Barack Takes A Few More Delegates In Mississippi

Ho-hum, Barack Obama won Mississippi tonight, padding his delegate lead by a few more.

What could've been much more interesting would have been if Florida had stuck to its original primary date--March 11. Duh--the hanging chads of the Sunshine State coulda had a big impact today.

Since some people have been interested, here's how it would look after Mississippi if the Democrats used winner-take-all in every state:
Pledged delegates: Hillary 1417 Obama 1257
All delegates: Hillary 1746 Obama 1609 [Here, we mean that there would be no unpledged "superdelegates"--all of a state's delegates would go to the winner, as is the case in many GOP contests]

For more info, see our post: "What If The Democrats Used Winner Take All?" which did the calculation as of March 4. In that calculation, we gave Texas to Hillary for winning the primary. But an astute Obama supporter pointed out that Obama won the caucus in Texas, so maybe Obama should get those delegates.

We don't weigh in on the hypothetical of how to handle Texas in a winner-take-all situation. Suffice it to say that if all those Texas delegates went to Obama, then he'd be in the lead.

Indeed, if you just gave Obama the 67 Texas delegates that were apportioned from the caucus, and gave Hillary the rest, it would be a virtual tie: Hillary would lead by 26 in pledged delegates, and would lead by only 3 in all delegates!!!!

Our point is that under any system it is a pretty darn close race!

What If The Democrats Used Winner Take All?

Three weeks ago we calculated the Democratic race as if each state awarded it's pledged delegates on a winner-take-all basis, rather than proportionally, concluding that it wouldn't make all that much difference. (See "Democratic Deadlock: Don't Blame Proportional Representation . . .") At the time, Obama would've had a small lead in delegates under the winner-take-all formulation.

What about now? It would still be close, but Hillary would have a distinct advantage, mainly based on winning Texas.

If the pledged delegates from every state were awarded on a winner-take-all basis, Hillary Clinton would now be leading Barack Obama by 1417 to 1212. It wouldn't be enough to put her over the top without superdelegates, but it might be enough to be an insurmountable lead, potentially leading to a deal where Obama agreed to be the VP nominee.

If you include all the superdelegates from each state as pledged delegates, the result is about the same, with Obama actually a tad closer: Clinton 1746; Obama 1551. Of course, in this scenario, one of them--probably Hillary--would eventually win, without resort to unpledged "superdelegates."

Still, it isn't like the Republican party where McCain, despite some very slim victories, has waltzed in by a wide margin.