Beating the spread

Obama said that losing by less than 10 in Pennsylvania would be a victory. The final tallies are going to be 55% Clinton, 45% Obama. Looks like he didn't make it -- or did he? He may have -- Clinton looks awfully close to getting less than or equal to 54.74%, with Obama getting 45.26%. Note that 54.74-45.26=9.48%, which rounds down to 9%. As I write this, Clinton has 54.69% with 99% of the votes counted, so if that holds, then Obama accomplished his goal of finishing within 10. Of course, looking at the 55-45 numbers, you'd say the difference was 10. But that's like taking 5.47, rounding to 5.5 because 7 is more than 5, and then rounding to 6. They finished 55-45, but the difference was 9. Math is weird, huh.

Better update: Talking points memo points out the above, as well as claiming that the AP's numbers are probably better than the official returns, at least for now. Since both sets of numbers are below 54.74% for Clinton, the analysis above stands. They're both above 54.5% also, although the official returns are at 54.587%, so conceivably that could shift below 54.5%, at which point it would become a 54/46 result, with rounding.

Update: The PA official election returns seem to be at least as complete as CNN's, and they have Clinton with 54% and Obama with 46% -- the spread is beaten anyway! Of course, since Clinton has 54.3% and Obama has 45.7%, the margin is actually 8.6%, so Clinton wins by 9%, not the 8% you would think from a 54-46 split.