The Road To Ohio

Over the last few days I've rewrote (and lost) this post about 5 times. I know I'm making a tremendous amount of assumptions, but still, I'm trying to picture the road to the Ohio primary.

Here's the rundown on specifically why the Ohio Primary will matter (and I've even run some numbers).

Barack Obama's going to win South Carolina this weekend. No doubt. He's been averaging 10+ points over Clinton for a while, and despite her recent shenanigans, that lead doesn't seem like it's going to disappear. So going into Super Duper Duper Tuesday, we'll have two major candidates tilting on a near nuclear race with stakes to the moon.

For a while I've thought this race is past the point where it matters who wins what state. Arguably, Obama's win in South Carolina this weekend is important to bring his momentum back up going into the 5th, but other than that it's all about the delegates baby. I legitimately believe we could be in for quite a few loop dee loops if both candidates perform reasonably well on the 5th, which I expect to happen. So let's take a looksie for a quick second at the delegate game.

There are 4,049 delegate slots open in the Democratic contest (of which 3253 are pledged, and 796 super delegates who get a vote at the convention just because they're big stuff). It takes 2,025 delegates to shore up the nomination. The current delegate count for candidates (pledged and super delegates) is:

Clinton 202*
Obama 116
Edwards 51
*Interesting note...since I've been writing this piece Clinton has lost 8 super delegates from the CNN tracking page.

However, since Florida's delegates don't count, and Obama's big lead in South Carolina, I'm picturing the delegate race to be somewhere around here going into the Super Duper Duper Tuesday:

Clinton 221 (SC pickup of 19)
Obama 238 (SC pickup of 24)
Edwards 53 (SC pickup of 2)**
I'm projecting Edwards so low because in many statewide SC polls he's failing to break the 15% threshold to pick up any delegates

So then we hit the 5th...where the rules change. Between the three largest states up for grabs - California, New York and Illinois, respectively - there are 862 pledged delegates up for grabs. That's four states...1/3 the necessary delegates to clinch the nomination alone...forget for just a second about the other 21 states holding contests that day! And in all these states (aside from the six caucuses - Alaska, Colorado, Idaho, Kansas, Minnesota & North Dakota) the primaries award delegates proportionally by vote, so someone finishing in second place anywhere could receive more delegates than the first place finish (like Obama in Nevada), or still stay competitive in the delegate race if they finish respectably in the big states.

Clinton and Obama are both going after California and New York, while I expect her to steamroll Barack in her home state (as polling suggests too)...but that's fine, as long as Obama finishes competitively to pick up a fraction of NY's 232 delegates. California's a different story. It's heated. It's contested. And Hillary has been slipping for weeks there. Even if she wins the state, expect the delegate count to be close. And that leaves Illinois (which will go for Obama) and New Jersey (which will probably go mostly for Hillary).

But then there are all these other small states where the story is a toss up. Barack's been pulling high in Idaho since last summer, he's up in Georgia, and elsewhere. By my spreadsheets in the delegate race, I see Barack at anywhere from 650ish to 1150ih, and Hillary as high as 1300 (just considering the pledged delegates). The takehome message being of course that the race isn't over.

From February 9th till the 19th, there are 10 more Democratic contests with another 447 delegates up for grabs. Even if all of these went for Hillary or Obama (which they won't...Hawaii certainly breaks for Obama while Maine will probably go for Hillary), neither candidate would be at the magic "2,025" delegate number to clinch the nomination.

So then the race moves to Ohio.

On our primary date, March 4th, there are 382 delegates up for grabs spread out amongst four states (Ohio - 141 pledged , Texas - 193 pledged, Rhode Island - 21 pledged , and Vermont - 15 pledged). To put it in perspective, Ohio and Texas are the biggest states to hold contests post Super Duper Tuesday. So yea, sure, all this hubub about Ohio mattering that the Ohio papers suddenly took up last week is true.

On approximately February 6th I expect presidential campaigns to begin swarming the buckeye state.