Clinton Spin versus Mathematics.

Clinton Spin.

By what percentage did Clinton win the Pennsylvania primary. She said she needed to win by "more than 10%" to be viable. Now she claims she won by more than 10%.

Real Math.

According to
The State of Pennsylvania there were 2,267,368 people who voted in the Pennsylvania primary. Of these Hillary got 1,237,696 and Obama got 1,029,672.

The difference (that is Hillary's total minus Obama's total) of these is 208,024 voters.

So to find the real percentage you divide the difference (208,024) by the total voters (2,267,369) and multiply by 100. This gives a percentage of 9.175 (which we will round to 9.2%).

So the margin of victory is clearly much closer to 9% then 10%... and it is certainly less then double digits.

The Mathematical error

The trick they are playing is taking advantage of a rounding error. Hillary got 54.6% of the vote (which they are conveniently rounding to 55% and Obama got 45.4% which they are conveniently rounding down to 45%.

So what's the error-- you may ask. Isn't rounding OK?

No. In this case it is not OK. They are taking advantage of an error of significant figures that any high school math teacher would mark off points for.

The direct (i.e. easiest) way to calculate the margin of victory is the one I outline above.

The Clinton math people want to do this in three steps (since after all it favors them) first calculating the individual percentages, then rounding off, then subtracting.

It is the rounding off in the middle that is incorrect (since as you can see it changes the final answer). High school students are taught in 9th grade not to make this sort of rounding error (in fact there is a rule about how much you can round intermediate answers that is clearly broken here).

Does this matter?

I don't know... but if it didn't matter, then why not report the mathematically correct answer, rather than the spin that supports Clinton's mathematically incorrect claim.

This is another example of where the Clinton spin machine does and says whatever it can, whether true or not, whether damaging or now to make her case.

Now she even bends math.