Popular Vote? What Popular Vote?

It seems that some of Hillary's people claim that she leads in the popular vote. People inside of her campaign have said it and so has she.

“I believe that with your help we will send a message to this country because right now more people have voted for me than have voted for my opponent."

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/20/us/politics/19cnd-clinton.html?partner=MYWAY&pagewanted=print

The claim that Clinton leads the popular vote is intellectually dishonest.

I am going to be using numbers from RealClearPolitics.com. It is an excellent site that offers links to op/eds and articles by all viewpoints, both left and right.

If we look at the total popular vote in all states that released their popular vote counts, Obama clearly has a substantial lead.

Obama: 16, 108, 538: 49.3%
Clinton: 15, 512, 424: 47.5%

That is a spread of 596, 114: + 1.8% for Sen. Obama

Now before we get into the issue of Michigan and Florida there is something to remember. Iowa, Nevada, Maine, and Washington appoint delegates via a caucus. There is no official popular vote count in these states for ANY candidates. All that we have are reported delegate equivalents. So what RCP and other news sites do to estimate these totals is take the percentage a candidate got and they take get a popular vote estimate based off of the number of people who caucused.

This is the estimation using IA, ME, WA, and NV.

Obama: 16, 442, 622: 49.3%
Clinton: 15, 736, 286: 47.2%

Spread of:

706,336: + 2.1% for Obama.

Now let's add Florida to the mix. Before we do, remember that all of the Democratic candidates pledged not to campaign there. The Clinton campaign did in September 2007 agree to adhere to the DNC's rules. Check out this video from Meet the Press for more



Let's add Florida into the mix. These results are without IA, WA, ME, and WA.

Obama: 16,684,752: 48.5%
Clinton: 16,383,410: 47.6%

The spread this time is very thin.

301, 342: +.09% for Sen. Obama

If we add those four caucus states the results look like this.

Obama: 17,018,836: 48.5%
Clinton: 16,607,272: 47.3%

Spread of:

411,564: +1.2% for Obama

This is where the intellectual dishonesty really kicks in. Let us add Michigan. Mind you that Sen Obama and Sen. Edwards were NOT on the ballot. These numbers will include Florida as well.

Obama: 16,684,752: 47.6%
Clinton: 16,711,719: 47.7

Spread falls down like this.

26,967: +.08% for Sen. Clinton

A very slim lead however a very unfair and rather cheap way to claim a lead considering your opponent was not even on the ballot. But for the hell of it, let's give Obama all of the uncommitted votes just to see what happens. Uncommitted got 238,168.

Obama: 16, 862, 914
Clinton: 16, 711, 719

Spread: 151, 195 votes

I believe it is safe to say that if his name was on the ballot he still would maintain a very slim lead in the popular vote if Michigan and Florida's popular votes are counted.

But before we go, let's add the caucus state's estimated results into the MI and FL brew.

Obama: 17,018,836:47.7%
Clinton: 16, 935, 581: 47.5%

Spread: 83,255: +.24% for Barack Obama

There we have it. Claims that Clinton has a lead in the popular vote are deceiving and dishonest. Most news sources use this figure for the popular vote count since those four caucas states do not have official results and FL and MI do not count.

Obama: 16, 108, 538: 49.3%
Clinton: 15, 512, 424: 47.5%

That is a spread of 596, 114: + 1.8% for Sen. Obama

If we use the numbers that we know, and the numbers that count Obama has a lead that may not seem large. It seems rather close, but this far into the race it is impossible for Clinton to retake the lead.

All of the campaigns knew the implications of Florida and Michigan. They violated the rules and everyone agreed to adhere to those rules set up by the DNC. Going back on your written word like that is deceitful and opportunist. Like I've said before, I have a feeling that Clinton expected a coronation. Obama didn't have much name recognition and most pundits and people expected this to be Clinton's time. It wasn't and it will not be.

That's how I see it.

Source for the popular vote numbers:

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2008/president/democratic_vote_count.html