It is being pronounced that 2118 is the magic number of delegates needed to win the Democratic nomination. In order for this to be true, there must be 4235 (or 4235.5) delegates in play, with the winner taking a majority 2118-2117 (or 2118-2117.5).
How many delegates are in play? Florida had 185 pledged delegates and 26 superdelegates, now halved. Michigan had 128 pledged delegates and 29 superdelegates, now halved. 368 people get 184 votes. What about the other 4051 delegates?
The confusion may have started with the DNC itself. According to Todd, NBC is using that number because the DNC is using it.
But if you go to the DNC's site, they have posted a pdf as of May 15 listing every non add-on superdelegate. This was after the last special election in Mississippi, and Travis Childers is on the list.
After double and triple checking, these names add up to 721. The single, sole discrepancy with DCW's list of names is that Al Wynn is still listed in Maryland's delegation in the DNC pdf, while DCW has removed him. As we know, Wynn has resigned and a special election is being held June 17. Donna Edwards, an Obama endorser, is overwhelmingly favored to win this heavily gerrymandered Democratic district. When she takes Wynn's spot, the DCW list and the DNC pdf will match up.
4051 minus 721 is 3330, needing to account for the add-ons and pledged delegates. The DNC seems to agree with everyone else that there are 3253 pledged delegates outside of Michigan and Florida, and that there are 76 add-ons outside of Michigan and Florida. It's a little tedious, but you can go to DNC's interactive map and do the counting if you want to double check. That adds up to 3329.
Where is the missing delegate? Someone at the DNC needs to check the numbers they are reporting to the news organizations, because the news organizations are using the number the DNC gives them. There is a very good chance there are only 4233 delegates in play right now (magic number 2117, as DCW shows), with Donna Edwards making it 4234 on June 17.
Note: this comment suggests what may be the problem, which is unclarity between the DNC and the news orgs. If the DNC had been using "2026 (rounded up)" then there is a sloppiness factor between the DNC and the news orgs that still needs clarifying.
Pending DNC clarification, the magic number may really be 2117 as of Al Wynn's official resignation Sunday, and 2117.5 on June 17. With Obama sitting on 2050 or 2052 delegates, depending on if you count 2 of Clinton's pledged delegates in Maryland and DC who have declared they are switching to Obama, he would need 67 or 65 more delegates to reach 2117. If you put Donna Edwards in his column, he would need 66.5 or 64.5 delegates to reach 2117.5.
NBC's First Read reports that 9 of the 13 Edwards pledged delegates are supporting Obama, so that's 4.5 votes. Obama would need 62 or 60 delegates to reach 2117.5.
Sunday, June 1, 2008
Is 2118 the Magic Number?
-- Sean Quinn at 1:11 AM
Labels: pledged delegates, superdelegates
20 comments
I tend to trust DemConWatch on these numbers, as you listed near the bottom, because they cite every single source to their changes.
Traditional media news orgs don't, which leads to this type of confusion.
Who the hell is Sean?
I was wondering who this mystical "we" was. Glad to know it wasn't royal, but I'm still wondering...
I think it WAS royal. We (the blog author) think, that...
But maybe Poblano (I like that name better than Nate^^ Nate is a cool "real" name, but Poblano really rocks.) found a co-author now.
Why did Obama get such a bump in West Virginia? He had 4-5% Wins before, and is now at 20%. I guess Wyoming caused that, but he did not even get such a bump in Wyoming from the DailyKos poll, so why in West Virginia?
2nd
FInally I improved my copy of your spreadsheet. My macro now just runs 10 minutes instead of 2 hours,and I am able to track single runs and the Electoral Vote Distribution.
And a sort of Swing State Analysis, but that works different than yours. I just track how often the Democrat gets less then 52.5 and more than 47.5 percent of the two-way-vote.
Seriously, there are thousands of Nates. There is only one Poblano.
Also, maybe this is just the first time I'm noticing it, but Obama is more dependent on winning Ohio in the GE than Clinton is on winning Florida. I find that worrying given last time's controversies and the fact that they never were resolved conclusively or the potential for abuse remedied.
Polling in America is quite odd. In Britian, sample sizes are usually above 1,000 but in America they are usually only 600 people, even thought there are far more voters. Why is this?
http://www.pollster.com/blogs/rubbish.php
I couldn´t add anything
Here is some analysis I ever wanted to do:
I. Top 10 Swing States by Percentage of Elections where Obama gets between 47.5 and 52.5% of the Two-Way-Vote:
OH 44,1
NV 43,7
NH 43,7
MI 43,6
NM 42,9
WI 42,8
VA 42,7
CO 42,1
IN 40,9
PA 40,3
II.
Correlation between Pennsylvania and Ohio.
My Win% for Ohio is actually 48.5%, for Pennsylvania 66.5%.
But if you only look at the elections where Obama wins Pennsylvania, his OH Win% moves up to 67.1%.
And if only those elections are counted, where Obama loses Ohio, his Pennsylvania WIn Percentage goes down to 51.9%.
Finally, here is my EV-distribution chart (a simple Excel-Chart, not so beautiful as the 538 charts)
http://img142.imageshack.us/my.php?image=unbenanntwd2.png
FYI, 2117 is not the magic number, because the definition of a magic number (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_number_(sports)) is the number of delegates needed to REACH 2117. Currently, the magic number is somewhere in the 64-66 range, depending upon whose count you trust the most.
There is also something I've seen called the "Huck number", which is the number of delegates that are needed to declare before a candidate is mathematically ELIMINATED from the contest (named after Huckabee, when he was still running for prez at the time McCain clinched the nomination). I saw one estimate that Clinton's Huck number was 51, at which point she would be "hucked".
Ramsus, you're doing a lot of good work, why not create a new site?
I'd read.
I don´t want to steal 538.com any readers.
They are doing a much better job as I ever could. It´s just that I can publish some of my results in the comments- they get read here also.
(And my english is not good enough for running a site in english- nor would my articles have the same style as Poblanos if I had to write in a foreign language.)
Sean Forman?!
If so, this is like the internet baseball stats all-stars on politics.
Anyone else hoping that Obama releases 30 or so superdelegates before the votes come in on Tuesday so that the clinching delegates are pledged ones from SD and Montana?
Obama wraps this up Tuesday night. McCain we are comng for you next.
Probably this is Sean Forman.
I googled him and Nate and there is a blog post by Sean Forman with the nickname "Sean".
And he knows Nate (probably all baseball-stats-junkies do):
"As part of the campaign, I was asked to write text (along with Nate Silver over at BP) about the 1977 Yankees"
All that crappin' around for a difference of one delegate? God, I hope this thing doesn't come down to one delegate. By the way, a FL or MI superdelegate is actually a half a delegate under the compromise.
To me the question remains as to whether Clinton is going to decide to destroy the Democratic Party to stoke her ambition. We await the reckless queen's decision.
I cannot wait for Clinton to finally be gone. I really hope PR is close with low turnout today. Not that it really matters - its a perception thing. We don't need another 30%+ Clinton win (like WV & Kentucky) to get the Clinton supporters all up in a tizzy right as things are finally being concluded.
"To me the question remains as to whether Clinton is going to decide to destroy the Democratic Party to stoke her ambition."
We already know the answer to that one. She has ALREADY decided to destroy the Democratic Party, and is ALREADY doing everything she can to do so. The "count every vote" meme (that she adopted only AFTER noticing how far behind she was; not a peep from her when the outlaw states were originally stripped of their delegates, except to say that they "wouldn't count for anything") has leaked its poison into her most diehard supporters.
An impeachment drive in New York needs to begin on Nov 6, no matter who wins the presidency.
Hello, Sean!
Here's another way to try to puzzle out the numbers: Add up MSNBC'S counts.
As of 6:06, they'd posted these counts:
Obama pledged 1727
Clinton pledged 1622
Obama super 329
Clinton 293
Obama from Edwards 16.5
Unallocated Puerto rico 5
Undecided pledged 31
Undecided supers 201.5
Th