With all the talk about states won, delegates pledged, and super-delegates.. well, doing whatever it is that they do... I can't help but think the most important numbers are being totally ignored. Why is nobody talking about the actual number of votes received by each of the candidates?
So let's talk about them. Let's start with the caucus states:
I had to check the math a couple times, but, yes, you're reading that correctly. Obama has better than a 2 to 1 advantage over Clinton in the caucus states. There's a problem here, though. The DNC (so far as I can tell) doesn't release the actual number of voters from these states, just a number which represents the estimated number of state convention delegates that the candidates would have by the time of the convention, based on the caucus results. Confused yet? Good. So is the rest of the country.
We can assume that turnout was higher than normal. And we can assume that these state delegates accurately represent a total number of voters. We can also assume that the difference in awarded state delegates generally represent an accurate percentage of total voters who voted for each candidate.
But there are way too many instances of the word "assume" in that paragraph, so guess what? We're going to ignore those numbers entirely. Here are the states which have had actual primary elections with individually counted votes:
As it stands right now, Barack Obama has received 535,050 more individual votes than Hillary Clinton in these states. Obama consistently out performs Clinton when he wins and has won by some huge margins. We already know that he has been chipping away relentlessly at Hillary's lead in the delegate count. Unsurprisingly, he also caught up with and then surpassed her in the popular vote.
Next week when Wisconsin votes, Obama's lead will increase again (Hawai'i is a caucus state and we are ignoring those right now, remember). In the (imaginary) popular election, Hillary will be down by about 600,000 votes. This is a huge number. To put it into perspective, Clinton only beat Obama by 305,709 votes in New York, her home state. And by only 398,238 in California, which had almost 4 million total votes cast. Even if she wins both Texas and Ohio and even if she wins both by large margins, there is little chance that she will "win" the national popular vote.
"But wait just a gol' dern minute!" you say. "What about Florida and Michigan!" Good catch my friend. I left those off the list deliberately. Here's where it gets really complicated:
Let's assume for one second that the DNC will be feeling controversial enough to actually entertain the idea of counting the votes in Florida and Michigan. Taking Florida into account, it doesn't look much brighter for Clinton; Obama still has a 246,883 vote advantage. Now, when we factor in Michigan's votes for Hillary, she takes a brief lead by 81,268 votes, but there's a problem there. There were 237,762 "uncommitted" voters. Perhaps the Clinton campaign is counting on those voters splitting 2:1 for Mike Gravel, but I doubt it. Once those uncommitted voters lock into Obama, he retakes the lead by 156,494 votes.
And remember, we are totally ignoring the voter turnout in all caucus states.
So what does any of this matter if the popular vote is totally imaginary? This brings us back to those pesky super-delegates. The last thing anyone wants is even a superficial resemblance to the 2000 election. Ignore speculation about which super-delegates have loyalties to which candidate. They will align with the winner of the popular vote.
If you are in one of the remaining states, please understand how important your vote is. Ohio, Rhode Island, Texas, Vermont, Wyoming, Mississippi, Pennsylvania, Indiana, North Carolina, West Virginia, Kentucky, Oregon, Montana, and South Dakota. You will decide this election.