Clear as Mud

I never took statistics in college so I am not overwhelmingly familiar with the various nuances of patterns. However, one of the political blogs I read does a pretty good job sifting the data and has come up with a decent breakdown of Democratic voting patterns so far. The one major caveat in all this analysis is that it assumes that voting trends stay static. After today, Mr. Obama will likely have won eight contests in a row and perception can dictate reality. There is a possibility that many of the people who are in the Clinton camp, may start to vote for Mr. Obama simply because of the perceived wave of momentum and the belief that they need to pick a candidate now to counter Mr. McCain.

However, if the patterns do remain static, we should be able to apply this measure and see how things will break in the near future. As we noted, Mr. Obama will probably sweep the three Potomac primaries today, although Ms. Clinton could do better in Virginia than many are expecting her to.

One week later, Wisconsin and Hawaii will vote. Hawaii will probably go to Mr. Obama due to its being the state of his birth and its being a caucus state. Ms. Clinton has a shot at Wisconsin due to its heavy union and manufacturing base, but that might be offset by the influence of Chicago on the Milwaukee media market as well as the heavily liberal university areas in the center of the state. But with a week of time to play with, Ms. Clinton could make things close if she spends a lot of time in the state.

Texas is almost sure to go Ms. Clinton’s way although Mr. Obama will do very well in the Dallas region and will take a number of delegates due to this area. Ohio is the real question. Ms. Clinton should do well in the union areas of Cleveland, Toledo, and Youngstown while Mr. Obama will do well in Columbus and Cincinnati. The nominally Republican areas of southeast Ohio will probably favor Ms. Clinton due to the low income and largely white nature of the region. She also has the strong backing of Gov. Strickland, which might swing a few fence sitters. Still, Mr. Obama will do well enough in some congressional districts to win a few delegates. Ms. Clinton should also win Rhode Island although I think Vermont might trend towards Mr. Obama.

These should blunt Mr. Obama’s momentum if the models hold although he will pick up steam again with likely victories in Wyoming and Mississippi a few days later. Then there is a long layoff until the Pennsylvania primary on April 22. Mr. Obama should be ahead in overall delegate count, although the margin may not be that large if Ms. Clinton does as well as the models suggest she should. The long layoff should help Ms. Clinton really work the state and she should take it, although Mr. Obama is likely to do very well in the Philadelphia region.

After this come a string of lesser primaries, many of which will favor Mr. Obama. Going with my gut and the numbers suggested by the model, I would guess the breakdown of the remaining states and territories would be:

Indiana – Obama
North Carolina – Obama
West Virginia – Clinton
Kentucky – Clinton
Oregon – Obama
Montana – Obama
South Dakota – Obama
Puerto Rico – Clinton

All total, it is unlikely that either candidate will get the 2,025 delegates necessary to win. So it comes down to the Superdelegates.

Some Superdelegates have already pledged, but they have the right to change their minds. Some will probably take the safe way out and go with the way their district or state voted. However, that would still leave upwards of 300-400 Superdelegates unaccounted for.

We also still have the nastiness that could emerge from seating the Michigan and Florida delegations. Some accommodation could probably be made with Florida since all names were on the ballot and Ms. Clinton did not break the non-campaign pledge until the day of the primary so those results are probably close to the real numbers for the state. Michigan on the other hand, did not have Mr. Obama or Mr. Edwards on the ballot and trying to award those delegates based on the voting results would be drastically inaccurate. If it does come down to a floor fight, the two states might be allowed to sit after the first ballot is inconclusive, although who knows how things will actually go.

One other little wrinkle in the picture is that many of the caucus states do not directly elect delegates to the national convention. Instead, they elect delegates to the state convention who then elect delegate to the national convention. So, while Mr. Obama might have won the majority of delegates to a state convention, it is not inconceivable that Ms. Clinton and her delegates could convince some of those to change position and she would take more delegates to the national convention.

With all these variables going on, I strongly suspect that any rumors that Ms. Clinton will withdraw if she loses Texas and Ohio are strongly overblown. Mr. Obama might have the momentum at the moment, but Ms. Clinton will fight back. It may get ugly before it’s all done, but it will get done eventually.