Jerome,

I was in PR and it is not a lock for HIllary. All of the folks on the ground think it will be in low single digits or an Obama victory.

It's still a delegate race, man. We don't count the winner of the Superbowl as the team more people wanted to win, and we don't use the PV in a delegate-based primary. Them's the breaks.

I read where turnout may be just 400K.

The superdelegates aren't going to give it to Clinton because Puerto Rico pushed her "over the top."  They're going to give it to Obama because he won more states, ran a better campaign, has the majority of pledged delegates, raises a lot more money and is better for down-ticket races, particularly in the South where black voter turnout is crucial for Dem candidates.

Quick!  Email the SD's!  Someone must let them know about this information.

Seriously though, most sentient human beings know that the popular vote is a metric so flawed it just plain doesn't matter.  How do you calculate popular vote when you have some caucuses, some primaries, some open, some closed.  

It's idiocy to push this talking point.

The third and fourth counts - the ones which include Florida - seem more fair. Here, Obama is clinging to a slight lead of 146,786 votes (257,008, with the caucus estimates). However, with Puerto Rico, Montana, and South Dakota remaining, he will almost certainly finish behind her in these counts, likely by a few hundred thousand votes.

Then again, I guess the road to the White House goes through Puerto Rico right?

The poll is almost 2 months old... From what I'm hearing on the ground in Puerto Rico her recent "Pick me!  White people like me!  I love being white!  White people are more important!" comments haven't gone over very well there.  Bill Clinton's visit went over like a lead balloon.  Obama has the support of all the mayors, and Richardson's been down there already for weeks.  The Hispanic community there is different from the one here... they have greater ties to the African American community.  In fact, Puerto Rico voted for Jesse Jackson in 1988.

I think that Obama has realized that being nice to the Hillary campaign, has only resulted in her playing rope-a-dope with him, and will now gear up fully to win this thing.

It's not over yet!!!

If it were they would campaign differently and the small states would get ignored.

Last time i checked, we picked our nominee based on delegates, why do you keep posting about the popular vote?  Particularly when only some states had primaries?

yawn

SUSA has Obama up by 8 in Ohio!

http://www.surveyusa.com/index.php/2008/ 05/23/ohio-vp-matchups/

there goes that Hillary talking point!

Please, for the love of all things sensible, stop pushing this popular-vote nonsense, which, by the way, Sen. Obama is leading by more than 500,000 votes.

The cumulative popular vote spread out over the six-month primary/caucus schedule has never decided a party's nominee.

To paraphrase the 1992 Clinton "war room": It's the delegates, stupid.

Sen. Obama will make a damn fine president, and the Clintons' actions since the South Carolina primary just keep breaking my heart.

While it might be more appealing to use popular vote tallies rather than delegate ones, those aren't the rules.  As Obama wrote in his letter to the superdelegates, if the contest were about winning the popular vote, he would have run a different race, making that, instead of delegate totals, his goal.  You can't change the rules in the top of the ninth inning just because you don't like the score then.

This argument is silly.  Your source comes up with 6 different ways of counting something which doesn't matter (last I checked, the primary and the general are both counted by delegates) and decide one candidate may win the majority of ways to count something unimportant.  You know what? This may be right.  However, it simply doesn't matter.  One candidate has an insurmountable lead following the clearly understood rules of the game.  

  Trumping up her "chances" by pointing out a worthless statistic does nothing to help democrats get elected in 2008.  

Jerome,

After Obama goes over the top in delegates are you going to switch from the "popular vote" spin to the "delegates don't really vote until the convention" spin, or will you get behind our nominee?

2m voters is a fantasy.

Big assumptions.

Assuming she will win big in PR is highly questionable. Even considering not counting the votes of the caucus states in question is absurd, so 1, 3 and 5 have zero legitimacy.  So including Florida, she has to make up about 250,000 votes.  This is still not really legitimate, as FLA and MI were unsanctioned contests.

Basically this:  this metric is so watered down and convoluted that it is absolutely meaningless, save for Clinton devotees to attempt to hang pathetic last minute panic arguments off of it.

are fatally skewed and unfortunately meaningless.  Because caucus states have inherently lower participation, popular vote totals there, even when counted, substantially underrepresent the electorate in those states.  Candidates who win, even convincinly, in those states, receive substantially fewer votes than a close race in a primary contest.  The vote differentials are significantly skewed to primary contest winners.

All of the scenarios offered ignore that glaring error in methodology and compare apples-to-oranges as though it were statistically significant.  It is not.  

Despite all of the pseudomathematical gymnastics, the popular vote totals as representative of the so-called "will of the people" is a statistical sham.

Theis your candidate getting elected without Ohio or Florida is a fantasy.  

http://thepage.time.com/2008/05/23/frida ys-super-battle-2/

From her to him, CA.

I've got terrible news for you, Jerome.
Obama is the Democratic nominee.

Not that he is the best possible nominee. Not that the nomination system in the Democratic Party is nothing if not convoluted.  Not that caucuses disenfranchised many.  Not that registered Democrats strongly favored Clinton.

Yet, even Clinton would not have been the best candidate that the Democrats could have offered.  How is it that the Democratic Party - in a year when it should be leading by 20 points - has one candidate with an extremely thin resume and another one with a resume filled with negatives?

The nomination process is broken.
It needs to be fixed.

I predict that PR will go for Obama.  Michelle was there for a few days, and Obama himself would not be going there if he did not think he had a shot.  So, I believe that in the end Obama will have won the most delegates, most states, and the popular vote.  Obama will be able to pick any VP he wants.  I believe that Obama will do what is right for the democratic party, and I also believe he will ask Hillary if she wants to be VP?  I also believe he will offer Hillary other things also.  I don't think it is necessary a given Hillary wants to be VP.  The Clintons might be more interested in getting a position for thier daughter than for themselves.

My cat's breath smells like cat food.

is even more invalid. PLEASE stop trying to use such a obviously flawed results to justify a case for the DELEGATES to overturn the results of the sanctioned contests. Yes I know a lot of you folks are NOW against caucuses yet very little complaints were being made until Hillary lost so many of them. This constant refrain that the contests was unfair to Hillary when her surrogates were responsible for their implementation is wrong and dishonest. I expect these arguments from Republicans who want to win at any cost. We were supposed to be better than this

Why is he going to PR?

Because it is over after all the votes count then the supers will give it to Obama like two today in Cali., a State she won.

Proving this Dem election is bs.

If you want the metric to be the popular vote then campaign for the rules to be changed next election and have caucuses banned. In this election it is a secondary and not a deciding nor accurate metric considering the number of caucuses and the FUBAR of FL & MI. However, the supers can take any metric they want in to account in any way they want and they have been breaking overwhelmingly for Obama.

On the PR primary in gubernatorial elections turnout is 80%+ close to  2 million voters. But driving that are the incredible GOTV efforts of the PDP and PNP. At stake is not just the office of governor but control of patronage. The government employs close to a third of the workforce by some estimates and your job security is dependent on your party being in power.

The Democratic party has no party machine on the island and the Puerto Rican parties have no dog in this fight. So the GOTV operation and high economic stakes of local politics will not be a factor. Hillary has a name recognition advantage but commands no loyalty like local political parties do so that the name recognition can be overcome if Obama chooses to devote the resources to the island.

So the outcome in PR is really unclear and if I were Hillary I would not be counting my chickens. Especially after her "I'm the great white hope" remarks and considering the fact that Obama has pulled ahead of Hillary among Hispanics in the Gallup tracking polls.

The argument that the leader in delegates needs to be the same as the popular vote leader is, from where I'm sitting, only significant if it's all or nothing - either Clinton leads in all counts or Obama does, and trying to argue that the nomination of the delegate leader is illegitimate based on a 5-1, 4-2, or 3-3 split is not helpful in the least, for anyone.  If we want to split hairs, option #4 - all sanctioned contests, the Florida result, and the caucus estimates - is probably the best compromise metric, and if Clinton is in the lead here, then she can make some kind of case. (Leaving out the caucus estimates is in no way keeping with her recent "let every vote count" message - if any of her supporters want to make the case that we shouldn't count these estimates, I'd love to hear a valid argument.)  But in the aggregate, only a 6-0 result in either direction should give the popular vote talking point any validity for any undecided superdelegates.

Thanks for pointing this editorial out...I just wrote the following to Mr. Last:

Dear Mr. Last,

You state an admirable goal for this democratic primary process -- to "count every vote."  And yet you disenfranchise the hundreds of thousands of Michigan voters who voted for "uncommitted," most of whom clearly prefer Mr. Obama to Mrs. Clinton.

Most things in politics are not black and white.  But this is black and white.  "[M]ay not be the most fair" is a gross understatement, and you owe an apology to those Obama supporters who made their preference known in the ballot booth.

And while you may argue that your editorial stuck to simple facts, your title implicitly endorses this grossly unfair count.

Sincerely,

...Today.

Remember, just eight years ago, many of you were fighting mad over Al Gore winning the popular vote but losing the presidency to George W. Bush.

Some of you even advocated abolishing the electoral college and electing the president by direct popular vote.

Now, 8 years later, you're saying that if your candidate loses the popular vote, then it doesn't matter because it's the delegates that count.

It's funny, I seem to remember a lot Bush Republicans making that same argument 8 years ago.

All I'm going to say is this...

...Remember what happened in Rocky II?  Apollo Creed beat Rocky but Creed received hate mail from people saying that he may have retained the world heavyweight title, but he didn't win.  He didn't beat Rocky and was given the edge by the judges because he was the reigning champion.

Ladies and gentlemen, I suggest to you that if Barack Obama loses the popular, a similar "Rocky/Apollo Creed" argument will be made.  There will be several people who will say that although Obama got the nomination, more people voted for Hillary Clinton so he didn't beat her.

Losing the popular vote dogged George W. Bus for 4 years until he won it in 2004.  Likewise, losing the popular will also dog Obama.

((((((((((((sigh))))))))))

1.  I just spoke with a pollster on the island, and he says it is currently Clinton +13.

2.  Something unique to Puerto Rican politics.  There are NO midterm elections or local elections of any kind.  In the general election, every office on the Island, from Governor to the dog-catcher of Arecibo, is on the same ballot, once every four years.  So "the last major election" is simply the last general election, 2004.  Everybody votes, because it is the only day the circus is in town for the next four years--turnout is always, in every election, 85%+. Turnout cannot go up from 2M, only down. Almost exactly 2M voted last time.  Expect about 1.5 M votes for this unusual intervention of gringo politics onto the boricuan scene.

Also, I agree with "hankg" above

What a surprise.  The SUSA poll of Ohio flips the EV math to show Obama winning and Jerome comes out with the Clinton campaign popular vote argument.  There might have been a day when he would done minimal research about Puerto Rican politics before following the talking point of a vote of 2 million, but those days are long over.

Yeah, it is going to be those 8 EV that PR has that will put os over the top in November.

Oh wait, PR citizens do not vote in the GE.

I have no issues with counting their delgates to the convention, but it is beyond moronic to use their popular vote totals to determine the nominee.

I've been looking at the primary results and delegate allocations.  In Mississippi, e.g., Obama netted 7 more delegates than Clinton.  And he won the popular vote big.  In Missouri, they split the delegates.  Obama won a squeaker in the popular vote.  Now the polls are saying Clinton would win Missouri and Obama would lose it.  Both would get soundly thrashed by McCain in Mississippi.  I don't understand how the Democrats got themselves in such a box -- whether you're pro-Clinton or pro-Obama.  It seems to be they've ended up with a screwy allocation process that may (let me emphasize the may) lead to them nominating a candidate who will lose in Nov.

It's even more important to understand that the Democratic primary is a DELEGATE RACE, and that the "popular vote" is simply irrelevant.  It isn't even tabluated.

So this diary is nothing but more navel-gazing and idle speculation.

http://hillaryis404.org

PR has big turnout because they vote on everything all at the same time, so it's part of the culture to vote on this big day. She'll be campaigning there, and as usual the more voters see of her, the more they like her. And since she's the real uniter, willing to put him on her ticket, and since he's clearly not happy with being forced to unite, it's looking very good for the girl. Odds are going up for her to win the primary and if she's our nom, there is no way she won't win big, She would also carry Barack, unless he has more secrets that he hopes won't come out. I wish he'd been more forthcoming about his past 'secrets,' and that he were better able to campaign positively, we might be able to both believe him when he says he's vetted and be confident that he's able to unite. A guy who holds grudges can't unite.  So, we''ll see, fasten your seatbelts, it's Mr. Toad's Wild Ride.  

The rules, they keep on changin...

So the moment Hillary fell way behind in the pledged delegate race, her supporters started the chorus about her lead in the superdelegates.

Then that disappeared, and we started hearing about the irrelevant 'popular vote'.

Now, they're not only discounting 4 entire states, more than half of Michigan and a good percentage of Florida.. but just-as-happily relying on the votes of more than a million people who won't be allowed to take part in our Presidential election.. to determine the nominee.

I get why Hillary is grasping at any straws that are offered.. she has personal loans to repay.  But her supporters?  This is just pitiful.  Grow a backbone, admit you lost, and work for the Democratic Party in November.  

Remember, in 1972, the popular-vote winner in the primaries was Hubert Humphrey, but the nomination went to George McGovern, and didn't that work out well in the GE?

Here's what an informed diary about Puerto Rican politics looks like:

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/5 /21/19300/9054

I do think the popular vote matters quite a lot, and I also note that Clinton is already ahead in the popular vote by the most inclusive counts.

That being said, I consider it highly unlikely that she's going to pick up huge margins in Puerto Rico.  Turnout will be smaller than in general elections there, and, if she wins at all, it might be by a small margin.  Obama has some potent institutional support there and also has more money available for advertising.  I will be pleasantly surprised if Clinton wins the state, and even more pleasantly surprised if the margin is as much as 100,000 votes.

How many electoral votes does PR have?  Zero?  They are having a primary why?  They get more delegates to the convention than many states why?  Florida and Michigan, if seated at all, should be split in the same ratio as the legal delegates.  The rules are the rules, you don't like them change them next time, not in the middle of this time.

According to one of the Inspired Ones over at FDL, who wants change and unity and is full of hope, the only way Clinton supporters can see her winning the popular vote is if they stand on one leg with their head tilted sideways and with one eye closed while looking straight into the sun.

This unifier also kindly and generously warned Bill Clinton to not let the door hit him on the ass on his and Hillary's way out.

This change is going to be monumental!  I can tell!

A very informative diary over at DKos, linked by Piuma up above, stated some really good reasons why turnout will not come close to 2 million.

The main points:

1. High turn-out comes only when there is a governor's race, which seems like is their version of the presidential elections.  People have a day off to vote on that day, and it's treated like a holiday.  Turn-out is about 82%.  But, when there is no governor's election, turn-out plummets.

2. The primary is being held on Sunday, June 1.  The diarist says that non-gubernatorial elections held on Sundays typically have very low turn-out compared to gubernatorial elections.  People would rather be picnicking or going to the beach than going to the polls.  Add the fact that June 1 signals the first day of the summer season, lots of people are going to other things to do, especially since people are realizing that the race is all but over.  

The diarist predicted a turn-out around 650,000 or so, which matches the last election on a Sunday not involving a governor's race.  

I don't know much about Puerto Rico politics and culture, but, the diarist is from Puerto Rico and so I'll take his word for it.  I think turn-out may be a bit higher since it still is a pretty big election, even if only a symbolic one.  But, I don't think you'll get anywhere near 2 million voters turning out on a beautiful, summery Sunday.

Personally I think it is awesome that Puerto Rico is part of our primary process this year and I wish they had MORE of a vote than they do (but that would require state-hood, or something similar.)

That being said, considering the fact that Puerto Rico lacks a spot in the General Election how relevant is it to the popular vote totals? If Clinton leads with Puerto Rico but not without it will that matter in the minds of Super Delegates? Will they consider the popular vote total at all?

I doubt this will be talked about much because I can see how bringing it up will be considered by some as tasteless- but from a purely political perspective this is what I have been wondering about the primary there.

Jerome Armstrong or Jonathan Alter?

I'll take the one without an axe to grind.

Popular Vote Poison: How Hillary's "Math" Now Hurts the Party

I just want to point out, once again, that if the candidates believed that it was a popular vote race, they all would have had much different campaign strategies.  I think Obama spent one day in California, for example.  The popular vote metric is basically a distant cousin of the "big states" meme that Clinton tried, and which failed to gain traction, earlier in the nomination battle.

It's not surprising that when the rules are shifted mid-game, the party that changes the rules is the one that benefits.

If the popular vote mattered in the Democratic nomination contest, the caucus states would've reported their vote totals.

I love it.

Giving Obama zero votes in Michigan - not one single Obama supporter counted - is the "most inclusive" total.

Awesome.

The Florida outcome is "fair", too.  Even though a candidate with a huge, huge advantage in name recognition was on the ballot against a challenger who was not allowed to campaign there.  I love it!  What could be more fair than that!  That FL and MI were two of only four states where Republican turnout was larger than Democratic turnout?  That couldn't possibly be a sign that Dem turnout was depressed or that a lot of voters stayed home.  It's a fair representation of the voters' will to count that vote.

And then there's the cherry on top.  The path to her majority, per this post, depends on a big victory in Puerto Rico.  She'll lose the popular vote in the United States, but never mind - P.R. will put her on top!  No knock on PR, but they aren't U.S. citizens and don't choose our President any more than Canadians do.

Oy. Oy. Oy. Oy.

Clinton campaign can't have it both ways - if they want Puerto Rico to be a "significant state" for its potential contribution to their popular vote statistics they can't at the same time argue, as they have been doing, that Obama's wins in "Red states" should be discounted because Dems will not be competitive there in the GE. Since Puerto Rico will not get to vote at all in the GE, surely by this logic it should be even less relevant than Obama's wins in places like Nebraska or Georgia? I think they gave up on logic a while back, though...

It's a bit hard to think that the vote total for the June primary will be as high as the vote total for the 2004 gubernatorial election.

For the sake of reference, the 2004 election had a turnout of 2M.

I'd imagine the turnout is around 400K to 800K

What is just plain sad? The intellectual dishonesty, oozing from the pores of those who are obviously smart enough to know better, about the popular vote measurement.

It's shameful.

Meanwhile..on another front..
you know the delegates..
Earlier today two supers (including 1 who switched from Clinton to Obama..see Diaries)announced.
Now 2 NH Edwards delegates switched.
http://www.rawstory.com/news/mochila/Two _New_Hampshire_Edwards_delegates_0523200 8.html

New Delegate total so far so far today ?
Obama +4
Clinton -1

I'm sure the superdelegates are taking your concern seriously, Jerome.  Keep up the thoughtful and intellectually honest analysis.

you're as well equipped to figure out as i am that there is no way to judge a popular vote leader in the democratic nomination contest.

there are caucus states, remember? how to count those votes? do non-democratic votes from open and hybrid primaries count? if so, then how do we compare them to votes from states with closed primaries? should we re-do the all the states so that they're open primaries? or re-do them all so that they're closed? and michigan? huh? did i mention the caucus states?

this metric has meaning for determining the winner of the primary only insofar as it can convince super-delegates to break for clinton. they're not doing that. and for good reason.

but hey, it's your right to keep the story alive. after all, penn's been muzzled and there are plenty of mydd'ers who need the moral support.

But he's still getting paid. It was reported on TV that Penn was Hillary's largest expenditure last month, to the tune of $3M.

SEND MORE MONEY! PENN IS STILL HUNGRY!

If it were to have been a popular vote tally, there would have been no caucuses. It wasn't and there were. The purpose of the primaries is specifically NOT to count votes. It's not a purely democratic process. The idea of caucuses is to give more voice to party activists than random drive-by voters. You can argue about the wisdom of that, but that's what it is.

So trying to do popular vote tabulation is like trying to show how your essay grade of a D- is really an A. If you only do word count and forget about...oh the substance of the essay.

Pathetic.

I can't rec or rate and now I guess I will be banned. Your logic is at best tortured,while I understand your desire for the Dmocratic party to win in November and your belief that HRC is the  person that can win, I am distressed at your less than'quaint' use of polls to put forward your preferred candidate.

I thought we nominated based on delegates?

Damn I feel dumb, I had no idea popular vote counted.

I doubt the RBC is going to seat the delegates in a way that would negate Obama's current position.  Clinton just met with them BTW, boy would I have loved to have been a fly on that wall.

This is a silly and pointless argument. There is no way to count the popular vote accurately, and the popular vote was never accepted as the way the nomination is decided.

Not so fast on PR.  I think she'll win it but not by nearly as much as one might expect.

In other Hillary PR blitzes we learn that cauliflower tastes like chicken, soft is the new hard and hard working whites (as opposed to hard working minorities) are the new "cool".

No one knows how the Peurto Rico vote will turn out. On one hand, Clinton does well with Latino voters, but on the other hand, Obama does well in the territories and abroad.  The only poll taken a few months ago had Clinton with a 13% point lead.

According to Manuel Alvarez-Rivera, a Puerto Rican election expert, he expects turnout for the Democratic Party primary to be about 600,000. Thus, Clinton will probably win by about 60,000 votes.

Puerto Rico is an island with a population of four million people (about the size of Kentucky). A turnout of two million in the Democratic Party isn't likely.

OH for Obama is the news of the day. Should get a front page diary (where is Singer).

Seems that the key for Obama in polling might be leaving Hillary off the questioning. 2/2 now we've seen Obama's numbers surge when she's left off the ballot.

The continuing problems I have with using the popular vote total as the metric for selecting our nominee is that

1.  we can't ever really get to a true vote total given the caucus states,

2. the fact that in Michigan and Florida a number (who knows how many) of voters didn't bother to turn up to vote,

3. the fact that Limbo ran "Operation Chaos" which means that some number of votes weren't really Democrats at all but rather Repugs who were causing mischief, and

4. the official  metric is the number of delegates accumulated by the candidates.  This is the basis for how the Obama camp has conducted its campaign.  I'm sure that if the metric had been popular votes they would have run a much different campaign.

Finally, changing the rules of the game in midstream is just not fair, moral, or right.

I hate the way the number 1 and number 2 are written so as to imply that the Iowa, Nevada, Maine and Washington contests were somehow not-sanctioned. Those four states simply did not count the participants they way other caucus states did. Count  number 1 is as illegitimate as those including Michigan.

So what?  The primary is decided by delegates. Right now we're waiting on 90+ superdelegates to show they have a spine and announce for Obama. I'm calling those listed on Huffpost and requesting they make up their minds before May 30th (right before the meeting on FL and MI).  Then they can give Clinton everything she wants, but OBAMA is still the VICTOR.  Then who cares about anything other than taking on  McSame?

Get out of denial gang.  It's over.  Obama is going to be the nominee and Clinton is going to show she's a true dem and help out, or she's going to go off on  her own.  She did not run a good campaign.  She's definitely qualified, but the best CANDIDATE won (note: no gender reference!).

Go Dems! Take the W.H., then get a supermajority in the Senate!

Breaking: MyDD declares Gore winner of 2000 election by 500,000 votes! Yay Al!

Still afraid of the Clintons.

And if Clinton takes the lead in these popular vote estimates then what?  Do you suppose then enough superdelegates will flock to her side to put her over the top and win the nomination?

If so then make some popcorn and get a ring-side seat to the holy war within the Democratic party that will certainly ensue.  What gives you the idea that Obama's supporters will ever see that as a legitimate result?  

Since so many pixels are spilled gaming out the scenario where Clinton takes the lead in the popular vote estimates and sails on to a nomination, tell me what happens next if your dream comes true.  What is your strategy for avoiding a complete meltdown in party unity?  

Also don't forget:  Hillary Clinton is leading by 80 points in states that only have her name on the ballot.

That's an important new demographic!

http://hillaryis404.org