Who Won the Popular Vote? Hillary or Obama

It’s not as simple an answer as you might think.

Depending how you measure it, Obama got between 47.4 and 48.2 percent while Hillary got between 47.8 and 48.1 percent of the popular vote. This race could have been anything from a .8% Hillary victory to a .4% Obama win. In raw terms, Hillary could be up 286,687 votes or down 151,844 votes.

Neither candidate approaches 50%. About 4% of the vote went to people who weren’t named Barack or Hillary. The true wishes of that 4% is unknown (and such facts could get me to support a form of instant runoff voting in primaries). It can’t be said for certain which candidate actually won this race at it is beyond the ability of the process to measure. With the different balloting measures and varying margins of error and simply the fact some states used primaries, some caucused and some did both, no one can say with any certainty who won this race. The differences are insignificant.

Don’t let anyone kid you, it is the superdelegates who are deciding this race, not the actual results. It should be no surprise they’re going with the most liberal candidate. It also appears they’re going with the weaker of the two candidates. So thank your local superdelegate and congratulate your local Democrat for being in the party of backroom deals.