Super Tuesday Democratic Delegate Count Estimate (2/4 Update)

I've updated my estimates of how the Democratic delegates will be divided by Clinton and Obama on Super Tuesday. Please refer to my original post for the many reasons why this is a VERY rough estimate. In the last version, I used the most recent poll I could find in each state. Since several polling firms have released very recent polls in many states (like CA, MO, and GA), I'm using Pollster.com's current average for 11 states, rather than choose one polling firm over the other (keep in mind, however, that if there is a strong surge toward one candidate or the other in the closing days, it may not show up in the average as clearly). In a handful of states where there has been little polling, I just use the most recent survey. As with the last estimates I produced, if there has been no polling in a state over the past few weeks, I simply put the delegates from that state in the "unclear" column.

One other thing to keep in mind, polling error in large states like CA, IL, or NY would affect the delegate total significantly more than polling error in AL or OK, simply because of the number of delegates at stake in the larger states. For example, the pollster.com average for CA shows a 44-37 Clinton lead, but some polls taken in the last few days have shown the race even. Depending on which estimate is correct, it could mean a significant difference in delegates.

Based on the estimates from the polls, Clinton would win 821 delegates on Super Tuesday, Obama would win 746, and 122 additional delegates would be decided in states where no polling is available. Thus, if the survey results are correct, Clinton would come out of Super Tuesday with about a 50 delegate lead (not including super delegates).

I will try to post an estimate/prediction for Republicans later this evening.



CORRECTION: I mistakenly swapped Obama and Clinton's numbers in IL in my first posting and have now corrected the error (thanks to Dan for spotting the mistake).