Posted by Jed Lewison on Wed May 28, 2008 at 11:12 PM Pacific

Some back-of-envelope delegate math

All the current numbers are based on figures from DemConWatch. But don't blame them if I've screwed anything up. (Leave that to me!)

Excluding MI/FL:

  • Today, Barack has 1,980 delegates, 45.5 short of the 2,025.5 he'll need
  • By Tuesday, he will have picked up another 40 or delegates from the elections (perhaps more, probably not less).
  • Assuming the forty superdelegates that Russert and Ambinder (who said 36) exist, than Barack should end Tuesday or begin Wednesday with 2060 or so -- well beyond the magic number that everybody agreed to at the start of the campaign.

Including MI/FL at full strength (this will not ever happen, but being able to say he's got enough delegates that he'd win IF they were seated at full strength will be an important talking point):

  • Today, Barack has 2,081 delegates (including 22 of the uncomitted Michigan delegates), putting him 129 short of the 2,210 he'd need.
  • Projecting 40 for Tuesday and assuming the 40 "banked" delegates exist, Barack will have 2,161 delegates, leaving him 49 short.
  • There would be 18 Edwards delegates and 33 uncommitted Michigan delegates. Assuming that he can get most of these delegates on board, he'd only need a handful of undeclared supers to come on board to hit 2,210.  With a lot of luck, he might even be able to say that he's got the 2,210 number locked down by Tuesday or Wednesday; it should certainly by possible very shortly after Tuesday.

The value of getting to that 2,210 number is that Clinton has no comeback; I don't like playing the game by her rules, but if someone proposes a game you know you can't lose, it's not the worst thing in the world to take them up on it.

Some back-of-envelope delegate math

All the current numbers are based on figures from DemConWatch. But don't blame them if I've screwed anything up. (Leave that to me!)

Excluding MI/FL:

  • Today, Barack has 1,980 delegates, 45.5 short of the 2,025.5 he'll need
  • By Tuesday, he will have picked up another 40 or delegates from the elections (perhaps more, probably not less).
  • Assuming the forty superdelegates that Russert and Ambinder (who said 36) exist, than Barack should end Tuesday or begin Wednesday with 2060 or so -- well beyond the magic number that everybody agreed to at the start of the campaign.

Including MI/FL at full strength (this will not ever happen, but being able to say he's got enough delegates that he'd win IF they were seated at full strength will be an important talking point):

  • Today, Barack has 2,081 delegates (including 22 of the uncomitted Michigan delegates), putting him 129 short of the 2,210 he'd need.
  • Projecting 40 for Tuesday and assuming the 40 "banked" delegates exist, Barack will have 2,161 delegates, leaving him 49 short.
  • There would be 18 Edwards delegates and 33 uncommitted Michigan delegates. Assuming that he can get most of these delegates on board, he'd only need a handful of undeclared supers to come on board to hit 2,210.  With a lot of luck, he might even be able to say that he's got the 2,210 number locked down by Tuesday or Wednesday; it should certainly by possible very shortly after Tuesday.

The value of getting to that 2,210 number is that Clinton has no comeback; I don't like playing the game by her rules, but if someone proposes a game you know you can't lose, it's not the worst thing in the world to take them up on it.

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