Yes, Hillary Rodham Clinton may still have a chance of winning the Democratic nomination. But it’s probably smaller than the chance that a continued slugfest will hand the White House to John McCain.

Consider what it would take for Senator Clinton to win.

For starters, she would have to pull ahead in the popular vote, to balance her second-place spot in number of states won and in pledged delegates. As Bill Clinton put it on March 17: “If Senator Obama wins the popular vote then the choice will be easier. But if Hillary wins the popular vote but can’t quite catch up with the delegate votes, then you have to just ask yourself which is more important and who is more likely to win in November.”

Even Mr. Clinton seemed to concede the nomination to Mr. Obama unless Mrs. Clinton wins the popular vote; without that, she doesn’t even have an argument. Unfortunately for the Clintons, almost nobody who has done the math thinks that she can win the popular vote without re-votes in Florida and Michigan.

Mrs. Clinton is more than 700,000 votes behind in the popular vote. With 10 states and territories still to vote, perhaps another six million votes could be cast if turnout is very high, by the count of Ben Smith at Politico.com.