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Democratic Party Presidential Nomination Contest: a Review of the Delegate and Popular Vote Counts

After the Pennsylvania vote, it is time to update the estimated number of delegates (total of pledged delegates i.e., delegates won through elections — primaries and caucuses, and super-delegates i.e. party officials and activists) and popular vote acquired by Senators Clinton and Obama in the Democratic party presidential nominating contest.

These — delegates and populate votes — counts do not include the outcomes of the primaries held in Michigan and Florida. Both Michigan and Florida violated the explicit rules set by the Democratic Party National Committee (DNC) that no state — other than Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina — was to hold its party presidential nomination primary or caucus before so-called Tuesday when any state could have set its elections. (Super Tuesday was semi-national primary election day. The four states — Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada (large Hispanic population) and South Carolina (large African-American population) — together are considered representative of the American electorate and small enough for campaign without the need for extra-ordinary amount of resources.)

As a result of their defiance of the DNC’s ruling, DNC mandated that any election would be considered null and void and asked all the presidential candidates (which included Clinton and Obama but it also included Senators Biden and Dodd, and John Edwards) not to campaign in those two states. All the candidates — including Clinton and Obama — consented to this. There was absolutely no campaigning. Obama and Edwards even removed their names from the ballot in Michigan (for some reason, Clinton did not.) However, Obama and Edwards (and Clinton) could not remove their names from the Florida ballot — Florida party would not allow that.

Senator Clinton now argues that the Michigan and Florida votes should be counted but Obama says no — so far, the Democratic Party is holding on to its rules and punishment of Michigan and Florida.

If Michigan and Florida were excluded, the the number of delegates required to win the Democratic Party’s nomination is 2024. (If Michigan and Florida were included, then the majority number would be approximately 2180.)

The following estimates of delegates vary some because the estimates from the caucus results and the the commitments of super-delegates are just estimates with opportunity for slightly different interpretations and counts.

Delegate Counts without Florida and Michigan

NBC: Obama 1,727, Clinton 1,594

ABC: Obama 1,721, Clinton 1,586

CNN:Obama 1,719, Clinton 1,586

CBS:Obama 1,715, Clinton 1,585

AP: Obama 1,714, Clinton 1,589

So Obama leads by about 130 delegates.

Delegate counts with Florida and Michigan (approximation)

Obama 1960-65, Clinton 1925-1930

If Florida and Michigan primaries were honored as they were conducted with no adjustments, Obama would only lead by about 30-35 delegates (Clinton would lead by about 95-100 delegates when the approximately 380 Michigan and Florida delegates are counted, i.e. the approximate delegate counts would be about 1960 for Obama and about 1925-30 for Clinton.)

And now to the estimates of popular votes under various scenarios.

Popular Vote Total without MI and FL and without caucus popular votes

Obama 14,417,134(49.2%), Clinton 13,916,781(47.5%), Obama +500,353(+1.7%)

Estimate without MI and FL but with w/IA, NV, ME, WA caucus popular vote

Obama 14,751,218(49.3%), Clinton 14,140,643(47.2%), Obama +610,575(+2.1%)

Popular Vote (w/FL) but no caucus popular votes

Obama 14,993,348(48.3%), Clinton 14,787,767(47.6%), Obama +205,581(+0.7%)

Estimate with FL and w/IA, NV, ME, WA caucus popular votes

Obama 15,327,432(48.4%), Clinton 15,011,629(47.4%), Obama +315,803(+1.0%)

And now we provide numbers from Michigan primary too. But this is seriously problematic because Clinton is given about 328,000 votes (because her name was on the ballot) and Obama is given zero (because the rest of votes went to “uncommitted” as Obama’s name was not even on the ballot.)

Popular Vote (w/FL & MI) but no caucus popular votes

Obama 14,993,348(47.4%), Clinton 15,116,076(47.8%), Clinton +122,728(+0.4%)

Estimate with FL and MI, and w/IA, NV, ME, WA , and caucus popular votes

Obama 15,327,432(47.5%), Clinton 15,339,938(47.5%), Clinton +12,506 (+0.04%)

In summary, even with the disputed Florida popular votes included Obama leads Clinton. However, only when Michigan is included (where Obama is given zero votes) Clinton leads Obama narrowly.