The American Spectator : The Spectacle Blog : Why Obama Is Winning

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After finding this handy chart of the results of the primaries and caucuses held thus far, I decided to look at how Barack Obama has been able to take the lead in the delegate count even though Hillary Clinton has won delegate rich states such as New York, New Jersey, California, and Massachusetts. The obvious answer, of course, is that Obama has won more states by larger margins than Clinton, enabling him to pull ahead because of the Democratic Party's proportional rules. But I wanted to take things a step further and quantifty them. So, with the help of an Excel spreadsheet, I came up with the following:

--Obama has won 22 states (including DC), Clinton has won 13 states (including Michigan and Florida, which had their delegates stripped by the DNC for holding their primaries early)

--Obama's average victory margin is 28 points, Clinton's is 14 points

--Obama's median victory margin is 29 points, Clinton's is 13 points

--Obama has had double-digit wins in 19 states to Clinton's 9; Obama has had wins of over 20 points in 15 states to Clinton's 2; Obama has had 30 point-plus wins in 10 states to Clinton's 1.

Another interesting note is that Clinton's "home state" of New York has 231 delegates, while Obama's home state of Illinois has just 152, which one would think would translate into a big andvantage for Clinton. However, though both candidates won their home states, Obama ended up gaining 9 more delegates out of Illinois than Clinton did out of New York. The reason? Clinton won New York by 17 points, while Obama won Illinois by 32.

As has been said before, even if Clinton wins Ohio, Texas, and Pennsylvania, she'll have to do so by tremendous margins to catch Obama in the delegate race. Therefore, it's quite possible that Clinton could win 8 out of the top 11 states in terms of electoral votes, and still lose the nomination.

topics:
Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton