POPULAR VOTE THING

There has been a lot of talk about what will happen if Obama wins the most pledged delegates but Hillary wins the popular vote.

Similar to the situation in TEXAS (where I had read the rules and figured out that OBAMA could lose the popular vote by as much as four and still win the delegate count for that state). No one has bothered (that I know of) or has offered any mathematical constructs showing the margins she will need to surpass Obama in the popular vote.

Let's crunch some numbers.There are 11 remaining races: MS, PA, OR, MT, SD, IN, KY, WV, NC, GuaM, and PR. All are primaries.

The Green Papers (primary voting website linked to secretary of state official tallies) has the popular votes from the 2004 primary season for all of the above except Puerto Rico, who had a caucus that year and ended up cancelling even that. This year PR is having a primary, but since there is no data from previous years I have left them out of my equations.

The total popular vote from 2004 in the abovementioned states (excluding PR, as noted) is 2,231,107.

How, then, can we guesstimate how many will actually vote in 2008? We can assume that the turnout will be much larger than in 2004, but by how much? The local level of interest in these races can be assumed to be as great as the level of interest in the other post-Super Tuesday races, when it became clear that nothing was decided, as opposed to past primary seasons when there was usually a presumptive nominee early on. So.What was the 2004 popular vote in the most recent races vs. 2008? I took OH, TX, RI, VT, WI, VA, MD, and DC as a point of comparison.

In 2004, total popular vote for these was 4,044,062 (per The Green Papers). In 2008, the total popular vote was 8,396,818 (per Real Clear Politics). Thus we had a little over twice the number of voters. So in the remaining races (excluding PR), we can guesstimate anywhere from twice 2,231,107 -- 4,462,214 -- to a generous thrice 2,231,107 -- 6,693,321.

If twice the regular numbers turn out, Clinton must win by 57-43% (average of each state)

to bypass Obama.

If thrice the regular numbers turn out, Clinton must win by 55-45% to bypass Obama.

But what if there's a redo of Florida and Michigan? This is Clinton's best chance of a catch up in popular vote:Using the methodology as above but adding FL and MI to the mix:If twice the regular numbers turn out, Clinton must win by a little less than 55-45% to bypass Obama.

If thrice the regular numbers turn out, Clinton must win by a little more than 53-47% to bypass Obama.Even if four times the regular numbers turn out, Clinton still must win by almost 52.5-47.5% to bypass Obama.

Does anyone think Clinton will maintain this percentage against Obama thruout the remaining races to win the popular vote?

This doesnt even take into account that OBAMA is likely to win at least 4 of the states with no problem (MS, OR, MT and SD) and is likely to win in North Carolina (the others are toss-ups at the moment). This would only make her further behind.