Obama Camp: Our Popular Vote Lead Is Pretty Insurmountable Too

Buttressed by a victory in last night's Mississippi primary, Senator Barack Obama's presidential campaign claimed on Wednesday that it not only had a pledged delegate lead that would be hard to reverse, but also a popular vote advantage that Sen. Hillary Clinton would have difficulties overcoming.

"Although we don't think this is the barometer on which the race will be decided, we have a big popular vote lead," said campaign manager David Plouffe. "Our popular vote lead is up around a million. Which is obviously a significant edge and one they would have a very tough time reversing."

Plouffe's estimation was much higher than those offered by news outlets. According to Real Clear Politics, Obama leads Clinton by slightly more than 700,000 votes after 40-plus primary elections. That number drops to just over 400,000 when including Florida's results (in Michigan Obama was not on the ballot).

The difference between these estimates and those from the Obama camp, Plouffe offered, was due to the fact that many of the caucus states had yet to tally their popular votes. In Texas, he offered as an example, "we project to pick up a 120,000 popular vote advantage [in the caucus], which is larger than what Senator Clinton got out of the primary." In Mississippi, meanwhile, Plouffe estimated that Obama would have a net gain of approximately 100,000 votes.

With only ten primary elections left in the nomination process there is an increasing likelihood that Obama will end up with a relatively substantial pledge delegate lead. After Mississippi's election his campaign estimated that he had not only erased the losses he had in Texas, Ohio, and Rhode Island, but now bested Clinton by 161 such delegates.

Faced with these obstacles, the Clinton camp has tried to refocus the political spotlight on the popular vote; the logic being that if they could overtake Obama in that account they could make a strong case to super delegates -- the party insiders who vote independently for candidates during the Democratic convention -- to come to their side.

"They are trying to hold the popular vote out there because they can't overtake the delegate lead," said Plouffe. "They are trying to create a diversion there... But our lead is bigger than most counts have it."

The confidence of Plouffe's delegate and popular vote projections stood in contrast the pessimism with which he discussed the upcoming Pennsylvania primary. In a heavy dose of expectations-setting -- something the Obama camp has been accused, by supporters, of lacking -- he argued that the state was tailored to Clinton's strengths. "They are the prohibitive favorite, they will campaign there very hard," Plouffe added. "We will try to win but our campaign will not be defined by Pennsylvania."

The Obama campaign also sent out a memo to reporters in the midst of the conference call. The document read:

The Clinton Campaign would like to focus your attention only on Pennsylvania - a state in which they have already declared that they are "unbeatable." But Pennsylvania is only one of 10 remaining contests, each important in terms of allocating delegates and ultimately deciding who are nominee will be.

Comments

[Dahveed]

Obama has been consistently ahead from the beginning in votes, pledged delegates, and states won, and he has continued to establish panoramic support across demographics. Meanwhile, the second-rate mudslinging Clinton-Huckabee spoiler campaign reacts visciously, fearing any loss of its "base" - older white women and blue collar folks, the so-called downscale "beer Democrats.­" The arrogance of the Clintons' pursuit is mindboggling. All the wasted millions now forcibly spent by both campaigns merely so Ms. Clinton can try to spin or otherwise manipulate Obama's lead into a loss? What right-thinking Democrat could support such an unscrupulous and unprincipled candidate? C'mon people! Wake up!

[Politiking]

HuPo not a lost of positive news and spins for Obama.

Why don't you call the primary already for Obama and call for Hillary to stop campaigning? You can't because you know Obama does not have the necessary 2025 to win the nomination just like Hillary. You know this is going to the convention whether your writers, bloggers, and fans of Obama like it or not.

[longislandlol]

Also-- Are all the college kids in Pennsylvania eligible to vote on the 22nd? Also-- are they on Spring break then? He needs these kids to get the vote out front to lead - he should accept the Matthews college tour.

[Grannysue]

Doesn't matter to Hillary, she doesn't understand the word "defeat" it's not in her vocabulary.
It's I'm entitled, so what if he's ahead, we will put on the best smear campaign ever and try and paint this as some kind of race election! The only race I would love to see is Hillary and Bill racing to the airport to catch their plane back to NYC defeated! And I voted for Bill Clinton and thought he was a good President, but they have no shame in what they are stooping to know.

[PrdAmerican]

In it to win, democracy be dammed!!!!

[sssmith2]

The notion that caucuses represent the popular will is absurd--if Obama's people were in the reverse position they'd be arguing that these were packed with activist elites and he was being outspent.

[Mindleftnumb]

Typical Hillary supporter. Selectively choosing which rules the campaign should abide by. ITS OVER! GET OVER IT!

[indie17]

Guess it doesn't matter that Obama has won more primaries, 14 to 12?

Obama Primary Wins equals 14 states: Alabama, Connecticut, Delaware, Georgia, Illinois, Missouri, Utah, South Carolina, Louisiana, Maryland, Virginia, Vermont, Wisconsin,and Mississippi, plus the Virgin Islands, Democrats Abroad, and D.C. (the last 3 are not included in the total.)

Obama Caucus wins equals 13 states: Alaska, Colorado, Idaho, Kansas, Minnesota, North Dakota, Nebraska, Washington, Maine, Iowa, Hawaii, Texas, and Wyoming.

Clinton Primary Wins equals 12 states: Arizona, Arkansas, California, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Oklahoma, Tennessee, New Hampshire, Texas, Rhode Island,and Ohio.

Clinton Caucus wins equals 2 states: Nevada and New Mexico, plus American Samoa.

[neocon43]

Ask yourself.H­ow many of the states that Obama won will be won in general.Ha­rdly any.Bye Bye!

[JerryJef]

Whose numbers are we to take? A state by state tabulation of MSNBC reported numbers has Obama ahead by 734,500 through Mississippi last night and excluding Florida and Michigan. Yet ABC has Obama ahead by a mere 6,400 votes, but ABC does not specify the content of their numbers.

Chuck Todd said on MSNBC last night that there are vote changes in both Calfornia and Texas. He said California is still counting ballots and Obama has picked up significant numbers. He never got to finish his comments about Texas. I read a report last night about delegate shaving by Clinton in the Colorado district conventions. Colorado district conventions are not following the delegate distribution patterns set by the precinct caucuses. I don't know if the Obama campaign is on top of this or if it is illegal, but before state conventions are held in all the caucus states the delegate count may be quite different than what it was thought to be after the local caucuses.

Before we begin to argue about what the do with the numbers, we would be well advised to ascertain how these numbers a being put together. Don't you think?

[mcfried]

ABC like Clinton cheats to keep her in the race and keep up their ratings.

[indie17]

Yes, JerryJef, good point. I use Real Clear Politics as I think they are more likely to be objective.

I believe the Texas Caucus numbers are not official yet. I also don't think that Obama can count these as 'popular vote', since the same people voted in the primary.

I've been keeping my own math (spreadsheets) since the beginning, but I have not completed a projection on remaining popular vote. I think Clinton probably does have a chance at winning it, depending on voter turnout in the states she is likely to win, of course.

But right now, Obama is ahead, for certain. RCP has him at +702,162.

[WarrenChristmas]

QUOTE
_________
That number drops to just over 400,000 when including Florida's results (in Michigan Obama was not on the ballot).
________

Adding Florida & Michigan are Clintonian talking points.

It has been brought to light a million times over how Florida & Michigan are out (and why).

When the media brings up Florida & Michigan, it plays right into Clinton's fantasy-based spin.

[BrooklynLager]

So, I took a look at the Mississippi exit polls:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21225989

THIRTEEN PERCENT of Hillary Clinton's voters said they would be DISSATISFIED with her as the nominee. That's the Rush Limbaugh vote.

[the964kid]

wow...

[BeyondGoodAndEvil]

Interesting. They did show on CNN last night that the districts she won were conservative Republican districts.

[CWWest]

As it was in the 90's, the wingnuts and the Clinton camp feed off each other, at the expense of everyone else. More Clinton will always mean more Rush.

The corresponding number for Obama is 4%, so subtracting that from both (call it noise) we have a 9% Rush/Clinton infection rate.

[indie17]

I used different polls, and think about 9% for Hillary came from the Rush crowd. Look at the last one, especially.

CNN exit polls for MS show that 9% of Hillary's 37% came from Republicans.

12% admitted Republicans, 75% for Clinton
13% strongly favorable opinion of McCain, 70% for Clinton
15% said NEITHER candidate is Honest and trustworthy, 77% for Clinton

[Tejano1]

msnbc also reported that 24% of her mississippi vote came from republicans. that's why bill was on the radio with limpballs last week. a win is a win for the mcclintons. nothing gets in their way.

[drzoon]

IF YOU SUPPORT A BIGOT... THEN YOU ARE A ___________?

[JAMAICAJAGUAR]

If Barack Obama was behind in delegates and states won and started to pull this " I should get the nomination because I received more of the popular vote" horse shit , every media outlet in America would think he was out of his mind.

Hillary is such a cry baby.

[drzoon]

WHAT HAPPENED? THERE WAS ALMOST 100 POSTS PENDING!

[StephenS]

Obama's campaign wants to count 730,000 Texas voters TWICE so that they can artificially inflate their current popular vote lead by 120,000.

Remember: ALL of those 730,000 voters already voted in the primary for a Democrat, but got to vote a 2nd at a weekday night caucus, and the caucus voters represent only 25% of the 2,870,000 primary voters.

Obama apparently got about 31% of his voters to the caucus, while Clinton got about 21%.

This is based on Obama's campaign saying they had 120,000 more primary voters also vote at the caucuses, and the fact that although Obama lost the primary delegate count by 4% (52% to 48%) and more than 100,000 votes, CNN says he'll win the caucus delegate count by 16.4%. (120,000 is 16.4% of about 730,000.)

[hot2na]

Forget the populr vote, which Obama will win anyway. it does not include the caucus states. If you consider Iowa in which Obama got 38% and Clinton got 29% of the caucus vote, you would have to calculate the 38% of the total dem vote and award it to Obama and 29% to Clinton. This is only an estimation because there was no actual popular vote count in the caucus states. If you exptrapolated the causus states votes into votes, then Obama's popular vote lead goes from 700,000 to over 1,000,000. Clinton would have to the remaining 10 states by 60%to get a popular vote lead in this scenario (and she would still not win in delegates). The popular vote is only being floated by Clinton because it it the only hail Mary that Clinton as left.

[marignymitch]

I repeat: Obama didn't suffer a loss in Texas. He won five more delegates there than she did.

[psfurlong356]

didn't he win MS by about the same margin as Clinton won TX? (ok I know the answer)