Monday, March 3, 2008

Writing on the Wall


Looking ahead to what could potentially be Hillary Clinton's last contests a lot of the late momentum seems to be moving her way. Let's take a quick look at Hillary's best hope as well as a more likely scenario.


Hillary's best hope is that she wins Ohio, Texas, and Rhode Island. Given the closeness in the polls, the best she could really hope for is about a 53-46 split in Ohio netting about + 7 delegates. In Texas, where most polls show Obama in the lead, if she can win 51-48 and net + 8 delagates she would consider it a great day. She could get a 10point win in RI and a lose Vermont by 20 pts and the delegates would offset. So in Hillary's best case scenario, she wins 3 of the 4 states and nets a total of 15 delegates.


This could eat into Barack's 155 pledged delegate lead and cut it to 140. With the Wyomiing caucus on Saturday and the Mississippi primary next Tuesday the lead would only go back up. Further making this a daunting challenge for Hillary, is there are only 625 pledged delegates left. This would mean she would need to win 383 to 243 to pull even in pledged delegates.


The math doesn't work.


That was the best case for Hillary, the more likely case is that Barack wins Texas and takes home at least an extra 8 delegates, Hillary wins about a 3 point win in Ohio netting about 3 delegates and RI and Vermont split with offsetting delegates. The net of it is that he adds to the delegate lead.


Barack will win Texas because he has a superior ground organization that has helped to drive over 800000 early votes. Some estmates have Barack getting 60% of the early vote meaning he starts Tuesday with a 200,000 vote lead.These votes will not show up in the exit polling so early results may point to Hillary Clinton.


Either scencario the leadership in the Democratic party fall in line behind Barack and pressures Hillary to drop out. I don't see how Wednesday morning reality doesn't set in. My guess is that Bill will be the voice of reason.


1 comment:

www.ayewonder.com said...

Sheesh Phil, I hope you're right but I am nervous today.