The Popular Vote

Finally, the Democratic Party has a nominee. It is a momentous occasion to have a major party nominate an African American. I am extraordinarily happy with the nomination of Barack Obama. But this is not my concern today. My concern is with the claim by the Clinton campaign that they won the popular vote. Obviously, this doesn't mean anything in the grand scheme of things, but the claim is bothering me today.

I am no mathematician but the popular vote numbers MSNBC was running at the beginning of last night showed Clinton with roughly a 3,000 vote lead in the popular vote. She then proceeded to win South Dakota by a little more than 10,000 votes. Obama then won Montana by roughly 28,000 votes, which would seem to have erased any lead that Clinton had and given it to Obama.

I listened to all of the news reports this morning, along with reading most of the stories about last night's historic events and I have not seen anyone question the Clinton claim that they won the popular vote, or the claim that Hillary made in her speech that she had won more primary votes than anyone in history.

All of these claims by the Clinton campaign are accurate, IF you use some clever math. First you have to count Michigan, but ONLY her votes in Michigan. Obama would have to get nothing from the Michigan vote. This is dubious at best. It is dubious at best to even COUNT Michigan in these numbers, yet she insists on this clever math to claim her popular vote lead. Then, you have to factor in that no vote totals were released by Iowa, Nevada, Maine or Washington (3 of 4 were won by Obama). Real Clear Politics (where most of these numbers come from) shows that if you count Michigan ONLY for Clinton with nothing for Obama and combined estimates from the above 4 caucus states, Clinton wins the popular vote 18,045,829 - 17,869,419 or 47.9% - 47.4%.

However, if you combine the estimates from the caucus states with Michigan with "uncommitted" going to Obama (which is also a problem since he did not win ALL of the "uncommitted" votes) Obama wins the popular vote 18,107,587, 48.1% - 18,045,829 47.9%. If you scrap Michigan altogether, as is probably the best measure and you don't include the caucus states, Obama wins the popular vote. Even if you include the caucus states, Obama wins the popular vote.

The ONLY way Hillary Clinton wins the popular vote is if Michigan is only counted for her. Or, if Michigan is counted for her and the caucus states are not counted at all. Surely, these numbers in no way suggest that the Clinton campaign should be running around, pounding their fists and demanding a V.P. slot, especially when any claim to winning the popular vote is clever and dubious at best.