Obama Adds Guam Superdelegate, Hillary Loses One
By Justin Gardner | Related entries in 2008 Election, Barack, Democrats, Hillary, Pledged Delegates, Super Delegates!!!Jaime Paulino ran as an Obama supporter, so this isn’t a surprise, but any superdelegate pickup that happens at the same time Hillary loses one is significant.
The territory also has five superdelegates. Voters picked two, electing uncommitted Pilar Lujan party chairman and Jaime Paulino vice chairman. Paulino ran as an Obama supporter. One other superdelegate endorsed Clinton earlier.The vote for party chairman and vice chairman also added a superdelegate for Obama and subtracted one for Clinton because the outgoing vice chair had endorsed her.
Obama now has 1,490 pledged delegates and Clinton has 1,338. Including superdelegates, Obama leads 1,742-1,607, according to The Associated Press. A total of 2,025 is needed to win the nomination.
Two things have happened here. First, Obama’s super delegate deficit when compared to Hillary’s total is now just 17. Second, post-Pennsylvania, Obama has 20 pickups to Clinton’s 12.
So what does this mean for Hillary? Well, there are roughly 300 superdelegates left and 400 pledged delegates left. How many does she need to win? Well, this latest superdelegate add puts him roughly 282 delegates (pledged or super) away from the nomination. So she needs to win 418. That’s about 60% of the remaining delegates. Seems doable, right?
Well remember, she has to win 60% of the remaining pledged AND super delegates, it’s going to be nearly impossible to pickup the rest. So if swap delegates, as they have been doing, for those remaining 400 or so pledged deleagates, it leaves him needing 82 and her needing 218…of the remaining supers. That means she would need 73% of the supers.
That would mean she’s going to take the supers nearly 4 to 1 from Obama when she’s nearly 2 to 1 behind in pickups after she was supposed to have this huge momentum after her massive turnaround win in Pennsylvania? Unlikely.
Total superdelegate pickups after the jump…
Obama superdelegate pickups:
Jaime Paulino (Guam), DNC & Territory Vice Chair – May 4, 2008
Parris Glendening (MD), Governor – May 3, 2008
Inez Tenenbaum (SC), DNC – May 3, 2008
Brian Colón (TX), DNC – May 3, 2008
Paul G. Kirk, Jr. (MA), DNC – May 2, 2008
John Patrick (TX), DNC – May 1, 2008
Barbara Flynn Currie (IL), DNC – May 1, 2008
Todd Stroger (IL), DNC – May 1, 2008
Richard M. Daley (IL), DNC – May 1, 2008
Joe Andrew (IN), DNC – May 1, 2008
Bruce Braley (IA), Representative – Apr 30, 2008
Lois Capps (CA), Representative – Apr 30, 2008
Baron Hill (IN), Representative – Apr 30, 2008
Ben Chandler (KY), Representative – Apr 29, 2008
Richard Machacek (IA), DNC – Apr 29, 2008
Jeff Bingaman (NM), Senator – Apr 28, 2008
Charlene Fernandez (AZ), DNC & State Vice Chair – Apr 26, 2008
David Wu (OR), Representative – Apr 24, 2008
Audra Ostergard (NE), DNC & State Vice Chair – Apr 23, 2008
Brad Henry (OK), Governor – Apr 23, 2008
Clinton superdelegate pickups:
Kathleen Kennedy Townsend (MD), Lt. Governor – May 3, 2008
Jaime A. Gonzalez Jr. (TX), DNC – May 2, 2008
Andrew Cuomo (NY), DNC – May 1, 2008
Thomas DiNapoli (NY), DNC – May 1, 2008
C. Virginia Field (NY), DNC – May 1, 2008
Carmen Arroyo (NY), DNC – May 1, 2008
John Olsen (CT), DNC – May 1, 2008
Luisette Cabanas (PR), DNC & Territory Vice Chair – Apr 30, 2008
William George (PA), DNC – Apr 30, 2008
Ike Skelton (MO), Representative, Apr 29, 2008
Mike Easley (NC), Governor – Apr 28, 2008
Kathy Sullivan (NH), Add-On – Apr 26, 2008
John Tanner (TN), Representative – Apr 23, 2008
Clinton superdelegate losses:
Arlene P. Bordallo (Guam), DNC & Former Territory Vice Chair- May 4, 2008
This entry was posted on Sunday, May 4th, 2008 and is filed under 2008 Election, Barack, Democrats, Hillary, Pledged Delegates, Super Delegates!!!. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
May 4th, 2008 at 2:46 pm
If you’re listing losses too, which I suppose is valid, shouldn’t Joe Andrew (IN), DNC – May 1, 2008 be in the Clinton loss column too?
May 4th, 2008 at 4:05 pm
Had he actually declared for Clinton? If so, I’d definitely list it as a loss.
May 4th, 2008 at 5:21 pm
Oh yes, he endorsed Hillary Clinton last year, on the day she officially announced her White House bid. Another interesting thing is that not a single superdelegate has switched from Obama to Clinton in the same way.
Also, it would seem that the likes of MSNBC are 2 behind in their numbers. Obama’s campaign says today that he has 257 superdelegates (MSNBC has him at 255).
There is also an anomaly in our list. Paul G. Kirk, Jr. was announced as a new endorsement in May, and I checked with Wiki and he was not listed as a previous endorser. However, on the same day Clinton announced a new endorser for her, they questioned the Kirk endorsement saying he had endorsed in February. As it turns out, her new endorsement had already endorsed on Feb 14, although MSNBC also found that Kirk did seem to have also endorsed Obama in February. Wiki has now been updated and lists this February as the date of the Kirk endorsement, not the May date.
I think Kirk should stay in the list because it would seem that his previous endorsement had not been counted on the official Obama delegate count until May. But to be honest, I’m not 100% sure.
Senator Obama is now only 275 delegates away from securing the Democratic nomination, which is the important thing, although catching up with Clinton in the Superdelegate deficit will have kudos when achieved too.