Delegate Counts

TAP's Sam Boyd has the whole story. This is definitely bad news for Barack Obama; if John Edwards doesn't meet the 15% threshold, then his votes will essentially be split for delegate counting purposes. This means Obama has to close the current 9-point margin to something closer to 6 points—say, a 48-42-10 split, rather than the current 42-33-13 with 12% undecided—in order to have a plausible comeback story. The February schedule is very favorable to Obama, with caucuses in Washington State, Maine, and Hawaii, plus primaries in Nebraska, Louisiana (31% African-American), Maryland (29%), Virginia (20%), and Wisconsin (lots of independents).  It's quite plausible that he could string together enough wins to shift the momentum back in his favor, so long as Clinton doesn't land a fatal blow on Super Tuesday.

Comments

[ikl]

I don't follow you. If Obama trails in most states where Edwards isn't viable (a fair assumption given Edwards regional strengths and the national poll numbers), isn't this good for him? If Edwards pulls 10% then he and HRC each effectively get 5% more which is a lot better than just taking Edwards off the board and spliting delegates by percentage of the vote among the remainging viable candidates (Obama and HRC).

[low-tech cyclist]

What ikl said. According to Boyd, the candidates that clear the 15% threshold split evenly - not proportionally - the votes of those that don't.

With respect to the possibility of a brokered convention, the questions are: (a) in how many states will Edwards clear 15%, and (b) how likely is it that, at the end, Hillary and Obama will be separated by fewer delegates than the handful that Edwards will have?

I'd say (a) not that many, and (b) extremely unlikely.

Oh, and (c) will the superdelegates vote to give the nomination to a candidate who trails amongst the pledged delegates?

Presumably, even Dem party leaders are smart enough to see how that would undermine not just the nominee's legitimacy, but that of the party organization as well.

But you never know. These are Democratic insiders we're talking about, who the past year have made it abundantly clear that they've got little regard for what rank-and-file Dems think.

[Nicholas Beaudrot]

I guess the better way to put it is "either way, bad news for Obama".

[Henderstock]

"Oh, and (c) will the superdelegates vote to give the nomination to a candidate who trails amongst the pledged delegates?"

I would guess not. One has to assume that they remember 1968, where just that sort of thing happened, resulting in the abandonment of the party by many of us, with the resultant triumph of the Great Trickster.

[John]

It's not winning 15% in the state that matters (except for at-large delegates), but 15% in each congressional district, no?