Obama 2025: One Scenario

That's not the name of a sci-fi thriller starring Will Smith. I happened to be playing around with CNN's delegate counter game to look at what kind of scenario might play out with the remaining states, and how likely it is we'll see one candidate or the other get the nomination. What I found was very interesting. Click the graphic below to enlarge:

I simply decided to award delegates at random by sliding the bar into either Clinton or Obama's side, awarding them each state by varying margins. I tried to make most of the states close except where I thought it was fair for one candidate or the other to take away more delegates. You may agree or disagree about who will win each state, but it's not all that important in the end as you'll see.

For the hell of it, I divided the states into these camps:

Clinton

Ohio
Pennsylvania
Indiana
West Virginia
South Dakota
Rhode Island
Kentucky
Montana
Puerto Rico

Obama

Texas
Oregon
Vermont
Mississippi
Guam
North Carolina

I also awarded more superdelegates to Hillary Clinton. I don't think, for the record, that this is how it's going to play out. I think Obama will win more of these states, offering that Clinton may end up performing slightly better in a couple of Obama's wins. The point here is, Clinton wins more of the remaining states and more of the remaining superdelegates and still doesn't stop Obama from reaching 2025. What I expect to happen is that Obama will win the larger portion of the remaining superdelegates and will win a few of those states in Clinton's column. This game was intended to see how Hillary Clinton could still clinch the nomination and I gave her an advantage that I thought would do it. When I looked up at the bar graph for the two candidates, oddly it landed at exactly 2025 for Obama. I expected that I'd just given Clinton a slim majority when I looked up, but it worked out so neatly that I had to post this. It also shows that Hillary Clinton's quest for the nomination is still a virtual impossibility.

One note: I believe this CNN delegate game counts the Florida and Michigan delegates for Clinton. It definitely gives her those states on the colored-in map. If that's true, and they did factor in the numbers.....more bleak.