NBC NEWS: OBAMA 840 DELEGATES, CLINTONS 830 in Super Tuesday Contests [View All]

[Dems Will Win]

The Clintons were supposed to beat Obama by 350 delegates when this all started, then he hoped to be within 200. This is a shocker as Obama actually won about 10 more delegates last night than the previously inevitable Clintons.

NBC News, which is projecting delegates based on the Democratic Party's complex formula, figures Obama will wind up with 840 to 849 delegates, versus 829 to 838 for Clinton.

Clinton was portrayed in many news accounts as the night’s big winner, but Obama’s campaign says he wound up with a higher total where it really counts — the delegates who will choose the party’s nominee at this summer’s Democratic convention.

With the delegate count still under way, NBC News said Obama appears to have won around 840 delegates in yesterday’s contests, while Clinton earned about 830 — “give or take a few,” Tim Russert, the network’s Washington bureau chief, said on the “Today” show.

The running totals for the two, which includes previous contests and the party officials known as “superdelegates,” are only about 70 delegates apart, Russert said.

The bottom line is that the two are virtually tied.



http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0208/8358.html

Obama is favored in at least 18 of the next 24 contests and the Clintons are not allowed by law to raise more primary $$ form maxed-out big donors, so it looks like Obama is right now favored to win the nomination and must be considered the front-runner. The Clintons would need NEW rich donors to win -- and they simply don't exist.

The next primaries and caucuses are:

LA, NE (caucus), WA (caucus) , Virgin Islands, ME (caucus), DC, MD, VA, HI, WI

The only possible states for the Clintons in this lineup are obviously just VA and maybe Maine.