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DEMOCRATIC PRIMARIES AND CAUCUSES 2008 Click for Republican primaries and caucuses

 
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News: Updated Apr. 03


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News from the Votemaster

Federal Reserve Bank Chairman Ben Bernanke told Congress yesterday that the country is probably already in a recession. This announcement is likely to have serious political ramifications. First, it will put the economy squarely in the middle of the election debate and cause the candidates to be peppered with more questions about the economy than about Iraq and other topics. Second, bad economic times generally help the Democrats as they are viewed as the party willing to actively take measures to create jobs (Obama has already proposed spending a lot of money on rebuilding the nation's infrastructure, for example). Republicans generally prefer to let market forces solve the problem (if many people are unemployed, wages will be forced down and companies will find it attractive to hire these new cheap workers, thus creating more jobs). Third, when someone gets laid off, he or she tends to look for someone to blame and more often than not it is the President and his party. You don't have to be Herbert Hoover to suffer political damage from a recession. This year all three factors help the Democrats in part because John McCain has never claimed economics as his forte. His strength is national security and to the extent people are worried about being fired rather than worried about a terrorist attack, they will look to the Democrats for answers.

Talking Points Memo has more on the Sirota race chasm story discussed here Tuesday.

One noteworthy item that has been under the radar is the slow but steady movement of the superdelegates towards Obama. The table below shows the estimates of various news sources of Barack Obama's lead over Hillary Clinton on March 6 (thus after the Texas and Ohio elections) and today. Two things stand out. First, the spread is much less. The various sources are beginning to converge on the same numbers as more and more superdelegates announce their positions. Second, Obama's lead is slowly but inexorably growing. His lead has grown by 30 in the past month. After Pennsylvania and North Carolina vote, it will probably still be something around 120-130 because Clinton's expected win in Pennsylvania is likely to be cancelled by Obama's expected win in North Carolina. CQPolitics has a story on the math. Bottom line: Obama has the holy trinity on his side: most delegates, most states, and most popular votes. To convince the remaining superdelegates to go for her, she has to take the lead in at least one of the categories by doing very well in the remaining primaries and caucuses.

Source March 6 April 3
Washington Post 105 134
New York Times 87 154
Associated Press 105 134
CNN 96 140
ABC 106 132
CBS 111 134
MSNBC 142 131
Average 107 137

No new primary polls today but one new general election poll shows both Clinton and Obama beating McCain in Pennsylvania, she 48% to 40% and he 43% to 39%.

The polling results for all primaries and caucuses are available as a Web page and in .csv format.

Here are the delegate totals from various news sources rounded to integers (Democrats Abroad has 22 delegates, each with 1/2 vote). The sources differ because in most caucus states, no delegates to the national conventions have been chosen yet, just delegates to the district, county, or state convention so there is some guesswork involved. Furthermore, some of the unpledged delegates are elected at state conventions in May or June. Finally, the PLEOs (Party Leaders and Elected Officials) sometimes waver and may tell different reporters slightly different stories that they interpret differently.

Delegates

Source Clinton Obama BHO-HRC Edwards McCain Romney Huckabee Paul
Washington Post 1500 1634 +134   1334   278  
NY Times 1471 1628 +154 12 1162 142 232 5
AP 1500 1634 +134 18 1334 257 278 14
CNN 1486 1626 +140 26 1325 255 267 16
ABC 1497 1629 +132 32 1267 273 272 14
CBS 1492 1626 +134 26 1241 149 231 10
MSNBC 1507 1638 +131 26 1266 293 262 14

Needed to win: Democrats 2024, Republicans 1191.

Here is another source for delegate totals.



-- The Votemaster
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