The Democrats’ much-anticipated dust-up in Pennsylvania ended up making only one thing clear: It’s on to Indiana.
Hopes of pushing Sen. Hillary Clinton out of the race all but faded with her 10-point victory in a crucial electoral state — a state where she was outspent more than 2-to-1 by Barack Obama.
Buckle up, Denver.
We already have a front-row seat to history, with either the first African-American or first woman being nominated for president by a major party, but there’s a chance we could witness a historic floor fight for the nomination, too.
Most party leaders want something settled before the Denver convention in late August. But here’s why Clinton’s victory makes that more difficult:
Not only can she lay claim to winning all of the big states Democrats will need in November, save Obama’s home state of Illinois, but she’s also nailing down the base Democrats need for victory.
Clinton’s Pennsylvania win was fueled by winning over huge portions of union workers, women, Catholics, and blue-collar workers — all critical groups for Democrats. It’s easy to assume they would all shift over to Obama in November, but about one-fourth of Hillary voters said they would consider voting for Republican John McCain instead.
Those polls can shift quickly, of course, but you can expect to hear Clinton asking often whether Obama can carry those much-needed industrial states in November.
The numbers make her argument that she’s the stronger candidate against McCain much harder to dismiss now.
Obama, the delegate leader, very likely will still be the delegate leader when the primaries and caucuses wrap up in June. But neither Obama nor Clinton will have the needed number of delegates to clinch the nomination.
If Clinton can parlay momentum from her Pennsylvania win into pickups in Indiana, West Virginia and Kentucky, she will edge closer to Obama in the popular vote. She picked up around 200,000 more popular votes in Pennsylvania, narrowing Obama’s lead to around 600,000. If those disputed votes in the Michigan and Florida primaries were included, Clinton would actually be ahead.
Ah, yes, Florida and Michigan. As of now, their votes don’t count because their state legislatures moved up their primary election dates, and the Democratic Party is punishing them for it. But those are two important states, and party leaders need to figure out soon how to make their voices heard in this process.
We’ve known for quite some time that superdelegates will decide this race. We just don’t know whose claim of invincibility they will buy — Obama’s or Clinton’s.
Clinton still has an uphill climb, but the path is much clearer than it was Monday.
