They are in the game to influence the outcome and spin the data. It’s pretty clear that over the past month or so the pundits have been pumping up Clinton and knocking down Obama in order to prolong the Democratic primary.

The race is over!

(unless the Democratic party wants to self-destruct and make a total mockery of the primary system)

While a number of folks have pointed to Obama’s almost insurmountable leading in pledged delegates, it is also almost certain that Obama won’t have enough to win it without Supers.

The question is how will the supers go?

Seems to me if Obama keeps his lead in the popular vote, he’s got the nearly unbeatable argument that he’s got the lead in votes and delegates and that the Supers have no choice but to vatify the voters’ decisions.

BUT there is a significant chance he won’t hold on to the popular vote lead (it’s around 700,000 now, right?), especially if Fla is counted (better argument for Fla than MI) or Fla and/or MI is redone.

If HRC has the popular vote lead, then Obama’s argument is “Well, I’ve got more pledged delegates.” That argument goes up against HRC’s “Well I won more votes, and the pledged delegate lead has no particular moral force, certainly none to compare to the popular vote. Moreover, Obama has wilted in the end, I won more big important states, yada yada yada.” There is a significant chance she wins that argument, of course she will need to persuade many more supers than Obama, so even though I think she would have the better of the argument she’s got a handicap there.

So what might the market be reflecting? Some greater than 25% chance of winning the popular vote in the end—let’s say one in 35-40%—and then a reasonably high chance of winning the necessary supers if she does?

The data you link to isn’t particularly relevant so this is a great test because the bettors are using mostly relevant information while the news media is using irrelevant information. A 3-5% for Obama among Democrats means a lock for him at this point because the important metric is delegates. In order for Clinton to win she needs to start racking up 15-25% leads in the remaining contests. So a small margin (either way) in the remaining races equals an Obama win—which is what the betting market is looking at.

The reason she hasn’t cratered to near zero is because the super-delegates thing is up in the air until the end, so there she theoretically has an out (even if it is very unlikely).

If I were a superdelegate that was a big Clinton supporter, why would I not have declared by now? Why not at the beginning of the process as part of an effort to reduce the fundraising ability of the other candidates? If you check out the wikipedia page on superdelegates and look at their declarations of support over time, you’ll find that Hillary got all of her lead at the beginning of the process and now Obama is rapidly gaining. I can only imagine that this pattern will continue for two reasons. 1. Hillary continues to attack Obama rather than build her own support. 2. Hillary continues to attack Obama from the right making it clear that this is the way that she would pivot in the general if she were the nominee.

There is no reason to think that (again, barring an Obama collapse or a media declaration of such) Hillary is the natural choice of the 300 or so undeclared superdelegates.

http://www.slate.com/features/delegatecounter/
(Put Wyoming and Mississippi in for Obama by 20 points each)

There are three ways she can win. 1) She can win every race from here on out by 25-30 point margins, 2) she can rack up 20 point margins everywhere and figure out how to seat Michigan and Florida, and then win them by 20 point margins each, or 3) she can figure out how to get the superdelegates to usurp the will of the voters.

That’s it.

Jon Chait summed up the state of the race pretty well in this TNR piece

I don’t expect Hillary to win, but she has a realistic shot.