Feb. 14

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News from the Votemaster

It is relatively quiet today. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are focusing on the Wisconsin primary next Tuesday and then the Ohio and Texas primaries March 4. The latter are do or die for Clinton. Her chief booster, James Carville, said that if she doesn't win Ohio, Texas, and Pennsylvania, her goose is cooked. She is ahead in the polls in all three, but none of them are recent. Ohio has many older blue collar workers with dubious economic prospects. Pennsylvania is also part of the rust belt, with many displaced blue collar workers from the formerly great steel industry. Texas has a large Latino population. No doubt polling will start in these states as soon as we pass Wisconsin.

If Obama wins two or maybe even one of the above, he will have so much momentum as to be unstoppable. But if Clinton pulls all three of them out of the fire, which at the moment seems plausible, even likely, what then? The delegate totals will be close to a tie. Suppose the PLEOs have to decide the nomination after all? How would that work? In principle each unpledged delegate is a free agent. What does an experienced politican do in a situation like this? Each one could make one of the following choices and defend it as democratic.

If the same person won all four of them, it will be tough for a PLEO to go the other way. But if Clinton won one or more categories and Obama won one or more categories, a vote either way could be defended. But if the final vote at the convention is 2025 to 2023, that will be very, very painful.

No new polls today.

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

Here are the delegate totals from various news sources. They 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. Also, some sources try to count the PLEOs (Part Leaders and Elected Officials) and unpledged delegates, who also get to vote at the convention. When different reporters call a PLEO and hear "Well, I like Hillary, but Barack has his charms too" they may score it differently.

Delegates

Needed to win: Democrats 2025, Republicans 1191.

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