The Popular Vote Argument

[aaaaaa5a]

Updated Sunday 9:30 est.


State Date Obama Clinton Spread

Popular Vote Total 17,389,116 48.1% 17,364,592 48.0% Obama +24,524 +0.1%

Estimate w/IA, NV, ME, WA* 17,723,200 48.2% 17,588,454 47.8% Obama +134,746 +0.4%
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Popular Vote (Including Florida) Obama leads by approx. 25,000 votes
Popular vote (Including Florida and IA, NV, ME, WA Caucus estimates) Obama leads by approx. 135,000 votes
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These totals do not include Michigan because it was not a sanctioned Democratic Primary contest and the results were not used to apportion delegates.
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The popular vote argument is flawed due to the following reasons.

-All candidates agreed that the man or woman with the most delegates would win the nomination

-Campaigning for delegates involves a different strategy than campaigning for popular vote totals. Example… no candidate would have spent a year in Iowa or New Hampshire. Obama would have spent more time in California and would not have appeared in states like Wyoming, Idaho etc.

-Caucus states are irrelevant in a popular vote scenario because less people participate. Several caucus states don’t even have an official popular vote tally. By definition, a popular vote argument instantly discounts several states and contests.

-Primary rules can greatly alter primary vote totals. Some states have closed primaries. (Democrats only) Other states have partial and open primaries (Republicans and independents can vote) this can affect vote totals and makes even comparing states that hold primaries impossible to compare.


source: realclearpolitics and ABC news

[speedoo]

1. K&R. Thanks for posting this. nt

[rpannier]

2. Interesting

It answers one question I've had...Where is she getting the "I'm leading in the popular vote."
No I know how she's trying to do it.

There are a few things that need to be addresses and the article touches on one of them:

1. We should have closed primaries. Democratic Primary, Democratic Voters.

2. Something needs to be done about caucuses, as they often prevent people who work off shift jobs from participating.

3. Super Delegates need to be eliminated.

4. Winner-take-all No. % of the vote, yes. I get 53% of the popular vote, I get 53% of the pledged delegates.

[4themind]

3. You may have made an error

Am I correct in that you used the 72,000+ "before" today's results from RCP? Because if so, that total (if I am reading it correctly INCLUDES a non-updated total for the Puerto rico primary (when it was 76% reporting a believe) The numbers were 82,374 31.9% 175,715 68.1% for Obama and Hillary respectively with a net gain of +93,341 for hillary from that primary, so I believe you should subtract +93,341 from 140,000 and then subtract the answer from 72,0000+ to have a new total w/o MI /4 caucus states but with everything else.This is assuming that the totals for puerto rico reported in RCP were used to update the popular vote total as well (which I believe to be the case since I remember it being in the 100,000+ range yesterday after the seatings were taken into account). Of course there will also be variability from news source to news source, but at least according to RCP it would seem that obama is still in the lead in popular vote if MI is not included and I feel fairly confident that it will also be the case after tuesday

[aaaaaa5a]

6. Thank You...

I apologize for the mistake. I went back and made corrections.


It's good to know that even after PR, Obama still leads in the Popular vote by ever measure.

Clinton only has a popular vote lead if you count Michigan which was not a sanctioned event and Obama wasn't even on the ballot.

[4themind]

7. Oh no problem, I got confused at first too

You'd think RCP would either wait until they had the full results before changing the numbers, or update it more frequently, but I guess that's a relatively minor gripe. Even if hillary argued for a popular vote assessment based on the RCP rulings yesterday, she'd only be up by about 5,000 and I have little doubt that obama will erase that on tuesday. I think he'llhave the "magic number" by this friday at the latest

[Kajsa]

4. Posting this again,

with a link to the source.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=6215350&mesg_id=6217426


http://www.realclearpolitics.com/

REAL CLEAR POLITICS ELECTION 2008
Democrats Obama-Clinton Spread
Total Delegates 2065 - 1910 Obama + 155
Super Delegates 329 - 290 Obama + 39
Pledged Delegates 1736 - 1620 Obama + 116
Popular Vote 48.2 - 47.9 Obama +0.3
Popular Vote (w/MI) 47.4 - 48.0 Clinton +0.6
Nat'l RCP Average 51.0 - 42.0 Obama +9.0
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[FlyingSquirrel]

5. Obama is leading the Popular Vote right now and I can prove it.

Incontrovertible proof that Obama wins the Popular Vote