Results: Republican Delegate Count (time to talk official delegates)

The New York Times ^

[BamaBelle]

Comparing Delegate Counts

A comparison of delegate projections from The New York Times and other sources. For a detailed description of how The New York Times counts delegates, see the table and description below. The Times is not generating projections for delegates from nonbinding contests or conducting a survey of unpledged superdelegates for the Republican race.

[BamaBelle]

Okay, who is the OFFICIAL holder of the true delegate count? I've been going by The New York Times list and by The Green Papers list.

http://www.thegreenpapers.com/P08/R-HS.phtml

Since there is a difference varying up to almost 200 in the delegate counts by varying sources, I would like to know who decides the OFFICIAL delegate count to call the nomination decided?

[GOPJ]

Are Hilly and Billy at it again?

[fireforeffect]

Here is another one.

http://uselectionatlas.org/RESULTS/national.php?year=2008&off=0&elect=2&f=0

Do not forget the super delegates. Yes, Republicans have them too.

[CharlesWayneCT]

There are delegates who are forced by rule to vote for the pledged candidate on the 1st ballot. Those are “hard” delegates, and give the lowest counts.

However, there are also COMMITTED delegates, meaning delegates we already know are going to the convention, who were chosen by the candidates to run for the delegate slot, and were elected to support that candidate. While these delegates are not bound by LAW to support their candidate, it is highly unlikely that, barring death or other catastrophe, they would ever vote against their man.

BTW, in many cases the presidential electors to the electoral college are also not bound by law to vote for their candidate, but except in rare protests they all vote properly, simply because they are chosen to do so.

So, unless you believe that McCain chose trusted people for his delegates who would be likely to bolt for Huckabee simply because some conservatives whine about it, counting these delegates for McCain is not really an issue.

[CharlesWayneCT]

BTW, Mitt Romney seemed to win a preponderance of elections where the delegates were these soft-pledged delegates. That’s why he is more able than Huckabee would be to tell his delegates to vote for McCain. They don’t have to, but if they were committed enough to be in his inner circle, it is likely they will listen to his opinion on the matter.

[dotnetfellow]

http://youdecide08.foxnews.com/2008/02/20/national-delegate-count-tally/

[BamaBelle]

I think some of you are missing the point of my question.

I still don’t know who holds the OFFICIAL delegate count. Is there somewhere the RNC keeps up with this? Do they go by the AP count?...or another count?

How will we know when John McCain reaches the 1191?

Thanks!

[curiosity]

The delegates don't vote until the national convention. The nomination doesn't become official until then (September).

But everyone will know what the outcome of that vote is going to be long before then.

McCain will have over 1,191 pledged delegates after May 20. Some of those will be bound by law to vote for him, and others won't, but it won't matter. Those who aren't bound were handpicked by the McCain campaign and will vote for him, even though they technically could vote for someone else.

He won't need any superdelegates nor any of Romney's delegates, even though he probably will get most of their votes, too.

Face the facts: he's our nominee, and there's nothing any of us can do about it.

The outcome of the nomination contest was obvious after Super Tuesday, unfortunately.

[curiosity]

I still don’t know who holds the OFFICIAL delegate count.

There is no official delegate count until the delegates vote in September at the convention.

[BamaBelle]

I must not be explaining my question in the right way. I know the official VOTE of the delegates takes place at the convention, but until then it has been stated over and over that once McCain reaches 1191 delegates, he will “officially” be the nominee. I would simply like to know which list the RNC (or maybe the media since they are running this campaign) are going by to determine that McCain has reached that point.

Case in point, since the last primary no other races have taken place but magically McCain has picked up about 100 or so delegates. The difference between the NYT count (which only counts PLEDGED delegates) and the AP (which has taken a survery of likely delegates) is 168 delegates. That is quite a difference...

If nothing is official until the convention, then there is no reason for Huckabee, Romney or Paul to drop out completely.

Huckabee has consistently said he will concede the race once 1191 pledged delegates are won. Going by the AP count that won’t be long, but going by NYT’s it may be a while.

Does that make it clear?

Thanks!

[gitmo]

There is no official count until the convention.

[curiosity]

That's just it: there is no official delegate count. The RNC isn't going to officially count them until the convention.

State parties select delegates, so you can get official lists of delegate names and information about to whom they are pledged from individual state parties. You can then count up the numbers. That's what the news agencies do.

There are discrepancies for two reasons:

First, very often delegates aren't selected immediately after primaries or caucuses, so the news agencies come up with estimates of how many delegates a candidate will get. Some of those estimates can be different. However, eventually state parties will officially select their delegates, and you can get those delegates from the state party.

Second, as you noted, some delegates are "superdelegates" and aren't pledged to any candidate. No one knows for sure how they will vote. The only way to get a sense is to survey them, just as AP did. The RNC does no surveys until the convention, so there can't be any official count of superdelegates for any candidate.

Nevertheless, it's not going to matter. McCain will have enough pledged delegates by the end of May to make his nomination totally certain, as opposed to virtually certain as it is right now. There will be no official count before the convention, but it will be obvious to anyone who bothers to do it for himself.

[curiosity]

Here are the official RNC rules as to delegate selection and delegate seating at the convetion:

http://www.thegreenpapers.com/P08/R.phtml

You'll note that according to the rules, state parites don't have to select their delegates until 35 days before the election, so for some states there will be no official delegate list until August.

So it looks like we'll have to rely on delegate estimates until then with no official list.

I looked at Green Papers, and I noticed they actually ahve a pretty good summary of the whole Byzantine delegate selection mess on their website. It does a good job explaining how uncertain the whole process is.

Neverthless, it's pretty easy to see that short of him keeling over and dying, or a miraculous surge for Huckabee, McCain will be the nominee. Regarless of whether he has 900 or 1000 delegates right now, it's a lead that's virtually impossible for anyone at this point to overcome.