The Daily Background

Obama is having a great night tonight so far. Here’s a refresher on the expectations, as set by Matthew Yglesias, an all-around smart guy:

So what’s going to happen is that (of course) Clinton will win Indiana and Obama will win North Carolina. But Clinton will win Indiana by a larger margin than Obama wins North Carolina, and Clinton’s supporters will note in somber tones that Obama lost the white vote in NC. At the same time, because NC has substantially more delegates than Indiana, Obama will actually make a small gain in net delegates causing his supporters (i.e. me) to become further enraged at Clinton’s refusal to admit that she’s lost and the press’ insistence on indulging the idea that there’s real doubt about the ultimate outcome.

That pretty much reflects the conventional wisdom and it was pretty reasonable. Here are the results so far though:

Obviously, and this is without many precincts reporting, Obama has managed to kept Indiana very competitive and has won handily in North Carolina, which was more expected. Still, if the final tally stays this close in Indiana, a state where he was behind in the past week, pressure on Clinton to drop out will really intensify.

Filed under: Z-TDB Blog