Obama, Clinton's Delegate And Superdelegate Numbers After Indiana, North Carolina Primaries

WASHINGTON — Sen. Barack Obama won the most delegates in Tuesday's primaries, moving within 200 delegates of securing the Democratic nomination for president.

Obama won at least 94 delegates in the North Carolina and Indiana primaries, according to an analysis of election returns by The Associated Press. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton won at least 75 delegates, with 18 still to be awarded.

Sixteen of the outstanding delegates were from North Carolina and two were from Indiana.

In the overall race for the nomination, Obama led with 1,840.5 delegates, including separately chosen party and elected officials known as superdelegates. Clinton had 1,684.

Obama was 184.5 delegates shy of the 2,025 needed to secure the Democratic nomination.

There are 217 delegates at stake in the final six contests. Also, about 270 superdelegates are yet to be claimed.

Superdelegates are the party and elected officials who will automatically attend the national convention and can support whomever they choose, regardless of what happens in the primaries and caucuses.

Obama is on pace to reach a majority of the pledged delegates won in primaries and caucuses in two weeks, when Kentucky and Oregon vote. Obama had a 171-delegate lead among pledged delegates.

Obama has argued for months that superdelegates should support the candidate who wins the most pledged delegates. Clinton argues that superdelegates should exercise independent judgment.

Clinton leads in superdelegate endorsements, 270.5 to 256, though Obama has been chipping away at her lead since the Super Tuesday contests on Feb. 5. Both candidates picked up a superdelegate endorsement Tuesday.

Nearly 800 superdelegates will attend the national convention. About 220 remain undecided and about 50 others will be named at state party conventions and meetings throughout the spring.

The AP tracks the delegate races by calculating the number of national convention delegates won by candidates in each presidential primary or caucus, based on state and national party rules, and by interviewing unpledged delegates to obtain their preferences.

Most primaries and some caucuses are binding, meaning delegates won by the candidates are pledged to support that candidate at the national conventions this summer.

Political parties in some states, however, use multistep procedures to award national delegates. Typically, such states use local caucuses to elect delegates to state or congressional district conventions, where national delegates are selected. In these states, the AP uses the results from local caucuses to calculate the number of national delegates each candidate will win, if the candidate's level of support at the caucus doesn't change.

Comments

[buggedabouttheus]

Please, let this be the end of this messy, messy primary season. I'm ready to vote Democratic this November!

[karela]

5/7/08 4:30pm eastern
Obama now needs just 169 total delegates to win. At least four new super delegates added today. One from Virginia, two from North Carolina and one from California.

[ShawnMichel]

Good news this morning. The Wicked Witch is dead. Dorothy has showered her with a bucketful of reality.

Amen. And Amen.

[rcpmac]

33!
33 IS THE MAGIC NUMBER.
Obama needs to win 33 more delegates to have won the actual majority of elected delegates ... period

[bitabingbitabangbitaboom]

I`M THE FRIGGIN FAT LADY.....................AH-HA-AH-HA-AH-HA-AH-HA

AND THIS IS MY STAGE.................AH-HA-AH-HA-AH-HA.........CENTRE STAGE......AH-HA-AH-HA-AH-HA

DA WITCH IS FLYING.........AH-HA-AH-HA-AH-HA-AH-HA............DA WITCH IS FLYING...................ON

HER BROOMSTICK BROOMSTICK BROOMSTICK..........AH-HA-AH-HA-AH-HA-AH-HA

[rcpmac]

Hey DUDE quit posting this "I`M THE FRIGGIN FAT LADY......." crap at every comment opportunity in Huff Post.

[CitizenKate]

Online Videos by Veoh.com

[DennyCrane]

Hillary is running out of arguments to convince the superdelegates to give her the nomination. Obama was won Illinois, Virginia, and North Carolina so she can't use the big state argument. He's won more states than her. And even if you factor in Michigan and Florida, he still leads in the popular vote. The only argument left to Hillary is that Obama won't appeal to working class whites. But the hole in her argument there is that she hasn't shown that those same voters will opt for her over McCain. She's said it in very coded language, but the idea is that these voters won't vote for someone who's black. But if these people do have issues with race, what makes you think they don't have issues with gender as well? I suspect a lot of these people will vote for McCain over Hillary. What's also true is that if Hillary is the nominee, blacks won't support her. Can you imagine a Democrat getting elected without the black vote?

[karela]

Don't forget that Obama won Texas too. The Clintons like to claim it based on the first half of the Texas process, but both parts count in Texas and Obama won the delegate count 99/95. Either Obama or Clinton will win New York and California. Ed Rendel, governor of PA, says either Obama or Clinton will win there in the fall----and Eddie has the political machine to see to it. Hillary won PA and OH and squeaked by in IN. FL likes her better, but much of that is because Hillary whipped up as much hatred as she could among FL and MI voters. As she says, she will campaign like crazy for the nominee, so hopefully she can turn that around. MI is my state and our polls show 50/50 for Obama and Clinton. OH is another campaigning opportunity for Mrs. Clinton. Also, did you know that LBJ is the only democrat who ever won a majority of the white vote since FDR? Dems win with a portion of the white vote but a higher percentage of non white vote.

[CitizenKate]

http://www.veoh.com/channels/citizenkate

Barack's rise to stardom, once again. A comparison of Hillary vs B arack concerts in Indiana, now you can see why he did so well.

[arkgrfx61]

Citizen Kate, just watched your videos....you are SO fun!
Thanks for getting down and dirty w/ the candidates. It might be a toss up who has the more difficult job.
It seems to me as though the Obama audience was much more enthusiastic...or was that just my imagination (and personal bias).

[dooleynoted]

This is one of the best and most realistic summaries of the situation I've seen.

[confucion]

Will be nice bathing the tears of Clintons poor, misled fanatic followers as they try to make excuses for her loss and Obama's donkey punch of a win.

There's a reason she does well with the less educated folk, and every HuffPost supporter of HIll's proves that point cleanly.

[Americanium]

Clap Clap!! Point Point! Shake head !! Point Point! Big smile!!

[kittyma]

An interesting comment was just made on MSNBC after listening to the Clinton campaign conference call which gave the spin. MSNBC commentators pointed out that what the Clinton camp actually said and is using to convince the superdelegates was that Clinton is the candidate of white people. What this is actually also then saying as an argument to the Super delegates is that he is the candidate of black people so that does not count!.

Paul Begala voiced it in a terrible and pejorative and insulting way when he said 'are we going to run a campaign for eggheads and African Americans?' In case people missed it, Donna Brazille was forced to take him on on it. But it is clear that they are looking down on educated people and African Americans. Not a good feeling.

And the curtain shall be drawn asunder an all shall be seen.- now I have seen Paul Begala in a totally different light. I didn't like it.

[belief08]

I had a feeling about that man when he first came on as a pundit. Something just didn't sit right with. He was too much teeth and smiles and the presistant blinking. When he talks to Jamaal, he sneaks in a snied remark and I think Jamaal caught it most of the time, but; half the time her wouldn't call him on it.

Thank you, Donna Brazile for calling him on the carpet. I truly think it was just a ploy to see which way Donna would be voting. Bagala was never that blatant before and when he said he and Dobbs and abunch of their cronies went to lunch and talked about Obama, it just sounded fishy. Dobbs is blatant with his racism, I don't know why these people are allowed to even give their so called point of view on any type of television and radio. That's just hatred in the worse way, no wonder there's so much turmoil in the white areas, because they are hearing certain versions of twisted news.

[Aleka4]

grantcart and phrigndumass are calling Obama the "mathematical presumptive nominee"

Here are their latest numbers etc.
http://journals.democraticunderground.com/phrigndumass

[Testtubebaby]

She squeaked it out and they are not going to let it go. Every little thing they can think of is coming up. They are really trying to keep her in it.... dragging her across to what?

[speakingtruth2power]

I see this as one down and two to go.

Obama has defeated the DLC now,

but has yet to beat the GOP & MSM!

[meanguy]

so, by HuffPoMath, hillary needs 34 delegates to turn it over to 'the supers'...obama has two chances of beating the repugs...'slim and none'...it's going to be humiliating for him and his #1 campaign blog(huffpo)...why would obama need to
bet' the MSM? if it wasn't for them beating the drum for him for an entire year, he'd be right up there with dennis kucinich

[kdubbg]

Lets look at facts instead of just crying the the press sided with Barack

Over the past week:
reverend Wright: 41% of coverage.
Rest of Dem campaign:40% of coverage
John McCain:15% of coverage.

How's that again?

[WMichaelTenery]

Thanks for the speculation but there is no evidence to back this up. Hillary can't be the better candidate if she can't even beat Obama. Imagine the field day the republicans would have with Hillary if she didn't even beat Obama but the supers gave it to her anyway, The republicans would refer to her as the illegitimate undemocratic democrat candidate for the entire race.

[KenGirard]

As will a lot of Democrats and Independents.
If it takes those in power to put her into power, when the people choose someone else, then how is that Democratic?

[Tropiholic]

Math is math, hard to dispute it, especially after last night.

[BeyondTheBull]

I love it! Thanks for helping to "make my day".

[donjoe4]

To paraphase Henry II.."Will no one rid me of this troublsome woman?"

[belief08]

Funny! Then again, someone please rid us of this troublesome woman.