Election Math

An excellent analysis by the University of Virginia's Larry J. Sabato:

On the morning after Pennsylvania, she insisted that she had taken a narrow popular-vote lead, about 15.12 million to nearly 15 million for Obama. But this is classic "new math", where the numerical answer obtained is often less important than the agile mental gymnastics used to get there.

Clinton's total relies on two very dubious assumptions. First, one must incorporate the primary results from Florida and Michigan, two January contests excluded by the Democratic National Committee for violating the scheduling rules set by the party. This is no minor sum of votes - 2,344,318, to be exact.

But no even-handed person would contend that Michigan, whose primary occurred on 15 January, should be part of the equation. Barack Obama's name was not even on the ballot.

The vote total cited by Clinton conveniently excludes three caucus states won by Obama, in Iowa, Maine, and Washington. (Nevada, won by Clinton, is also left out of the tally.) No-one knows the exact number of votes cast for each candidate in these four states since the state parties, by tradition, refuse to release the data.

Eliminating Michigan, the Obama-Clinton match-up shows an Obama edge of a couple hundred thousand votes. Striking Florida brings it to about a half-million-vote Obama plurality. And the unknown caucus results would add at least 100,000 to his lead.

I would suggest reading the entire piece. The explanation he provides is both concise and very informative.