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Bill Clinton is once again pushing the "popular vote" angle on his wife's race against Barack Obama. As most know, the popular vote claim for Hillary Clinton is predicated on counting Michigan and Florida where the candidates didn't campaign or run ads (and in MI Obama's name wasn't on the ballots). Without those two states Obama is ahead in total votes and will finish June 3 ahead in total votes. But I'd like to offer something new about this popular vote argument because it is clear we will be hearing more about it in the days to come. It has to do with a point made by the Obama campaign about the validity of the popular vote metric. Their point is that, given that the whole contest is predicated on winning delegates, their strategy was focused on winning delegates and not on maximizing total votes. In the proportionally-allotted delegate system used in the Democratic praimaries it is most efficient in terms of advertising dollars and candidate time (UPDATE: and organizing time/money) to "buy" the cheapest delegates. Each delegate vote is worth "1" but the cost of acquiring each delegate vote varies. A simple way to see this, for example, is to divide each state's population by the total delegates it will have. You'll find that each delegate in Vermont represents about 40-thousand people and each delegate in Texas represents more than 100-thousand. If you're a smart campaign and you're looking for one extra delegate, better to spend your time and money in places where, say, reaching a million people translates into 25 potential delegates instead of just 10 potential delegates. Is this what the Obama campaign did? The table below sure makes that case. The 15 "cheapest" states/contests are listed along with the winner and the delegate margin the candidate won. Obama won 12 of these contests and his total pledged delegate margin among these 15 is 42 (so far, WY and SD may pad that). | LOCATION | POP. | DELE- GATES | POP./DEL. | VOTE WINNER (DEL.MARGIN) |
| Dem.Abroad | 100,000 (est.)
| 7
| 14,286 | Obama +2
|
Amer.Samoa*
| 57,291 | 3
| 19,097 | Clinton +1
| D.C.
| 572,059 | 15
| 38,137 | Obama +11
| Guam*
| 154,623 | 4 | 38,656 | Obama +0
| Vermont
| 608,827 | 15
| 40,588
| Obama +3
| Wyoming*
| 493,782
| 12
| 41,148
| Obama +2
| Alaska*
| 626,932
| 13
| 48,226
| Obama +7 | N. Dakota*
| 642,200
| 13
| 49,400
| Obama +3 | Rhode Island
| 1,048,319
| 21
| 49,920
| Clinton +5
| S. Dakota
| 754,844
| 15
| 50,323
| Obama** | Delaware
| 783,600
| 15
| 52,240
| Obama +3 | Maine*
| 1,274,923
| 24
| 53,122
| Obama +6 | | New Hampsh. | 1,235,786
| 22
| 56,172
| Clinton -3
| Montana
| 902,195
| 16
| 56,387
| Obama** | Hawaii*
| 1,211,537
| 20
| 60,577
| Obama +8 |
*Caucuses **Candidate significantly ahead in most recent poll If you continue down beyond the 15 listed here you'll start finding more Clinton victories. At the very bottom of the list, where reaching the large numbers of people required to achieve an extra is expensive, you'll find that Clinton wins 4 out of 6 states. These victories come at great expense and after doing this math I am not surprised the Clinton campaign is in debt. Now, the flip side to this argument is that, therefore, each pledged delegate that Clinton won should be "worth more." And that is Bill Clinton's argument, although he bases it on the fact that Obama did well in caucus states (which I've designated above with an asterisk) where each "vote" is, in his opinion, disproportionally powerful. But the table above shows that it's not just caucus states where "cheaper" delegates could be pursued. The Obama campaign had the best strategy for the system we have in place. In the general election do we want the candidate who will maximize the popular vote or the one who will work to maximize the electoral vote? Remember, Al Gore would have won with any other low population state. He wouldn't have needed Florida. And remember, he won the popular vote, for what that's worth.
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