Democratic Primary Mess

I was bored here at work, so I looked at some election coverage and did some math to try to figure the whole mess out. Every way I can see it going favors Obama, but only by a very narrow margin. I made three scenarios, erring on the pessimistic side for the Obama camp, and in only one of them did he get the target number of delegates. 35 delegates went to Edwards and can't be reclaimed, and in my mock-ups it was close enough that that mattered. A lot of this was based on guesswork of who will win by how much where, but I think I made reasonable guesses.

For all scenarios, I awarded states yet to vote the following way (very rough guesses based on region/demographic/type of election):

Obama - North Carolina (55%), Indiana (60%), Oregon (55%), South Dakota (51%), Montana (50% [8-8 in delegates])

Clinton - Pennsylvania (60%), West Virginia (60%), Mississippi (51%), Kentucky (60%), Puerto Rico (60%), Guam (50% [2-2 in delegates])

I gave Clinton every state I thought she could win, except Montana which I have no idea about. I also awarded remaining Superdelegates at the same percentage as those already committed. One of the territories has 2.5 delegates as yet unawarded, I gave those to Clinton (making an even split for that election).

Scenario 1:

Florida and Michigan are seated as-is (I gave Obama the 40% of "uncommitted" delegates). This would push the number of delegates to 4361 and thus the target number to 2180.

So far -

Obama 1500 pledged, 205 super, 1705 total

Clinton 1393.5 pledged, 244 super, 1637.5 total

After all elections, before remaining Superdelegates -

Obama 1992

Clinton 1949.5

After Superdelegates -

Obama 2147

Clinton 2143

So, seating the delegates from Florida and Michigan would not necessarily remove the problem of no candidate hitting the target number for a majority. There could easily be a contested race at the convention anyway.

Scenario 2: Florida and Michigan revote, and are seated at the convention. In this revote, I assumed that Clinton would win both states, Florida 55% and Michigan 60%. Under that assumption, Obama still picked up more delegates from these states and closed the gap percentage-wise.

After all elections, before remianing Superdelegates -

Obama 2013

Clinton 1967

After Superdelegates -

Obama 2168

Clinton 2158

So even in the revote situation, unless things change in those states, it may be that neither candidate can get to the "finish line."

Scenario 3: Florida and Michigan are not seated at all. This is certainly not a desirable situation, but I included it in case they can't figure something out. I read somewhere that since Florida's Governor is a Republican he flat-out refuses to use money from the State to fund another election. The Michigan folks say that it violates their State Constitution to revote a primary, but that they could do a caucus. What a mess...

After all elections, before remaining Superdelegates -

Obama 1879

Clinton 1788

After Superdelegates

Obama 2034

Clinton 1979

So, believe it or not, if my guesses on the States yet to vote are close to correct, the only way a candidate would get a majority is for Michigan and Florida to be denied seats.

In Summary: Unless Clinton surprises and wins some states Obama should, or really cleans up in the states she should win, Obama's lead should hold up, but only barely. I think my estimates were on the optimistic side if one is a Clinton supporter, as well. The biggest hole I can punch in my own argument (apart from the obvious fact that I don't really know how states will vote) is that there may be reason to believe that the Superdelegates would not continue to support Clinton at the same rate if Obama had the 50-100 delegate lead I'm projecting efore they cast their votes. It seems like the talking heads who are saying that no one can reach the finish line without Michigan or Florida are ignoring the fact that the target number gets higher when those states are counted.