a little smaller than their average clear win margin so far – say 55% for Clinton and 60% for Obama – the difference between the two candidates on pledged delegates alone does not end up being even half of the 800 superdelegates.

If Clinton wins the most pledged delegates, the outcome seems clear. She is likely to have the most superdelegates, and if both those things are true, she has more delegates than he does, the party elite are in concert with the rank and file, and everyone goes home if not happy, at least feeling like they were treated fairly. If, however, Obama has something like 50 to 100 pledged delegates more than she does – a scenario that I would argue at this point seems like the most likely one – but she continues to get more of the party establishment, what then? Are the superdelegates going to deny the people their nominee? At some threshold level of Obama victory, I argue that they are not.

I am making the case, then, that this nominating constest is now a race to 50% plus about 20-50 pledged delegates for Obama. If he can clear that hurdle, the superdelegates will have to fall into line. If wins by a really tiny margin, the Clinton superdelegates can declare it a tie and break it in her favor. Unless Obama can turn the superdelegate tide in his favor (unlikely), his nomination depends on getting half plus a chunk of the pledged delegates. That is the race now. That is the number to watch.