The former first lady may not concede that fact, but many of her more rational supporters do. Their response? Big deal. So what if she’s not ahead right now? they say. By the end of primary season, she will be. To support their prediction, they point to Puerto Rico. “In Puerto Rico’s last major election, two million people voted,” writes Jonathan Last of the Philadelphia Inquirer, in a typical analysis. “Let’s assume that turnout for this historic vote–Puerto Rico has never had a presidential primary before–will be equal to or greater than that turnout. If Clinton were to win Puerto Rico by 20 points she would pick up at least a 400,000-vote margin. This would allow her to swamp Obama in the popular-vote counts.” In Ciales on Tuesday, Bill Clinton himself made a similar argument. “If you vote for her on Sunday in large numbers,” he said, “you will ensure that she wins the most votes cast in this long presidential primary.” Ah, Puerto Rico–the land where dreams come true.
The only problem? Even though local elections routinely attract 80 percent of the island’s 2.3 million registered voters, experts say there’s no chance that turnout for Sunday’s primary will match Last’s projections–or Clinton’s hopes. As the AP’s Danica Coto reports this morning, “the territory is showing little interest in what’s left of the contest between Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton.” According to electoral officials, only 25 percent of Puerto Rico’s electorate–or about 500,000 voters–will show up at the polls, and even then, “it’s questionable whether the forecast…will hold up.” The reason? “Traditionally people in Puerto Rico see the primaries as something far removed from their political reality,” says Angel Rosa, a political science professor at the University of Puerto Rico at Mayaguez. “They don’t see this primary as any kind of opportunity to send a message to the United States.” And, as Coto adds, “most of the suspense is gone.”
For Clinton, the numbers simply don’t add up. The latest polls show the New York Dem leading Obama by 13 points on the island. Assuming she maintains that margin on Sunday and turnout holds steady at half a million, she’ll emerge with a net gain of 65,000 votes–a bump that will probably be sliced in half (or more) on Tuesday, when Obama is expected to net at least 30,000 votes from wins in Montana and South Dakota. Unfortunately, that likely scenario leaves Clinton more than 240,000 short of overtaking her rival in the (non-Michigan) vote tally at the end of regulation. Massive turnout in the territory could give her a boost, as could a massive margin (of at least 40 percent)–but neither is likely to be massive enough. And changing the definition of “the popular vote” probably won’t help. If we don’t count Iowa, Nevada, Maine and Washington, and award Obama a net gain of zero from Montana and South Dakota–an unrealistic concession that still leaves the Illinois senator with a 100,000 vote lead–Clinton needs a 20-point blowout in P.R. to match his vote total. With those caucus states factored in, her required margin balloons to 45 percent.
Sí se puede? Try no se puede instead.
