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Obama Winning Popular Vote!!
I have been thinking about this whole popular vote argument from the Clinton campaign so I decided to see how they came up with this voodoo math.
According to Real Clear Politics the only measure under which Clinton is ahead in the popular vote is if:
- the caucus states of IA, NV, ME and WA are excluded
- MI and FL are included AS IS
Fine, if that is the way they want to look at it BUT this assumes that Obama received NO votes in Michigan. Now of course, at least some of the 237,762 (source: CNN.com) Uncommitted votes were for Obama. Lets assume that he and Edwards split that vote. If you average all of the percentages for Edwards while he was in the race (Iowa through Florida), he captures 16.6% of the total vote. Translated to the Michigan results, he gets 97,937 of 589,984 leaving Obama with 138,056 or 23.4% of the total popular vote.
Now, what does this mean for the total popular vote? If you use the calculation above (without caucus states but with FL and MI), Obama has 16,684,752 and Clinton has 16,711,719. If you give Obama his 23.4% of MI, his total becomes 16,822,808!
Comments (5)
Thanks for the post and link. I was wondering how the Clinton campaign was reckoning their popular vote "lead".Not that it matters that much, but it sure is close.
May 20, 2008 10:42 AM | Reply | Permalink
The popular vote is such a misnomer - not all the people vote or can vote in the various Dem primaries. Indeed, to call the 'majority of votes cast' number popular implies that the primary process is more democratic than it really is; unlike 'real' elections, the primary system is not meant to necessarily aggregate the preferences of the electorate to produce the winning candidate, but rather to incorporate very imprecisely measured preferences into what is ultimately the party leadership's decision regarding which candidate receives the party's blessing. In essence, the primary is an instrument or tool the party uses to measure intra-party popularity but not to necessarily be the final word on who gets the nomination.
For Clinton to claim that the popular votes matters at all is quite disingenuous; it seems that a short while ago she urged superdelegates to override 'popular' party opinion. More troubling is that she ignores caucus states because caucuses supposedly distort the 'popular will'. Well, so does the inclusion of both open and closed primaries, numbers from primaries with different rules and MI and FL (since those states' ballots didn't include Obama and he never campaigned in either state). At any rate, the idea that primary votes represent the party's popular will is hogwash no matter how you measure them; I just hope the party can come up with a better primary system next go-around so we can avoid future primary nonsense.
May 20, 2008 11:03 AM | Reply | Permalink
You are exactly right! Funny thing is that Obama is still beating Clinton EVEN BY HER OWN MEASURE.
Rules? SHE don't need no stinkin' rules!
May 20, 2008 11:34 AM | Reply | Permalink
According to Real Clear Politics the only measure under which Clinton is ahead in the popular vote is if: - the caucus states of IA, NV, ME and WA are excluded - MI and FL are included AS IS
And don't forget to point out that even with that kind of counting, her lead is 27k votes, less than one tenth of one percent. This is what she's hoping will impress the superdelegates.
May 20, 2008 12:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
I've resigned myself to the Clinton campaign's pushing of silly math. What's bothered me more lately is more and more media folks, when interviewing Clinton people, seem to be letting them say they lead in the popular vote without challenging them on the questionable way they arrive at that claim. This lends undeserved credibility to the claim and exacerbates divisions in the party.
May 20, 2008 12:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
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