Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., reached a milestone, capturing the majority of pledged delegates Tuesday evening, while his opponent Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., boldly claimed a lead in the national popular vote in a rally in Kentucky Monday night.
As of press time, Obama was the projected winner in the Oregon primary with 60 percent of the vote, while Clinton claimed victory in Kentucky with a 65 percent majority.
Obama, who needed 18 delegates to claim the majority of pledged delegates for the party’s national convention in Denver, won enough delegates to likely secure the Democratic nomination.
According to CNN, Obama now leads Clinton 1,953 to 1,770 in total delegates ““ including pledged and superdelegates.
Though Obama falls short of the 2,026 delegates required to guarantee the nomination, the victory ensures a clear majority for Obama should Clinton garner 100 percent of the remaining delegates.
The long-anticipated showdown with Republican Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., awaits. McCain easily carried both Oregon and Kentucky on the Republican ticket.
Student supporters of Obama said the senator was in Iowa on Tuesday night to wrap up the primary while not yet declaring full victory, saying Iowa symbolized the Obama movement.
“We went into the primaries, a bunch of college kids in America, and we won,” said Aria Ghafari, president of Bruins for Obama. “We had a plan and we carried it out. We haven’t changed what we were about.”
Meanwhile, Clinton is claiming that the race is “nowhere near over.” With Florida and Michigan undecided, Clinton is claiming a lead in the overall popular vote count.
“I believe that with your help we will send a message to this country because right now more people have voted for me than have voted for my opponent,” Clinton said, according to The New York Times.
Florida and Michigan, in defiance of party rules, scheduled their primaries too early this year, resulting in the nullification of the state’s delegates by Democratic National Committee.
Some calculations, including Real Clear Politics, a political Web site, show Clinton with a 205,276 popular vote lead over Obama, including the disqualified votes.
As the Democratic National Committee convenes on May 31 to consider the status of the delegates, Clinton supporters will hold their breath for the outcome of the committee’s decision.
“Voters are being disenfranchised,” said Teddy Schwartz, president of Bruins for Hillary. “It does not reflect the way voters cast their ballots. She got a significant amount of votes there that should be counted.”
Schwartz said he believes the Democratic leadership is smart enough to recognize the political importance of those two battleground states in November, and will allocate the delegates according to how the votes were cast.
“Hillary has proven she can win there,” Schwartz said.
Jeffrey Lewis, a political science professor, expressed uncertainty on what direction the committee was going to take.
He said that, should neither candidate concede, delegates should be seated proportionally to delegate counts.
“There’s no way for revoting with only a few weeks left (in the primary season),” Lewis said. “All the candidates knew the rules, and they knew that electors in Florida and Michigan didn’t count.”