Most likely 40. All KS’s delegates are committed delegates determined by the caucus results.
What you are all forgetting is that Gingrich taught strategy at Military Colleges. He is assessing the overall primary contest like a military campaign; planning where it is best to do battle and not just lurching from one to state to the other.
As of 3/10/2012
http://www.thegreenpapers.com/P12/
Soft Delegates
Romney 421
Santorum 164
Gingrich 128
Paul 73
Hard Delegates
Romney 340
Santorum 95
Gingrich 107
Paul 22
The article says a candidate must get over 20% to get any delegates, and it looks like Santorum stopped them from doing that. Any loss for Romney at this point is a great thing, and this would be his biggest loss to date. This is the first state Romney got NO delegates from.
The only path to defeat for Romney is for the conservatives to outnumber him in delegates at a contested convention. It looks like it’s too far gone for them to win the nomination outright. So this is a great step forward toward victory under that strategy. Of course, it looks like Romney will get 36 delegates from Northern Marianas, Guam, Virgin Islands and American Samao, so we’re not gaining on him, just slowing him down.
Question on Green Papers on the wording of this rule:
“25 delegates (10 base at-large delegates and 15 bonus delegates) to the Republican National Convention are proportionally allocated to presidential contenders based on the statewide vote. A 20% threshold is required in order for a presidential contender to be allocated National Convention delegates. However, if only one candidate or no candidate receives the 20%, there is no threshold.”
When it says “there is no threshhold” does that mean that proportional allocation will happen anyway or does Santorum get all 40? The last part of this rule seems fishy and doesn’t make sense since it seems to penalize someone for getting 50% of the vote. Santorum’s got at least 28, but does Romney/Newt/Paul get 5,4, and 3 respectively?