Obamamentum

Does Hillary have a chance to stop Obama anymore?

Last night's wins in Wisconsin in Hawaii marked Barack Obama's tenth and eleventh straight primary wins since Super Tuesday. What's more, each of them came by double-digit margins - CNN has Obama winning by 17 points in Wisconsin and 52 points in Hawaii. Clinton's campaign maintains that while Obama's recent streak of wins has been impressive, she'll have the last laugh when Texas and Ohio come through for her on March 4. Obama's people have countered by saying she'll need at least double-digit wins in both states to make a dent in his now-sizable delegate lead.

It looks like they may be right. Delegate counts depend on the source you use, but most have the gap between 80 to 100 delegates. Texas has 228 delegates up for grabs, while Ohio has 161. Democratic primaries split up the delegates proportionally, but not by the overall vote. Instead, delegates are determined by the vote in each state senatorial district. The average district in Texas has four delegates. The cutoffs for the delegates are a little complicated. Obviously, if Hillary and Obama split the vote 50-50, each would receive two delegates. For one of them to take a third delegate, however, they need to end up with 63% of the vote. That's not just a double-digit margin of victory, that's over 25 points. We'd need to see a blowout for there to be any substantial change in how delegates are apportioned. That's why Clinton has stayed so close in the delegate count despite losing eleven consecutive contests. (You can simulate results of the primary and see how delegates are allocated here.)

That means that the districts most likely to make a difference are the ones that have an odd number of delegates, since one candidate has to come out at least a delegate ahead. Even a slim margin of victory (51-49, say) is enough to give the winner an extra delegate. Eleven of Texas' 31 districts have an odd number of delegates, so even if Clinton takes the state by a double-digit margin, she's only likely to move eleven delegates closer. She'll need a landslide victory to make up the ground she's lost so far.

That's not to say that Hillary is completely washed up. A couple of key victories could rejuvenate voters' enthusiasm for her, and it would certainly make a strong case for superdelegates to back her. It does mean, however, that she's going to need more support than the 50-48 edge she has in Texas right now to make up ground on Obama.