News Analysis for Democratic presidential primary contest:
With uncommitted congressional super delegates ready to decide, the magic number in tomorrow night's primary contests in South Dakota and Montana may be as low as 8. Barack Obama is currently 42.5 delegates shy of the 2,118 delegates needed to clinch the nomination. Sources today have indicated that at least 35 U.S. Representatives and Senators who are uncommitted right now will declare their support for Obama tomorrow and Wednesday.
If Obama picks up 8 more delegates from the two remaining primary contests, he will have 2,119 by the end of the day on Wednesday. Clinton is expected to have a symbolic win in South Dakota and the race is too close to call in Montana, according to the latest polls.
However, to party leaders and super delegates, the results of the last two primaries are not as significant as the fact that there will be no more primaries in the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination contest.
Hillary Clinton's end of primary season wins are apparently not enough to convince super delegates that, without a majority of delegates, she can represent the party in the November election against John McCain. Obama has already won the majority of pledged delegates.
CNN reported today that 17 U.S. Senators who have yet to declare for a candidate will do so for Obama on Wednesday, the day after all the primaries are over. MSNBC reports that 18 uncommitted U.S. Representatives will announce their support for Obama tomorrow. With the combined extra 35 delegates, it is only necessary for Obama to win 8 out of 31 potential pledged candidates from the two states of South Dakota and Montana tomorrow night.
At least that is the scenario that appears to be prevalent right now. Should Obama not gain the expected support from his colleagues in the Senate and the House, look for an open convention in Denver this August. In recent memory every time the Democratic Party had a split convention they lost in the November election, which may be McCain's best chance to succeed George W. Bush as the next president.
Another possible scenario is that the most recent polls in the last two remaining states are wrong. Pollsters this year have had a difficult time predicting many primary races. The two latest polls come from a New Hampshire polling firm called American Research Group. Both their South Dakota and Montana polls used a sampling number of 600 voters, which is considered much less reliable than samples of greater than 1,000 respondents.
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