The Road to Super Tuesday

We don't yet know how big or small Obama's nationwide bounce will be. But at this point, the path forward for Barack Obama is pretty clear. Obama's base states are Illinois, plus the Deep South states of Georgia (29.9% African-American) Alabama (26.3%) ... he's making stops in both those states today. The next layer is probably the six seven caucus states of Alaska, Colorado, Idaho, Kansas, Minnesota, New Mexico, and North Dakota. Beyond that, his best bets are probably the rest of the Midwest and Mountain West, where Hillary Clinton's favorables among Democrats tend to be lower, plus states with a decent number of African-Americans. That adds Utah, Missouri and Delaware to the mix. Beyond that, Obama might try to compete in Tennessee (16.9% African-American) and hope for an assist from John Edwards, work just a bit to keep the margins from getting too big in New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut, and fight like hell in California. That will give him a shot at fourteen fifteen of twenty-three states, of which he probably needs to win nine to be close enough to close the gap in February.