More on the superdelegate vote---good news for Obama

No matter how you slice or dice it Obama has won the superdelegate endorsement game since the Iowa Caucus and especially since February 5th when he basically ran the table in February. Brian Schaeffer at the Center for Congressional Presidential Studies at the American University has been doing some deep statistical research---stuff I actually love! Schaeffer states that:

"using statistical models to generate estimates for how likely each unpledged superdelegate was to vote for Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama. March 3rd the models had successfully predicted the endorsements of 71% of the previously unpledged superdelegates. Thus, this model provides a reasonable way of getting a sense of which candidate the remaining superdelegates will favor."

Since my last estimates, 17 superdelegates have announced their candidate endorsements and we predicted 11 of those correctly (65%)."Overall, since we began generating these predictions, 82 superdelegates have announced their endorsements, and we have been correct on 57 of these. Thus, overall, the models have been correct about 70% of the time...

...I have updated the predictions for which candidate unpledged Democratic superdelegates are likely to support. As before, I use information about the superdelegates who have committed to a candidate to generate predictions for the remaining unpledged superdelegates. I exclude superdelegates from DC and the territories because we lack complete data from those areas, and from IL, NY, and AR because superdelegates in those states have nearly unanimously cast their support for their native son/daughter.

Superdelegates who are between 40% and 60% likely to vote for Clinton/Obama are labeled as "unclear." There are 78 superdelegates in this range. There are 171 unpledged superdelegates who are at least 60% likely to vote for Obama; just 19 unpledged superdelegates are at least 60% likely to vote for Clinton. These predictions suggest that Obama will be able to cut into and even overtake Clinton's superdelegate lead in the coming weeks and months. Unless something significant changes, there seems to be little hope for the Clinton campaign in hoping that the superdelegates will help her erase Obama's lead.

These estimates show that among Obama's most likely endorsers are Governor Dave Freudenthal (WY), Rep. Dennis Moore (KS), and Rep. Tom Allen (ME). Clinton's most likely endorsers include Reps. Jerry McNerney, Susan Davis, and Lois Capps (all from CA).

All told using his prediction model and Obama would pick up 43 to 11 and being 34 behind now coming within 2 by sometime in May. Furthermore Senator Cantwell (D-WA) is reported to be on the fence leaving Clinton and endorsing Obama.