Spin Cycle

NBC estimates that Obama will get a net gain of at least 20 delegates, 52-32, from his wins in Wisconsin and Hawaii, boosting his total margin of pledged (elected) delegates to 1168-1018. CNN has Obama up in pledged delegates 1140 to 1005, but they don't seem to have put in Hawaii yet.

The effect: Essentially, every time Hillary suffers a big loss like last night, it becomes less likely that she'll be able to catch up in pledged delegates, and she needs bigger margins in future states to get close enough to have an argument to superdelegates that they should back her.

Meanwhile, also on the delegate front, the Clinton campaign has opened a site called Delegate Hub, devoted to "facts and myths about the race to reach 2208 delegate votes - the number required for a candidate to secure the nomination with Florida and Michigan included."

Most everyone else is using 2025 and not including Florida and Michigan, because they were stripped of delegates months ago. But otherwise, the site is a useful repository for the Clinton arguments -- that Florida and Michigan should count, that superdelegates should feel free to overturn voters and pick Hillary if they think she'd be better, and the like.