Saturday, May 31, 2008

It's 2117.0 to win

WE'VE MOVED! Democratic Convention Watch is now at http://www.DemocraticConventionWatch.com

With Al Wynn's resignation tomorrow, there will be 823.5 superdelegate votes. There are 3409.5 pledged delegate votes. That's a total of 4233 delegate votes. A majority of those votes is 2,117. If you include Al Wynn, it would be 2,117.5, and the media organizations are rounding up to 2,118.
But the number Obama will be trying to reach on Tuesday is 2,117.

Also, the status of the previously named pledged delegates in Florida is in doubt due to today's decisions. Therefore, Green Papers and DCW are, for now, removing the 2 Edwards delegates (1 total vote) previously placed in Obama's column and returning them to Edwards.

10 comments:

LostBob said...

303.5 delegates still in play. 64/202.5 = 21% needed for Obama to clinch. 240.5/303.5 = 79% required for Clinton. Not too hard to predict how that will work out. It will be even better after tomorrow. Obama will need approx 25-30 super delegate endorsements before Tue to clinch on the election results.

BTW, could you guys do a summary table for MI/FL final count from the RBX decision?: Obama, Clinton & Edwards pledged and supers., 2 rows, 3 columns. I like seeing the tables.

Thanks again and keep up the good work.

Sean Quinn said...

I agree. I went through it here:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/5/31/202422/475/455/526353

and in one other place, to be published shortly.

Basically the the reason for the discrepancy is - and Chuck Todd told me this Tuesday - the DNC is using that number and so the orgs are kind of bound to go with it even if they disagree. But by the DNC's own pdf (links in the diary) their only difference is they still list Wynn. I checked every name against your list. So the DNC needs to change what they are telling news orgs.

Matt said...

Sean - As I said in the Kos thread, the DNC can't do anything until Wynn officially resigns. I plan to email the DNC to issue new numbers as soon as Wynn is officially gone.

Siroco said...

Please help me understand: what is the problem with the two FL Edwards delegates who endorsed Obama?

Matt said...

It looks like the Edwards and Obama delegates were never "vetted" by the campaigns, and have to be revetted, so there might be changes in the actual people assigned to the delegate slots. We're just being a little conservative until it settles down a bit. The Obama campaign has never recognizes these 2 switches, because, until today, they didn't recognize any FL delegates. We'll watch to see what the Obama campaign says about these and other Edwards delegates in FL.

Reid said...

Matt,

If Obama gains just 51 more delegates, that leaves 240 left: while this doesn't clinch it for him, it does make it impossible for Clinton to clinch.

tmess2 said...

Basically, the decision of the RBC (which is posted on the Democratic National Committee slot) referred to the pledged delegates needing to be slated pursuant to Rules 5, 6, 7, and 12 of the national Delegate Selection Plan.

Rules 5, 6, and 7 are essentially the affirmative steps to represent all communities in the delegation.

Rule 12 is the rule related to presidential preference. Rule 12D, Rule 12E, and Rule 12F are the main provisions dealing with the right of candidates to review candidates for delegates.

As Matt noted, it appears that neither the Florida delegations for Edwards and Obama nor the district-level delegates in Michigan (because they were then technically uncommitted) were properly vetted.

It may be a couple of days before anyone figures out what this means for the composition of the delegations.

Matt said...

Reid - some would argue its been impossible for her to clinch since March. Others would argue that nothing's impossible since any delegate can change their mind at any time for any reason...

Unknown said...

lost bob,

I've created a spreadsheet that may provide the information you want. Incidentally, it shows how many net delegates Obama lost due to the FL & MI decision: 26.5. Let's see how long it takes him to have a NET GAIN of 26.5 superdelegates to make up for the loss.

LostBob said...

Thanks,

I have updated my own spreadsheet. My math still works and I am in sync with the site.

I show a total of 304.5 votes still in play (includes Edward’s delegates). Obama needs to win only 21.3% of those to cinch. Hillary needs 79%. Yesterday it was 14.5% / 85.9%.

By the end of today Obama will need no more than 18% of less than available 250 votes. Hillary would need more than 80% of them. Hard to see from those numbers but I think she would have won this thing easily if she had not dissed the caucus states.

I think we will learn a lot from Hillary’s victory speech tonight after PR closes.

I hope she does not decide to demonstrate her political prowess by turning her comments about Obama’s electability into self fulfilling prophecy.