Can someone explain to me why there is so much emphasis put on who "wins" a state's popular vote in the media? If Obama were to "win" Indiana tonight, what would be the impact on the delegate total? Maybe 1 or 2 delegates? The major impact would be the perception of the media..which would be "OMG, Obama wins Indiana!!!!" but the effect on the delegate count, which is most important in a primary, would be negligible. Isn't it even possible to "lose" a state in the popular vote, but still win a majority of the delegates?
Its a symbolic thing. The kind of small minded, short sighted garbage that the lapel pin crowd are all about.
It's all psychological. So far, everyone has won the states they were expected to since Super Tuesday. Finally having an upset would be purely a psychological thing that one candidate is gaining real momentum. It's completely irrelevant in terms of the delegate aspect - just as a possible reason for superdelegates to decide to end it.
Yeah, happened in Nevada. Clinton won the vote but Obama got more delegates. And it's because the pledged delegate race was over several weeks ago -- March 4, to be exact. The reason this is a race is centered around theoretical arguments each camp could make to superdelegates, and the state-by-state vote is one of the only arguments the Clinton camp can make at this point. It's not a particularly strong one, no, but it's only hope there is (or was), which is why the media covers it. Clearly it's to the media's benefit to make the race continue, due to ratings and readership.
Wow he's leading in that last remaining county 75% to 25% based on early vote totals. Clinton's lead is down to 20,000. There are more than enough votes out there for Obama to take Indiana. And Hillary already gave a victory speech? WOW
That last chunk that came in was basically 50-50 (30% of the vote). That really hurt him - he's running out of time to make up that 17k vote. He needs to hope the leftover vote is from Gary.
Not necessarily. What people always forget is that 56 percent reporting in Lake County (what it says now) doesn't necessarily mean that 56 percent of the vote is in -- rather, it's 56 percent of the precincts reporting. Could easily be less if most of the last jump was from less populated areas. I'm sure you already know that, but I think it's an important distinction the networks should make more. For example, MSNBC is discussing how the 2 percent of precincts not yet reporting in the county covering Bloomington includes the absentee vote from IU students -- which is expected to give Obama a boost in the thousands and completely disproportionate with the ratio as it is now. He's still got a decent shot, I think.
Good point. It looks like about 70k votes are in from Lake County - my guess (based on 2004 results) is that we're looking at 140k votes total in a best-case scenario, so that's about 70,000 votes left. Ignoring a Bloomington boost, he needs to win the remaining votes about 62-38 or so. Doable - if a lot of is from Gary. Hopefully we find out soon!
It also should be noted that for some reason there's a likely Clinton county on the Ohio border that hasn't reported at all yet. I'm assuming it's extremely small and she'd net between 1-2K max, but who knows -- that might actually end up being the difference. (Yeah, of course all of this is irrelevant in the big picture, but it's really fun to watch anyway.)
It would be really funny (from a neutral viewpoint) if Obama took the lead and then that bizarre county decided to report and flip it back to Clinton!
If Obama pulls this one out, I deserve a big pat on the back. I called it earlier and explained exactly why.
There are a few counties that are still at 98% reporting and I believe they are all strong Obama areas, so he could pick up another couple of thousand votes there when all is said and done. Also, if he cuts the lead by only a couple of thousand more votes it will change the CNN numbers to 50% - 50%, and that I think would have a psychological impact as well. No matter what happens, however, Clinton has lost ground in both the delegate count and the popular vote at a time when she needed to start making up ground if she had any chance. I think she only hurts the party by continuing after today, and she may well hurt herself as well. If she wants to politically live to fight another day then I think now is the time to bow out gracefully.
