Legal Commentary

Obama's Popular Vote Lead . . .?

By Big Tent Democrat

Yes, it is the delegates, pledged and super, who decide the nominee. But the popular vote remains an important metric to me at least. Now that Florida and Michigan have had their delegations seated, we can discuss the popular vote a bit more concretely.

RCP is the semi-official keeper of the numbers, but, as I have stated, I have problems with their numbers. [More...] Unlike RCP, I include the Washington state primary numbers and I assign the uncommitted vote in Michigan to Obama (there is a good argument that he should have only 75% of the uncommitted vote based on exit polling of those voters, this would narrow Obama's lead by about 60,000 votes.) I also include all caucus votes where there was not a primary (with the exception of Nebraska, whose primary was much later in time than its delegate selecting caucus.) With those adjustments, my popular vote totals have Barack Obama with a 112,000 (or 62,000 if you only allocate 75% of the Michigan uncommitted vote as discussed above) vote lead out of a total of over 35,000,000 votes cast. By my calculations, that gives Obama a 0.3% (0.15% if you allocate 75% of the Michigan uncommitted vote to Obama) lead in the popular vote with 3 primaries to go. Puerto Rico votes tomorrow and will likely push Clinton into the popular vote lead. We are hearing rumblings that South Dakota is a close race while Montana seems a safe Obama state.

While Obama is almost certain to be the nominee, there is a decent chance he will lose the popular vote to Hillary Clinton.

By Big Tent Democrat, speaking for me only

Full post as published by TalkLeft on June 01, 2008 (boomark / email).