Given the proportional allocation of pledged delegates in the Democrat Primary contests, Senator Obama and Senator Clinton are more likely to exchange small shifts in delegates throughout the final nine contests, unless there is a large margin(+20%) of victory for one of them in the larger remaining states.
Senator Clinton is poised to win large victories in Kentucky (60) and West Virginia (39), where she is outpolling Senator Obama by almost 30 points. According to the rough estimates of the Slate Delegate Calculator, twin 30 point victories in Kentucky and West Virginia will only net Senator Clinton 15 and 8 delegates respectively for a total shift of 23 delegates.
In contrast, if Senator Obama's 20-point lead in North Carolina (115) holds up, he will net 23 delegates and negate the impact of these two contests.
Senator Obama's other big opportunity to earn a large share of net delegates appears to be Oregon, where a 16 point victory will earn him an estimated haul of 30 delegates to Clinton's 22 for a margin of 8 delegates.
Puerto Rico remains a mystery, but it appears that this race will either be tighter than expected or shift to Obama given his support among key officials on this island and the fact that he is already up with advertising in a state where the hispanic population does not react to political issues the same way that the hispanic population in Texas and California react.
Guam is a wash, as a candidate would have to win 62.5% of the vote to earn a 3-to-1 split of the 4 delegates.
Montana and South Dakota are probably large Obama victories but he probably will not net more than 5 delegates total from these two contests.
Whoever can close the gap in states where a disadvantage exists or maintain a large gap where an advantage exists will fare better in the final 9 contests.
As such, the chance that one candidate emerges from the final 9 contests with more than a 20 delegate swing in their favor is bleak. Obama is likely to win 10 more delegates than Clinton given projections in each of the remaining states.
STATE PROJECTION
Guam: Split
Indiana: Clinton +4
North Carolina: Obama +15
West Virginia: Clinton +4
Kentucky: Clinton +5
Oregon: Obama +8
Puerto Rico: Clinton +7
Montana: Obama +4
South Dakota: Obama +3
FINAL 9: Obama +10
FINAL PROJECTED PLEDGED DELEGATE COUNT
Obama: 1699 (52.2%)
Clinton: 1533 (47.1%)
OBAMA LEAD: 166 Pledged Delegates (5.1% margin)
N.B. Edwards' 18 delegates plus the news sources' lack of a perfect delegate count as some states are still sorting out caucus results and other results is the reason for any mathematical error here.
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