Update: Breaking: Hillary Clinton wins Puerto Rico! Obama and Clinton…State of the Race

Hillary Clinton wins Puerto Rico!  Sen. Obama called Sen. Clinton to congratulate her on her win.  Unfortunately for Sen. Clinton, the turnout on the island was not enough to give her what she was hoping for in terms of a lead in the popular vote count.  The turnout was a disappointing 50% below what it has been in previous elections reaching a mere 384,000 of the 3 million registered voters.  The 55 delegates at stake will be divided proportionally.  Puerto Rico cannot vote in the general election therefore the primary does not speak to either candidates electability in November.  The Clinton family made a total of four visits to Puerto Rico in their vigorous effort to boost her popular vote count.  Sen. Clinton is expected to use the popular vote count to argue to superdelegates that she is the more electable candidate.  Also, Clinton’s claim of a higher popular vote count does not include caucus states, Guam, or the Virgin Islands.  States and territories won by Sen. Obama.  Clinton math….you gotta love it.  To clinch the nomination, the victorious candidate must win 2118 delegates by the end of the primary contest.  The previous 2025 number was increased yesterday to 2118 after the DNC Rules and Bylaws Committee voted to include half of the Florida and Michigan delegations at the conclusion of their meeting on Saturday.  Thereby increasing the number of delegates to the 2118 number required to reach a majority because of the newly seated Michigan and Florida delegations.  The previous 2025 number did not include the Michigan and Florida delegations because both states delegates were stripped when both states moved up their primaries in violation of DNC rules.  The DNC RBC sat Florida as the voters voted in the Sunshine state giving Clinton 56 delegates to Obama’s 36.  From Michigan, Clinton received 38 delegates and Obama received 31 with Obama receiving the uncommitted votes in Michigan plus an additional four delegates to reach a total of 31 overall.   Including today’s results out of Puerto Rico as they stand now with 29% of the vote in, Obama has 2071.5 needing only 46.5 more delegates to clinch the required 2118 victory number.  Clinton has 1911, needing 207 more delegates to clinch the nomination.  There are a total of 204 undeclared superdelegates remaining.  After the results from South Dakota and Montana, Obama will need a mere 20-25, contingent upon the Montana and South Dakota margins of victory, of the undeclared superdelegates to win the nomination.  Clinton needs 195 of the remaining undeclared superdelegates to win the nomination.  On Tuesday, South Dakota and Montana go to the polls.  It is expected that the Obama campaign, in the next 48 hours, will roll out the additional 30 superdelegates it needs to clinch the nomination.  The Obama campaign is encouraging superdelegates to publicly declare before the Montana and South Dakota primaries so that it can declare an official victory soon after the polls close in these last two states.    

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