Even after giving Senator Clinton a generous 16 of 31 pledged delegates from the remaining two contests (which means she'd have to tie Montana and win South Dakota somehow), she will have 1934 total delegates, leaving her 184 total delegates shy of the 2118 magic number.
There are only 166 automatic superdelegates remaining. These automatic delegates are the elected members of Congress, DNC loyalists and Party Distinguished Leaders that are rewarded with votes at the convention.
As you are sure to note, 166 is 18 less than 184, which Clinton needs for the nomination.
Without getting into the messy process of gaining defections from Senator Obama's superdelegate totals or peeling off hyper-loyal pledged delegates from Senator Obama, there are only two other pools of delegates available for Senator Clinton to find the remaining 18 delegates needed to get to 2118--assuming she (in a near-impossible scenario) somehow gains every single one of the 166 undeclared automatic delegates!!
The first pool is the add-on delegate pool. There currently are 35 add-on delegates that are unaligned: 30 unnamed (until the remaining state conventions are held) and 5 named but undeclared.
In this post I show that even of the 30 yet to be named, Senator Obama has a very good chance of gaining 20 of these add-on delegates. The chances of Senator Clinton going into Obama strongholds like North Carolina, Wisconsin, Iowa or even Nebraska and getting Obama's state delegates or Obama-friendly state chairs to give a Clinton supporter the add-on spot are slim to none.
Obama is guaranteed about 19 of these add-on delegates, and could walk away with 1-2 of the Texas add-on delegates, considering he won the state delegate fight.
So let's say Senator Clinton manages to gain 10 add-on delegates here. This scenario still leaves her 8 delegates short of the 2118 magic number.
Where to look? Two options remain.
First, there are five undeclared add-on delegates already named that need to decide. They are from Tennessee, Missouri, Nevada, Florida (2 x 0.5) and Arizona. Senator Clinton won Tennessee, Arizona and Florida, split Nevada and lost Missouri by a tiny margin. It is conceivable that she captures all five add-on delegates from this pool, so to be charitable we'll count these as eventual Clinton add-on delegates.
With these five in tow, Clinton is still short 3.5 total delegates from the nomination, even after getting every single automatic delegate and the most favorable add-on delegate split possible.
The last place to look? The Edwards' pledged delegate collection: the 8 pledged delegates amassed from Florida, Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina that have yet to declare a switch to either Obama or Clinton.
So far Obama has taken 16.5 of Edwards' 24.5 pledged delegates (Iowa-8, New Hampshire-4, South Carolina-8, Florida-6.5), and Clinton none. That leaves 8 left to be claimed, with Edwards already having endorsed Obama.
Senator Clinton would need to peel off 3 of these 8 Edwards' delegates in order to reach 2118, finally.
Conclusion:
Let's recap.
Clinton needs
- Every single undeclared automatic delegate (including Pelosi, Reed, Clyburn, etc.)
- Every single add-on delegate possible (15 of 35)
- 3 of 8 Edwards delegates
- no more defections from her superdelegate or pledged delegate total
Mathematically, she is still alive. Mathematically.
How much would you be willing to be that Clinton won't be the nominee?
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