Hillary Clinton’s claim that she’s the popular vote leader isn’t as far-fetched as the Washington Post‘s Fact Checker makes it seem. The Fact Checker says Clinton’s claim is delusional because she “has to exclude the 230,000 ‘uncommitted voters’ in Michigan, most of whom would have probably supported Barack Obama had he been on the ballot, and caucus participants in Iowa, Nevada, Maine, and Washington.” That’s not entirely fair. The Fact Checker relies on the Real Clear Politics tally that counts the uncommitted Michigan votes for Obama and uses estimates for the caucuses in Iowa, Nevada, Maine, and Washington. Under this count, Obama is leading by about 45,000 votes, but if you read the fine print, you learn that the “estimate from these four Caucus states where there are not official popular vote numbers increases Senator Obama’s popular vote margin by 110,224. This number would be about 50,000 less if the Washington primary results from February 19th were used instead of the Washington Caucus results.” If the purpose of the popular vote is to determine the will of the people, then it makes no sense to count Washington’s caucus instead of its primary. The law that created Washington’s primary in 1989 states:
“The Legislature further emphasized that the presidential selection process must be more open and representative of the will of the people,” according to Washington’s secretary of state. “A Presidential Primary allows each Washington voter to participate in the nomination process, not just political party insiders who participate in the caucuses.” So if you count Washington’s primary votes and give Obama Michigan’s uncommitted popular votes–just as the DNC gave him the state’s uncommitted delegates–then Hillary Clinton is ahead by about 5,000 votes. That could change tonight, and winning the popular vote by a few thousand votes isn’t going to sway enough of the superdelegates to give Clinton the nomination. But if Clinton can rightfully claim to be the popular vote winner, it weakens the legitimacy of Obama’s nomination. And die-hard Clinton supporters might not forget it come November.
