Dodgy Math

After their big wins in yesterday's elections, the Clinton campaign today issued a statement in which they said, "After 28 million votes have been counted, the popular vote contest in the Democratic primary is within one-tenth of one percent."

Well, no, that's not true. It took me a minute to figure out that part of the problem is that they're including the "votes" in Michigan and Florida. But even then, the total popular vote would only add up to 27.2 million, according to realclearpolitics.com.

Obviously, the Clinton staffers who wrote this memo, Mark Penn and Harold Ickes, are fudging the numbers. So what are the actual numbers?

If you don't include Michigan and Florida, there have been a total of 25.4 million Democratic votes cast so far. Obama leads by about 587,000 votes, which translates to 2.3% of the total. In the pledged delegate count, he currently leads by 144 out of 2,642, which is 5.5%.

For a little perspective, 587,000 votes is slightly larger than the margin by which Gore beat Bush in 2000, which in turn is about five times the margin of Kennedy over Nixon in 1960. In other words, it's enough to proclaim a winner even though it's not a landslide victory.

Then again, maybe the Clinton campaign in 2008 is planning to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat by following the example of the Bush campaign in 2000, with superdelegates playing the role of a "supreme court."

Update (3/7/2008): The above numbers leave out four of the caucus states — Iowa, Nevada, Washington, and Maine — because they didn't report exact popular vote tallies. But they did give estimated total turnouts. Based on that and the final state delegate percentages, we can arrive at estimates of the popular vote which are probably fairly accurate.

Iowa: 239,000 estimated voters, Obama 37.1% delegates, Clinton 29.9% delegates. Approximate votes: Obama 88,669, Clinton 71,461.

Nevada: 117,599 voters, Obama 45.1% delegates, Clinton 50.8% delegates. Approximate votes: Obama 53,037, Clinton 59,740.

Washington: 250,000 estimated voters, Obama 67.6% delegates, Clinton 31.2% delegates. Approximate votes: Obama 169,000, Clinton 78,000.

Maine: 44,667 voters, Obama 59.5% delegates, Clinton 39.9% delegates. Approximate votes: Obama 26,577, Clinton 17,822.

Adding all these together yields 651,266 total voters with Obama garnering 110,260 more than Clinton. Finally, incorporating this into the above tallies yields a grand total of 26.1 million popular votes and Obama leading by about 697,000, or 2.7%.

Update (3/8/2008): Suppose we also add in Florida, whose "primary" at least had Obama on the ballot, unlike Michigan. That brings the total popular vote up to 27.4 million and Obama leading by about 420,000, or 1.5%.

Update (3/12/2008): Adding Wyoming and Mississippi yields 28.0 million total and Obama leading by about 517,000, or 1.8%. Remember, this includes Florida and estimates for Iowa, Nevada, Washington, and Maine. There are less controversial vote tallies at realclearpolitics.com.