Tuesday, March 04, 2008

Do or Die? Maybe not...

The Blade selects that as a title for their article this morning, Ohio's do or die for Clinton as candidates race to seal deal and as noted, the pressure is increasing on the Clinton campaign that they have to meet certain numbers today. While I don't disagree that Ohio is a much needed win, from a campaign momentum scenario, I did some research on delegate numbers and the number of delegates left a while ago that might interest some of you that I've updated to reflect some of the recent numbers.

As of this morning, Obama has 1,378 total - Hillary has total 1,259, it's where the breakdown comes that it gets interesting:

Obama has 1,184 pledged delegates and 194 super delegates
Clinton has 1,131 pledged delegates and 238 super delegates

There are 981 pledged delegates are left and 214 super delegates are left, a total of which are 1195 according to this and my trusty calculator.

In March with Ohio, Texas, Rhode Island, Vermont, Wyoming and Mississippi, 415 delegates and 87 super delegates are "up for grabs".

Obama needs 647 pledged delegates or a combination of the 364 super delegates left to get to the 2,025 magic number - Clinton needs 766 pledged delegates or a combination of the 364 super delegates. Even if Clinton were not to win Ohio and/or Texas but if it was close the 141 Ohio Delegates and the 193 Texas Delegates will be split on a percentage. As of this morning, Clinton and Obama only differ by 119 delegates...

CNN has a new Delegate slider game where you can play around with the remaining states that have delegates left to assign that gives you an idea of the many possible outcomes that could happen. Ask yourself if you were the Clinton campaign, if Ohio and Texas are close, would you drop out with only that small of a difference in delegate numbers given how many delegates are remaining? I wouldn't...

cross posted on Glass City Jungle

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