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Electoral College: Nebraska Strengthens More for McCain

It is McCain’s turn for good polling news today. The latest poll in Nebraska moves the state to a greater than 10% lead for McCain, putting it into the “Strong McCain” category. A special note about Nebraska. It is one of two states (the other being Maine) that does not choose to allocate its electoral votes on a winner take all basis, but rather by congressional district. Unless it was a toss up state though (which it obviously is not at this moment) it is unlikely that it will actually split its electoral vote. (Maine by the way, is Strong Obama, so it is also unlikely to actually split.)

Current Summary:

McCain Best Case – McCain 313, Obama 225
Obama Best Case – Obama 333, McCain 205

And if everybody gets their leans (and Obama gets DC) – Obama 277, McCain 261

Thinking about Nebraska and Maine, it is interesting to note that ultimately each state can choose how it allocates electoral votes. It is only by long standing tradition that it is winner take all based on a popular vote. Any state that wanted to could just as easily change their state laws to have the legislature choose the electors, or the governor. Or for that matter they could choose to have them selected as winning prizes in the state lottery. It is completely up to the states. It is actually kind of a shame that states are not more creative on this.

I still remain in favor of the notion of appointing electors well in advance of the election from a pool of uncommitted people, and having them actually have to be convinced by the candidates to choose one or the other.

That would be different. :-)

Posted by Abulsme -- Wednesday 28 May 2008 16:41:18 UTC
Category: ElecColl | Leave a comment

Closer and Closer (Delegates)

Today one pledged delegate in Alaska moves from Clinton to Obama. Not sure the story behind that one, quite possibly just adjustments as the process finalizes. In addition, Obama gets three more superdelegates and Clinton gets one more superdelegate. Net for today, Obama gains four, Clinton stays even.

Updated stats:

Delegate count is: Obama 1978, Clinton 1780, Edwards 7

In percent terms that is: Obama 52.5%, Clinton 47.3%, Edwards 0.2%

2026 delegates are needed to win.

There are 285 delegates yet to be determined.

Obama needs 48 more delegates to win.

Clinton needs 246 more delegates to win.

In percentage terms, that means:

Obama needs 16.8% of the remaining delegates to win. (It was 28.3% before KY/OR.)

Clinton needs 86.3% of the remaining delegates to win. (It was 74.4% before KY/OR.)

Now, with the updated numbers from DCW if Clinton gets her best case scenario on Saturday (full seating of Florida and Michigan using existing results) Clinton would gain 193 delegates, Obama would gain 97 delegates and Edwards would gain 11 delegates. The new totals would be Obama 2075, Clinton 1973, Edwards 18. The new magic number would be 2209.

With that:

Obama would need 134 more delegates to win (38.1% of what would then be remaining).

Clinton would need 236 more delegates to win (67.0% of what would then be remaining).

And that is Clinton’s BEST case.

Current (admittedly very limited) polls would indicate Obama getting about 40 delegates from the remaining 3 primaries. Which would mean he only needs about 8 more superdelegates to be able to clinch this thing on June 3rd… with no Michigan and Florida.

Rumor has it that Obama has a few dozen superdelegates lined up who have privately committed to declare in his favor within a week of the primaries ending on June 3rd. If we don’t have Clinton’s best case, but something more like the proposal to seat the two delegations at half strength, that will probably be enough to clinch it.

We shall see. The next big event is the Rules Committee meeting on Saturday. Without it, this would almost certainly be over one week from right now. If they move the finish line back a bit, it will take a little longer, but probably only a few days.

We’re just going through the motions now.

(OK, really, we’ve just going through the motions since April 23rd if not even earlier, but now I think even Hillary knows it… at least I hope she does.)

Posted by Abulsme -- Wednesday 28 May 2008 07:41:18 UTC
Category: News | Leave a comment

If Michigan Comes ‘As Is’

The Michigan 36 – Obama gets 18
(Matt, 2008 Democratic Convention Watch)

Michigan selected 36 Uncommitted delegates at their District Conventions in April. The state of these 36 delegates, specifically whether they have officially endorsed Obama, has become important in advance of this weekend’s RBC meeting. Knowing how many of the 36 are committed to Obama could make the difference in what type of deal the Obama campaign is willing to accept. We asked our readers to help us out, and they did.

Information was hard to come by – We weren’t even able to find the names of 5 of the 36 delegates.

Of the remaining 31, 30 of them have been reported to support Obama, but there aren’t good sources for 12 of the 30. We will continue to look for verifiable sources for the rest of these delegates.

But we do have good sources for 18 delegates, and therefore we are moving 18 Uncommitted delegates into the Obama column in our Michigan/Florida sidebar counter, as well as in Scenario 5 in FL & MI By The Numbers.

Posted by Abulsme -- Wednesday 28 May 2008 04:36:15 UTC
Category: News | Leave a comment

Reminds Me of the Wean Physics Lounge

Back in college I would so have done this:

(via Boing Boing Gadgets)

I’m guessing Brandy wouldn’t let me today.

Which is probably a good thing.

Posted by Abulsme -- Wednesday 28 May 2008 03:25:30 UTC
Category: Fun | One comment