I just put together an Excel spreadsheet that calculates delegate totals based on your estimations of who wins what state and by what percentage.
It works like this: You guess what percentage each candidate wins each state. The spreadsheet totals up the delegate count. It is assuming that the delegate distribution matches the vote percentage. I know life doesn't work this way. A candidate may win 60% of the vote, but split the delegates 50/50. A candidate may win 50% of the vote, but gain 60% of the delegates. But in the end, I'm figuring that it will roughly balance out. So this is just a way of getting a very rough notion of how things might break down. And since it's all based on your random guesses anyway, it doesn't really matter.
You must manually enter vote percentages for each candidate.
I believe that the candidate who wins the most pledged delegates will win the nomination.
Below the fold is a link to the spreadsheet, a screenshot of the spreadsheet, and instructions.
UPDATE -- New spreadsheet has been uploaded. Delegate count and primary schedule has been fixed (I think).
You can download the spreadsheet here.
Here's how it works:
Column B lists the states and dates of primaries.
Column C lists the number of delegates in that state.
Columns E and G is where you enter data (E for Obama, G for Clinton). Enter in your guess of the vote percentage. The percentage must be entered as a decimal. So if you think Obama will get 65% of the vote in LA, enter .65. The spreadsheet then distributes that delegate percentage to the candidate, and tallies the total.
You'll notice in columns F and H there are two numbers. These are the current delegate counts according to CNN. You can adjust these numbers or delete them entirely.
Please feel free to distribute this, and modify if you're a wiz at Excel and want to make it even cooler.
Based on my best guesses, Obama maintains a slim delegate lead throughout the entire primaries from here on out.