I gotta admit that I don’t really understand exactly how the Democrat nomination process works… but from what I have heard, even with her wins last Tuesday a victory is nigh impossible for Hillary.
Does the possible seating of delegates from FL and MI place her in a much more tenable position?
[nitpick]Neither Clinton or Obama can possibly get enough pledged delegates to win without enough superdelegates. It is mathematically still possible for Clinton to catch up to Obama’s pledged total but it is extremely unlikely.
Since delegates are for the most part proportionally awarded, either candidate would have to win the remaining states by HUGE margins to win the nomination outright. It’s mathematically possible, but not practically possible.
No, Obama has just over 1300 pledged delegates, so even if he wins 100% of the remaining 650-something pledged delegates, he needs some superdelegates to support him to take the nomination.
Ah, my mistake, I had incorrect numbers.
Jonathan Alter of Newsweek doesn’t think so. His analysis in this article is interesting and, as predicatable as anything in this election season can be, seems pretty well-reasoned and plausible.
I read an analysis in a newspaper yesterday. The article said that due to the Democratic party’s policy of splitting delegates, Obama to secure the nomination he’d need to get 77% of the popular votes in all of the remaining primaries. Clinton would need to get 94% of the popular votes to win. Neither candidate is going to develop that kind of lead, so it’s virtually impossible for either to win the nomination in the primaries at this point (barring one of them dropping out). The race will go to the convention where independent superdelegates will cast the winning votes.
No, since she won’t get all of them and even with all, I don’t think so.
In fact I think those two states might not even completely close the gap, but I’d like to see some math on that.
The question in the OP wasn’t whether it was practically possible for Clinton to win. The question was if it was mathematically possible. Yes, it’s mathematically possible. She would need to win most of the remaining primaries and most of the superdelegates would have to choose her. The same is true for Obama, although he would need somewhat less of the primaries and the superdelegates.
The linked article above has the math…
Being a long-time supporter of the Saskatchewan Roughriders, I know that as soon as the pundits are talking about it still being mathematically possible to make the playoffs, it means, you ain’t gonna make the play-offs. Same principle applies in politics, mutatis mutandis.