05.07.08
It’s over… BUT
Posted in analysis, presidential primary forecast tagged barack obama, delegates, Hillary Clinton, Kentucky, may 20, Oregon, West Virginia at 12:05 pm by Elliot
To answer Stryker’s previous question about whether or not it’s over, yes it is over. There is no way that Barack Obama does not get the necessary number of delegates to clinch the nomination by June (perhaps as soon as May 20, the day when Obama will have a majority of pledged delegates). The reason why I have a “but” in the title is because there is something which I believe that Obama (and Clinton) supporters need to understand totally and fully going into the last contests in May. Hillary Clinton is guaranteed a massive win in West Virginia, and nothing that Barack Obama does will be able to stop it. In addition to that, Hillary Clinton is also guaranteed a strong win in Kentucky (I’ll go into detail as to why this is later, but suffice it to say that I expect the final delegate break-down in Kentucky to be 34-17 in her favor as far as the delegate split goes, and a 30 point (minimum) margin for both Kentucky and West Virginia. Kentucky will happen on the same day as Oregon, and will also happen on the day that Obama clinches a majority of pledged delegates, which could play into the whole “he can’t win white voters” meme that the media has been pushing for a long time now. Nothing will change because of West Virginia and Kentucky, even though they guarantee a net gain of 27 delegates for Hillary Clinton. The point here is that we need to keep perspective, do not let Kentucky be the story on May 20, because, while it’s an interesting aside, the real story of that day will be that Barack Obama has clinched the majority of elected delegates.
latina for obama said,
May 7, 2008 at 1:04 pm
but but Elliot isn’t Oregon a white state? Oh I forgot it is part of the state of arugula! You are right and hope someone clues them in.
xstryker said,
May 7, 2008 at 7:29 pm
LOL, well said Latina!
mike said,
May 7, 2008 at 7:52 pm
What would be interesting to see is what the final popular vote totals will be, assuming they seat FL & MI “as is”.
blueollie said,
May 7, 2008 at 8:51 pm
I doubt if the supers will be swayed by HRC winning two Appalachian states.
Elliot said,
May 7, 2008 at 9:12 pm
They won’t be, it’s more of a heads up to Obama supporters to not get discouraged when it happens. Huckabee won a couple of primaries and then he was eventually knocked out of the contest.
Jack said,
May 8, 2008 at 8:38 pm
Huckabee didn’t win any primaries after McCain wrapped up the nomination.
After Super Tuesday when McCain wrapped it up, Huckabee won all of one primary, a 1% win in neighboring Louisiana.
Shouldn’t it be a sign of concern that the democratic nominee is going to get blown out in successive democratic primaries by 30+?
In fact, delegate wise and to listen to the media, Obama has had this wrapped up since February. Yet he’s still lost in OH, PA, IN, WV, KY and PR.
Hillary will close the popular vote gap big time with her huge wins in WV and KY. I look for her to net at least 300K out of those two states, probably more.
After Puerto Rico, Hillary will lead in the popular vote.
Obama will be limping across the finish line having gotten blown out in WV and KY and having lost the popular vote. A great way to begin a general election campaign.
Elliot said,
May 8, 2008 at 11:23 pm
Uh… you’re an idiot:
he also won KANSAS and I get the sneaking suspicion that the Washington State Republican Party fixed it to save McCain from humilation.
Second of all, I’m not entirely sure how many people you think live in West Virginia and Kentucky, but in West Virginia, the vote is likely to only consist of, at most 300,000 or 400,000 votes, even if Clinton wins 65% of the vote (which is likely) the best she nets is 80,000 votes. Now, in Kentucky, there is likely to be a bit more, but again, only around 400,000 or 500,000 voters, even if Clinton wins 65% of the vote, the absolute most she stands to net is 150,000 votes (this is in a very high-turnout contest, btw), which means that, in a VERY high turnout the best that Clinton can hope to net out of West Virginia and Kentucky is 230,000 votes. And you forget that Obama should net a good 40,000-50,000 votes out of Oregon, which will mean that On May 20, Obama will still have a 620,000 vote lead. Now, let’s also assume that 2,000,000 people vote she’d have to win a massive 67% of the vote there just to overtake that lead (which, again, will be impossible, considering that Obama is already polling at 37%, which would guarantee him 740,000 votes (giving Clinton, at most, 520,000 votes, which would still have Clinton fall short of overtaking Obama by 100,000 votes). On top of that, you forget that Obama will still be heavily favored to win in South Dakota and Montana (which should net him a total of 10,000 votes) This will leave Obama, at the very least, at a net 110,000 votes (and don’t give me the horse-shit about Florida and Michigan, straw polls don’t count for a damn thing).
Sorry, but as I said earlier, you are an idiot.
Jack said,
May 9, 2008 at 2:00 pm
I’m an idiot?
I said he didn’t win any primaries. Kansas was a caucus. WA? McCain won the WA primary by 25 pts. He also won the caucus, perhaps that was what you were referring to as them fixing it. But I specifically mentioned primaries. Maybe you’re the idiot.
The one primary he won after Super Tuesday was in LA, a state that borders his home state of AR, and he won LA by all of 1% or about 2,000 votes or so.
Nowhere close to Obama getting rolled by 10 in OH, 9 in PA and 30+ in WV and KY.
As for the turnout in WV, it was over 250K in 2004, and it should at least double that this time around, as other states have done. Kentucky and WV combined will have at least 1.2M turnout. Give Clinton 65% of that, which she will get, and that’s a net 360K for her. Netting 300K should be rather easy for her. Then you’re forgetting the 2M+ in Puerto Rico where she’ll also rack up a big victory.
Clinton will net at leat 600K there rest of the way and probably a whole lot more.
In any event, we’ll see where things stand after Obama loses by 40 in WV and then by at least 30 in KY.
As of June 2, Clinton will lead in the popular vote.
And then we’ll see what happens.
Elliot said,
May 9, 2008 at 3:49 pm
Right…
I’m sorry to inform you of this, but a caucus is a contest, you were implying that Huckabee hadn’t won any other contests other than Louisiana past Super Tuesday. By the way, McCain lost Kansas to Huckabee by 36%, that counts as a blow-out loss, caucus or no.
By the way, I’m not entirely sure where you’re getting that ridiculous 500,000 number, but in Virginia (which had an open primary) approximately 970,000 voters turned out in the Primary, do you know how many people voted in the General election in 2004? Approximately 3,193,000 voters, or around 30% of general election turnout.In West Virginia, about 756,000 people turned out for the General election. What you are presuming is that a primary being held after Barack Obama has already been basically dubbed the Democratic nominee will have an incredibly 66% of the General election vote. Let’s put this another way, in Pennsylvania, a state in which both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama had spent six weeks saturating the state with ads, volunteers, and a state that the turnout broke all records for previous primaries had… only 40% of turnout. You’ve got a pretty active imagination if you want to believe that 500,000 voters will turnout in West Virginia. Now, in Kentucky, there was a turnout of about 1,800,000 voters in the general election, if we assume that there is an ungodly high turnout at 40% of the general election vote (which would be about the same as Pennsylvania, which would also be about 75% of the Kerry vote) then there would be 720,000 votes. Let me put this another way, in Mississippi, John Kerry got roughly 460,000 votes in the general election, the combined vote total for Clinton and Obama in Mississippi (an open primary) was about 412,000 (or about 90% of the Kerry vote). And now you want to tell me that West Virginia and Kentucky will produce at least 1.2M votes (which would exceed the 1,040,000 votes which Kerry received in both states) which would mean getting 115% of the Kerry vote (especially considering that one of the those states is a closed Primary and the other is semi-open, meaning that only Democrats and Independents can vote). That’s some interesting math you have there, buddy.