WASHINGTON - Hillary Clinton, fighting to revive her campaign after an 11-contest losing streak, will need to consider dropping out if she does not win the delegate-rich states of Texas and Ohio next week, a senior adviser to the New York senator said yesterday.
While the campaign is still confident that the senator can capture the nomination, "if we lose in Texas and Ohio, Mrs. Clinton will have to make her decision as to whether she goes forward or not," political adviser Harold Ickes told reporters at a breakfast meeting.
Ickes's comment appeared to be the strongest public acknowledgement yet from the campaign that Clinton might lose the nomination she was so heavily favored to win just six months ago.
After the meeting, Ickes said it would be nearly impossible for Clinton to end the primary season with a majority of pledged delegates - those determined by the results of primaries and caucuses. Instead, Clinton would need the votes of superdelegates to pull ahead of Obama, he said.
"She would have to win percentages in those states that are just plain unattainable," Ickes said, referring to the 16 states and territories left to vote.
While Clinton has shown no sign that she anticipates defeat, the campaign math is clearly on the minds of her staff.
Clinton leads Obama in recent polls in Ohio, which votes March 4 with Texas, Vermont, and Rhode Island. A Quinnipiac University Poll released yesterday shows Clinton leading Obama by 51 percent to 40 percent. A University of Cincinnati Institute for Policy Research poll shows Clinton ahead by 8 points, 47 percent to 39 percent.
Polls in Texas show the two in a virtual dead heat, and Obama has been gaining in strength among several voter groups usually sympathetic to Clinton.
Ickes said he believed Clinton would "close the gap" between the number of delegates she and Obama will have by the end of the primary process, but would almost certainly not surpass Obama in the number of pledged delegates. "The balance is going to have to be made up by the automatic delegates," he said.
Ickes repeated Clinton's call to seat the delegates from Michigan and Florida, both of which violated Democratic National Committee rules by moving up their primaries to January. The DNC Rules and Bylaws Committee - of which Ickes is a member - voted to strip the states of their delegates.
