Hillary Clinton's already uphill path to the Democratic presidential nomination has gotten quite a bit steeper. On Thursday, the Michigan state Senate adjourned without taking action on a do-over of that state's Democratic primary, following the lead of Florida, which ruled out another primary earlier this week. That leaves it up to the party and the candidates to come up with a plan for seating both crucial state's delegates at the national convention this summer in Denver. But as Clinton and Barack Obama battle it out in the final stretch of the nomination race, there is no obvious solution that is in the interest of both candidates.
Even before the Michigan and Florida decisions, Clinton's chances of overtaking Obama's lead in pledged delegates—those won as a result of primaries and caucuses—had looked dim. (He's currently about 150 delegates ahead, with only 10 contests left to go.) But her campaign had hoped that, had Michigan and Florida held new primaries, she would be able to take the lead from Obama in the popular vote total. And with that, she planned to make the argument to the party's "superdelegates"—the elected and party officials who get delegate slots by virtue of the positions they hold—that she is the more electable Democrat and the one who should get the nomination.
A revote in Florida and Michigan would almost certainly have strengthened that argument. If it happens, "I have no doubt at the end, when Puerto Rico votes [in June], Senator Clinton would have the most popular votes, and that could have a huge impact on the superdelegates," said Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell, a Clinton supporter who has helped raise more than $8 million in pledges of private funds to finance new contests. And if Clinton could pull ahead in the popular vote, he added, it would undercut "the whole raison d'etre of the Obama argument: How do you turn your back on the will of the people?"
As they now stand, the results in those states were far from a perfect representation of popular will—a point the Obama campaign has made repeatedly. Both states, looking for more influence in the nominating process, held their votes before the Feb. 5 date allowed under party rules, despite a declaration by the Democratic National Committee that it would take away their convention delegates if they did so. (The Republican Party also penalized Florida and Michigan, but took away only half their delegates.) As a result of the DNC's warning, many Democrats chose not to vote—or to cast their ballots in the Republican race.
Michigan, which has 156 delegates, held its primary on January 15, and Clinton won handily, with 55% of the vote. But all the other major Democratic contenders had taken their name off the Michigan ballot. ("Uncommitted" came in second, with 40%.) And Florida, which has 210 delegates, voted on Jan. 29. All of the Democratic contenders were on the ballot, but had pledged not to campaign there. Clinton won with 50% of the vote, well ahead of Obama, who got 33%.
Obama's camp, which raised doubts about the reliability of the Michigan revote plan that Clinton's camp was pushing, has proposed that the candidates split the two states' delegates. On Thursday, former presidential contender Sen. Chris Dodd—who like Clinton had left his name on the Michigan ballot, and who now supports Obama—put out a statement declaring: "The best outcome is to come to an arrangement where the delegates are apportioned fairly between Senators Obama and Clinton, so the Michigan delegation can participate fully in the Denver convention." But Clinton almost immediately rejected that idea, telling reporters: "I do not see how two of our largest and most significant states can be disenfranchised and left out of the process of picking our nominee without raising serious questions about the legitimacy of that nominee."
Both the candidates and the party have another reason to be wary of doing anything to alienate voters in Michigan and Florida: Both are key swing states in the November election.