Obama Gains Another WV Super

Despite the shellacking the Obama campaign suffered in the West Virginia primary, Senator Obama picked up yet another superdelegate from the Mountain State.

This time it's Congressman Alan B. Mollahan, who has served as a West Virginia Congressman for a quarter-century.

Mollahan's decision means that Obama has swept the four Congressional superdelegates from West Virginia, adding to the previous endorsements of Senators Rockefeller and Byrd and fellow Congressman Nick Rahall. Senator Clinton has received three endorsements from DNC automatic delegates. West Virginia has three more superdelegates remaining plus the add-on delegate to be decided at the June 14th State Convention.

Mollahan's statement read as follows:

“I believe Senator Obama will bring America a new era of trust, principled leadership and positive results. He has the intelligence, capacity and values that assure me he will confront the real issues that Americans face every day - health care, pension reform, energy prices, the struggling economy, and, of course, the issue of Iraq."

Obama Wins Over 5 Superdelegates Monday, 2 More So Far on Tuesday

In the run-up to the Oregon and Kentucky primaries (52 and 51 pledged delegates respectively), Senator Obama has racked up at least another seven superdelegates. Senator Clinton has not garnered a superdelegate since California DNC superdelegate Umemoto announced for her last Friday.

The seven supers for Obama:

Two members of the Alaska superdelegate pool, DNC members Cindy Spanyers and Blake Johnson. These two superdelegates were the last two uncommitted in the state, although the Alaska add-on delegate will be named on May 23rd. Alaska has four automatic superdelegates (Obama leads 3-1) and one add-on superdelegate.

Bookending Kansas Lieutenant Governor Parkinson's endorsement of Obama over the weekend as an add-on delegate, Kansas Democratic Party Chair Larry Gates has also announced for Obama.

Another State Chairman, this time Washington's Dwight Pelz, also came out for Obama. This development may net another two add-on delegates for Obama on June 15th when the state of Washington holds its state convention. Pelz, as State Chairman, will make the nominations for the add-on delegates to be voted upon by the State Committee. As we've seen before, State Chair decisions play heavily in deciding who the add-on delegates will be for certain states.

As Senator Obama prepares to accept the results of the Oregon primary today in Iowa, it is fitting that he would also pick up the support of Iowa Democratic State Chair Scott Brennan.

Just a few weeks after Obama squeaked out a win in Guam by seven votes, he has now picked up the support of Guam superdelegate Madeleine Bordallo.

Finally, and most importantly, the second of West Virginia's Senators, Robert Byrd, has endorsed Senator Obama's candidacy for President.


And another Michigan Superdelegate for Obama

And to put this out there, Michigan superdelegate Eric Coleman, Oakland County Commissioner, has endorsed Obama. While this endorsement doesn't mean much today, it may mean a lot more if the Michigan delegate is allowed to be seated at the Convention. This announcement makes the invalidated superdelegate count from Michigan to be Clinton 8, Obama 4, Undeclared 16, with two add-on delegates to be named on June 14th.

Looks Like a 64%-31% Victory for Clinton

If the exit polls can be extrapolated by any means, it looks like Clinton will pull out a 33% margin of victory over Obama today in West Virginia.

If these numbers hold, then Clinton should be able to garner 4 of the 6 pledged delegates in each of West Virginia's three Congressional Districts. That would give her 12 of 18 from those districts plus a probable 7 of 10 pledged at-large/LEO delegates as well, for a 19-9 pledged delegate victory over Obama.

If Obama is able to keep Clinton under 58.5% in one of the three Congressional Districts, that would mean he would probably end up down 18-10 in the pledged delegate count after today for W.V.

According to the exit polls, Clinton is nowhere near the 75% of the vote she'd need in each Congressional District to pull off a 5-1 split in the three districts each.

If somehow Obama were to hold Clinton to a 58% -- 40% type of victory, and Clinton could not clear 58.5% in each of the three Congressional Districts, then you would see a damaging 9-9 split among pledged delegates from the districts, and with only a probable 6-4 split of the pledged at-large/LEO delegates, that would only yield a 15-13 pledged delegate result for the Clinton campaign.

UPDATE: CLINTON IS BEING CREDITED WITH A 67% - 26% VICTORY OVER OBAMA, A 51% MARGIN. IT WILL BE INTERESTING TO SEE HOW THIS BREAKSDOWN IN TERMS OF DELEGATES.

How Many Delegates Can Clinton Win Tomorrow?

Current polls have Clinton expected to win West Virginia by a huge margin, perhaps by 30% to 40% statewide.

West Virginia has 28 pledged delegates up for grabs, and the Clinton campaign is hoping a blowout victory can help close the pledged delegate gap and make their case to the superdelegates even stronger.

But how will the West Virginia delegates be allocated?

According to Green Papers, 18 of the 28 pledged delegates will be awarded on a district level, seven will be awarded based on statewide performance as At-Large Pledged Delegates and three more will be assigned Pledged LEOs.

The 18 pledged delegates assigned by district will be broken up into six pledged delelgates for each of the state's three congressional districts.

This allocation of a large, even number of delegates per district contest is a negative feature for the Clinton campaign.

In Texas, which had several districts with six or more delegates, the threshold required to capture a large majority of in-district delegates is much higher than in a district with only four delegates, for example.

According to the Texas Primary Delegate Calculator, this is what happens:

For a candidate to win all six delegates, the opponent must fail to clear the 15% viability threshold in the district. Obama will certainly carry this low bar of viability.

To win 5-1, a candidate must win by a 75% to 50% margin. There are other nuances when there are more than two candidates, but for this contest between Clinton and Obama, Clinton must capture 3/4 of the votes in a congressional district to win a 5-1 victory in pledged delegates. Again, Obama may be in a bit of danger of not reaching this 25% threshold, but most likely he will clear it in each district.

A 4-2 victory would mean that Senator Clinton would have to take in between 58.5% and 75% of the vote in the district. This is the most likely scenario to occur for each of the three districts, which means that Clinton would carry 12 of 18 pledged delegates allocated by district.

It might be possible, though for Obama to keep Clinton under 58.5% in at least one district, which would force a 3-3 split of the delegates. If that were to happen in just one district, the final outcome of the district-level pledged delegates would be 11-7, only a four delegate advantage for Clinton.

Throw in a 7-3 split at most for the at-large delegates, and perhaps even a 6-4 split if Obama does a bit better than current polling, and you could see in the best case scenario for Obama a 17-11 split of pledged delegates. Best case scenario for the Clinton campaign will be a 19-9 split, perhaps even a 20-8 split if a district goes over 75% for her.

Obama's lead in pledged delegates will most certainly stay above 150 after tomorrow, as it currently is 164.

Clinton Matrix: May 12th Edition

This is the latest version of the Clinton Matrix.

Even if Clinton manages to capture 60% of all remaining pledged and add-on delegates, she will need over 96% of all remaining automatic delegates (non-add-on superdelegates) to choose her.

Senator Clinton should keep pace above the 60+% share of delegates needed to stay alive after tomorrow's contest in West Virginia. However, of concern is that West Virginia only has three congressional districts, with each having 6 delegates. The other 10 delegates to be won are based on the statewide vote. This lack of odd-delegate districts may work to neutralize the delegate proportion of her victory tomorrow.

On a further note, I cleaned up the formulas a bit in the spreadsheet so that the numbers are a bit more accurate. This version is entirely accurate in terms of percent of automatic delegates needed for a Clinton victory pending her results in the pledged and add-on delegate categories.