Obama Closing in on 200 Total Delegate Lead

Gail Rasmussen's endorsement of Senator Obama puts him at a lead of 198 total delegates (1981.5 -- 1783.5) and 44 total delegates short of the 2025.5 nomination-clinching magic number, pending the results of Saturday's Rules Committee meeting that could determine the fate of the Florida/Michigan delegations.

Obama is projected to pick up at least 40 out of 86 pledged delegates from the remaining three contests in South Dakota, Montana and Puerto Rico. It is a near lock that Obama will have enough superdelegates to reach this number prior to the last contest on June 3rd.

The Total Delegate Tracker

My apologies for the terrible format of the JPEG of my Delegate Tracker, which is the accompanying piece to my Clinton Matrix.

Click on the picture above to see the Delegate Tracker in more clarity, and you will find exactly how the delegate landscape looks from here on out.

The Magic Number is still 2025.5 total delegates to clinch the nomination, pending the results of the Michigan/Florida debate on Saturday.

At this point in the nomination race, given the projected allocation of pledged delegates in the remaining three contests (at a very conservative clip for Senator Obama), Senator Clinton would need to do the following to reach 2025.5:

• Capture every single one of the 164 undeclared automatic superdelegates remaining
• Capture every single one of the 34 unnamed/undeclared add-on delegates remaining
• Capture at least one of the remaining 7 unclaimed Edwards delegates

There are no more delegates left for Senator Clinton to go after in this scenario, save an attempt to defect Obama superdelegates to her camp.

If a combination of seven more undeclared automatic superdelegates, unnamed/undeclared add-on delegates and unclaimed Edwards delegates announces for Obama, then Senator Clinton will be mathematically eliminated from reaching 2025.5 unless Obama suffers defections from his superdelegate total.

All of this analysis is rendered partially moot should the Michigan/Florida decision come back forcing Senator Obama to increase his superdelegate total by a larger margin to capture the nomination.

UPDATE: Another automatic superdelegate has declared for Senator Obama in the meantime, so Clinton now needs TWO Edwards delegates in addition to every single one of the remaining undeclared automatic delegates and the uncommitted add-on delegates to reach 2025.5.

It will be interesting to see if Obama can claim this new metric prior to Saturday. I'm betting he does.

The Two Magic Numbers: 1627 and 50

1627

One "magic" number has begun creeping into the zeitgeist of the superdelegates and politically-savvy public: 1627.

1627 signifies the point at which a candidate has gained a majority of the 3253 pledged delegates.

If you somehow add in the 128 pledged delegates from Michigan and the 185 pledged delegates from Florida, the new "magic" number becomes 1783.5, as the total number of pledged delegates becomes 3566. (Yes, you can win a half-pledged-delegate. See Guam or Delegates Abroad).

Obama would still reach this new "magic" number most likely once his Florida
pledged delegates and the "uncommitted" Michigan pledged delegates are added to his total, but the chance that the final compromise for these two states allows
for a full seating of the delegation as determined by the invalid elections in
January is almost none, as the Obama campaign needs to sign off on whatever deal is struck.

Obama currently has 1490 pledged delegates. He will need 137 more to break the "magic" number. He is on schedule to do so in Oregon on May 20th.

The 137 pledged delegates needed by Obama constitute only 33.6% of the remainder of pledged delegates. In contrast, Clinton would need to add 293 pledged delegates to her total of 1334 to achieve the same milesont. 293 pledged delegates signifies a 71.8% share of the pledged delegates remaining, an impossible task at this point. (The difference in percentages is caused by the 19 Edwards pledged delegates still outstanding.)

50

Obama currently has 1739 total delegates. He is expected to pick up, in the worst case scenario, 204 pledged delegates (50% of the remainder) and 32 add-on delegates (50% of the remainder, including New York). that puts him at 1975 total delegates.

The rest of his total will need to come from the superdelegates (Senators, Governors, Congressmembers, DNC loyalists and Distinguished Party Leaders). There are 214 of these Super Delegates left, which means that Obama most likely needs 23.4% of these Super Delegates to win the nomination.

Since the pledged delegate counts and the add-on delegate counts seem to have a logic of their own, and will most likely break in this split scenario (or even favor Obama by a handful), the second "magic" number is 50.

It may not be likely that 50 more superdelegates break for Obama any time soon, but the way things have gone this past week, it is possible that 50 more will announce for him by the time the May 20th primaries come about, which could possibly give Obama the "magic" number in both the superdelegate and the pledged delegate counts.

Meet the Superdelegates

G) The Superdelegates

Of the 4,049 total delegates available to the candidates, 796 (19.7%) of these delegates are superdelegates. Superdelegates are not bound by the results of any specific contest; rather, these superdelegates are able to endorse any candidate they want at any time and to change their mind at any time, even up until the convention.

These superdelegates are largely from a group of people selected on the basis of their holding elected office or on the basis of their position with or loyalty to the DNC.

So far Senator Clinton outpaces Senator Obama in this category of declared superdelegates by approximately 23. By most counts Senator Clinton has 256 superdelegates and Senator Obama has 233.

Accurate counts are not always easy to obtain given the informality by which superdelegates sometimes make their decisions known, or by a change of heart that may not be yet recorded, or by assumptions made by different new sources about who supports whom.

For Senator Clinton to have any credible chance of winning the nomination by reaching 2,025 total delegates, she will need to rely heavily on the superdelegates to align themselves with her.

According to projections based on the strengths of each candidate in each of the remaining contests, and the proportional delegate allocation method in play, it is likely that Senator Clinton will win between 185 and 205 of the remaining 408 delegates remaining.

In the best case scenario, with 205 more pledged delegates, Senator Clinton will end the primary season with 1797 total delegates, assuming no more superdelegates select her by June 3rd.

To reach the magic number of 2,025 total delegates, she would need 227 of the remaining 306 uncommitted or unnamed superdelegates, excluding any gains with Edwards' pledged delegates. This represents 74% of the remaining undecided superdelegates left, which is a stark number compared to the fact that Senator Obama has outgained Senator Clinton in declared superdelegates on a consistent basis since Super Tuesday, closing the gap from 93 superdelegates to 23.

Even in the first two days since Clinton prevailed in Pennsylvania, Obama has netted two more superdelegates, outgaining Clinton 3 to 1.

If the superdelegates are to make or break Senator Clinton's candidacy, they will need to break toward her by a 3-to-1 margin in total.

1627: The Pledged Delegate Magic Number

E) Pledged Delegate Magic Number: 1627

As there are 3253 pledged delegates in this contest, the candidate who earns at least 1627 pledged delegates can claim that he or she has won the majority of pledged delegates available.

Given the current pace of the nomination process, and the expected results in future contests, it is very likely that Senator Obama will break this magic number on May 20th during the Kentucky and Oregon contests.

If Senators Obama and Clinton were to split each contest from here on out, Senator Obama would have 1650 pledged delegates after May 20th, and thus he will be assured the most pledged delegates at the Democratic National Convention.