How Big A Win Does Clinton Need?
David Knowles
Contributor
Posted:
04/21/08
There's one thing about tomorrow's Pennsylvania primary that everybody agrees upon: If Hillary Clinton loses, her campaign is finished. The demographics of the state represent her best chance at whittling down Barack Obama's lead in both the delegate count and the popular vote. What remains less clear, however, is whether there's a magic number, a point spread that, without a doubt, justifies Clinton's continued presence in the race.
Political Machine contributor Andrew Sullivan puts the threshold at double-digits.
Jerome Armstrong at MyDD thinks a 10-point Clinton margin would represent a "blowout".
Democratic consultant Peter Fenn doesn't put a number on it, but feels that Clinton's victory must be sizable.
Bloomberg has crunched the numbers, and finds that Hillary will need to win by 20 percentage points if she hopes to overtake Obama in the popular vote.
At the moment, Obama is way, way up in North Carolina. He's also well within the margin-of-error in most Indiana polls. If we assume a tie in the latter, and a blowout in the former, then Clinton's task of wining big tomorrow becomes that much more pressing. Today's question is for all you handicappers out there:
| Single digit win would be fine. | |
|---|---|
| Has to be at least 10 pts. | |
| It's her last chance, 20 pts. |
