Obama's magic number drops to 132 (needed to clinch) with 2 more superdelegates and Wyoming's haul!

Two more superdelegates were announced over the weekend committing for Obama. Newly elected Congressman Bill Foster (IL) in winning the special election to replace former Republican Speaker of the House, Dennis Hastert in his victory speech committed to Obama who had campaigned for him. By all accounts this is a serious bell weather election where a Democrat beat a well-known Republican in a district that was GOP for over 20 years and considered safe when Hastert was the Speaker.

The other superdelegate to commit is Mary Jo Neville (DNC-MD) bring the total to 12-to-4 for the week and 22-to-4 for the month. Going back to February 1st Obama has picked up 96 superdelegates to Clinton's 66, but she has also lost 10, some to Obama and some to being uncommitted. Right now the announced commitment superdelegate count rests at 244 (Clinton) to 205 (Obama). Essentially Obama is on a pace of gaining 2 endorsements to every 1 for Clinton. Saturday the Clinton campaign released that Mary Lou Winters (DNC-LA) committed for Hillary. With Wyoming's win the weekend was another Obama success gaining an additional 9 to the math.

This is the math that the pundits and press are alluding to but few if any have actually detailed to show you how close Obama is to clinching the nomination. Back in February, following Super-Duper Tuesday, an email Bloomberg News' (Catherine Dodge and Alex Tonzi) reported that they inadvertently received an attachment to an email from the Obama campaign that contained the David Axelrod Projection Spreadsheet. The projections have proved to be quite accurate in their overall and except for Maine where the Obama campaign thought they would lose and their underestimating of the pledged delegates earned through yesterday. They are 41 above their earlier projections, meaning they have also taken away the same number of projected delegates from their camp!

All told they have earned 1385 pledged delegates and project to win 1688 pledged delegates after Puerto Rico (Clinton to have 1554) and currently with 205 publicly announced committed superdelegates this adds up to 1893, or 132 short of the 2025 needed to clinch the nomination. The Clinton camp would have 1798 with the current number of superdelegates, or 95 behind Obama and 227 from the nomination. This is why with each passing day as Obama gains a superdelegate or wins another state primary or caucus his chances increase considerably. Currently there are 346 undeclared superdelegates, (75 still to be named by various state conventions, like the seven that will be named on May 17th in Colorado Springs). Meaning--- 271 superdelegates remain open to be approached by each camp.

Things actually get more interesting regarding those 75 to be determined by votes in various state conventions (caucus states), where one can presume that Obama has a minimum of 60% of the state delegates voting for those spots. This would translate into an additional meaning that for the Clinton's to win the nomination in this math they would have to convince 73% (198 out of 271) of the remaining undeclared superdelegates and essentially vote to void the entire nomination process that Obama has gathered. Now with each superdelegate announcement or an additional delegate earned through the pledged voting process that is above Axelrod's projections drops the magic number. I am going to watch this number and adjust it up or down depending on the upcoming primaries and caucuses and the final results brought forward from the state conventions and congressional assemblies. My guess is that this will become a dynamic on its own as Obama comes closer to the 2025 in May. As I said earlier Obama would be closing in now if MI and FL had been conducted and even if he had lost both those states by the margin of Ohio or CA.

So one can now say that Obama projects as being 132 short of the nomination number of 2025.