Still a Toss-Up
So, watching Super Tuesday yesterday, I was at first rather disappointed, because I really want Obama to win, but everything seemed to be going to Clinton. However, looking over the numbers the next day, I see things are actually still way too close to call.
Now, the interesting point comes when you realize that the Democratic Party has two different types of delegates: elected delegates and superdelegates. The superdelegates are actual party officials who can cast their lot with whichever candidate they want, and their vote carries the same weight as an elected delegate.
Looking at the current breakdown on CNN.com, Clinton has 812 delegates and Obama has 720 delegates. Breaking it down further, Clinton has 619 elected delegates and 192 superdelegates, while Obama has 614 elected delegates and 106 superdelegates. So, almost the entire difference between them is in the superdelegates. Obama only trails Clinton by 5 elected delegates out of 1233, which is less then 0.5%.
So Clinton has much greater support among the party establishment, but they have almost exactly equal support among the actual Democratic voters. This is not terribly surprising, but it is somewhat telling.
Update: Some districts are still reporting in as we speak. The elected delegates are now at 625 to 624, still in Clinton's favor, but by only ONE VOTE. Of course, she still has 87 more superdelegates then Obama does.
Update #2: So I've been getting my information on delegate distribution from the CNN Election Center. I tend to assume that major news sources like that are pretty reliable for this kind of statistic, and I really like how CNN breaks it down. However, somebody else just pointed me to MSNBC's National Overview. They count a lot more delegates as actually assigned, and put Obama slightly ahead. I suspect, though, that they aren't counting the superdelegates at all.
Now, the interesting point comes when you realize that the Democratic Party has two different types of delegates: elected delegates and superdelegates. The superdelegates are actual party officials who can cast their lot with whichever candidate they want, and their vote carries the same weight as an elected delegate.
Looking at the current breakdown on CNN.com, Clinton has 812 delegates and Obama has 720 delegates. Breaking it down further, Clinton has 619 elected delegates and 192 superdelegates, while Obama has 614 elected delegates and 106 superdelegates. So, almost the entire difference between them is in the superdelegates. Obama only trails Clinton by 5 elected delegates out of 1233, which is less then 0.5%.
So Clinton has much greater support among the party establishment, but they have almost exactly equal support among the actual Democratic voters. This is not terribly surprising, but it is somewhat telling.
Update: Some districts are still reporting in as we speak. The elected delegates are now at 625 to 624, still in Clinton's favor, but by only ONE VOTE. Of course, she still has 87 more superdelegates then Obama does.
Update #2: So I've been getting my information on delegate distribution from the CNN Election Center. I tend to assume that major news sources like that are pretty reliable for this kind of statistic, and I really like how CNN breaks it down. However, somebody else just pointed me to MSNBC's National Overview. They count a lot more delegates as actually assigned, and put Obama slightly ahead. I suspect, though, that they aren't counting the superdelegates at all.