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How many superdelegates each candidate needs.

There's been a lot of talk recently along the lines of "Clinton needs 64% of the remaining delegates".  Well, she's almost certainly not going to get 64% of the remaining pledged delegates, so this got me wondering: how many more superdelegates does each candidate realistically need, at this point?

According to CBS, the current counts are the following:

Obama, pledged: 1392
Clinton, pledged: 1226

In total, there are 3253 pledged delegates.  This means that there are 635 pledged delegates who are currently unaccounted for.

Let's assume that each candidate will get roughly half (which doesn't seem like an awful assumption) - 317 or 318.  Hell, we'll give the 318 to Clinton, just to be magnanimous.

That means that at the end of the primaries, the pledged delegate count will be approximately:

Obama: 1709
Clinton: 1544

Again according to CBS, the current superdelegate counts are:

Obama: 202
Clinton: 245

Which brings us to:

Obama: 1911
Clinton: 1789

A candidate will need at least 2025 votes to wrap it up.  Which means:

Obama needs 114 more superdelegates
Clinton needs 236 more superdelegates

There are a total of 795 superdelegates, 447 of which have already expressed a preference.  Leaving 348 superdelegates currently available.

Which means:

Obama needs slightly less than one out of every three remaining superdelegates.

Clinton needs slightly more than two out of every three remaining superdelegates.


Comments (8)

avatar

Encouraging for Obama supporters.....I think most reasonable people have understood the conclusion for awhile now. Really shows how Clinton's only chance is to completely destroy Obama.

don't forget fly:
http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/talk/2008/03/convention-math-remember-the-u.php
76 of those super delegates are automatic.
obama will get at least 40 of them.
so he will need (114-40)/(348-76) = 27%

If you look at the states he is likely to get in the future that number is likely to go up.

Oh sweet lord when is wolf blitzer or anderson cooper going to have an indepth look at the delegate numbers?

She can't win. Let vote FL and MI in 8 weeks so they can't hang on to any other firewalls.

best superdelegate count is demconwatch.

They have Obama at 207 I believe.

avatar

Zell -- Do your figures of number remaining and number needed include MI and FL in the total or exclude them? Thanks! I've been trying to sort of figure this out myself and appreciate your doing it so neatly!

Excluded. I base this on what CBS has done.

(and on reality)

avatar

Thanks for the info, nicely summarized. Worth pointing out that the "pledged" superdelegates can switch though - currently this seems to be in Obama's favour, though it's possible the tide could turn.
Also, apparently the numbers from caucus states are still just estimates, and could change by 20-40 delegates by the time they're finalized.

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