Wednesday, May 21, 2008

Magic Numbers

With just 86 pledged delegates up for grabs in Puerto Rico, Montana and South Dakota, and 212 remaining undeclared superdelegates, Obama just needs about 20-25 superdelegate endorsements to hit the magic 2,026 number to claim the Democratic nomination, assuming he just splits the remaining 86 in half. But it’s quite likely that the magic number is going to change, because it appears that the DNC Rules and Bylaws Committee has every intention of coming up with some sort of Florida/Michigan compromise. The one number we know it won’t be is 2,210 -- the number the Clinton campaign keeps using, because there seems to be little appetite among DNC types (still angry at the calendar mess those two states created) from seating the delegations in full. That means some sort of cut. The most likely magic numbers would be 2,131 or 2,118, which would cut the two delegations in half, either keeping the supers fully in tact (the former number) or cutting them in half, too (the latter). And so if you have those new magic numbers, then Obama needs approximately 50 new superdelegate endorsements to take enough delegates off the table that there is no mathematical possibility for Clinton to secure enough delegates to win the nomination without somehow convincing Obama pledged delegates and/or supers to switch.

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