Romney’s Delegate Lead Grows

The Washington Post ^ | March 14, 2012 | Aaron Blake

[Iron Munro]

Despite his losses in the Alabama and Mississippi primaries, Mitt Romney appears to have expanded his delegate lead on Tuesday.

The most recent projections from AP show Rick Santorum took 31 delegates from Alabama and Mississippi, while Newt Gingrich took 24 delegates and Romney got 23

But this morning, Romney was projected to win all nine delegates from American Samoa’s caucuses, and he also won the Hawaii caucuses by a large margin.

AP projections show Romney beat Santorum 18 delegates to four in those jurisdictions.

So, as of this morning, Romney has won 41 delegates from Tuesday’s contests, compared to 35 for Santorum, thereby expanding Romney’s delegate lead. (Gingrich is projected to have won 24 delegates.)

[manc]

goes all the way and Col Allen West step in and run on our ticket..

\

well I can dream can’t I

[JediJones]

You’re wrong on some of these and this is too important to be spreading misinformation. Almost no one seems to understand the PA, WV, IL system yet. It’s direct, plurality-takes-all by district. If Romney wins every district with a 26-25-25-24 split and he wins EVERY delegate.

I’m not looking at what gets “settled at a convention” either, I’m looking at the votes and delegates. Obviously the party or grass-roots maneuvering will favor Romney or Paul so we need to win those to have any chance.

We have upcoming 622 delegates from just 7 big states with partial winner-take-all where splitting the vote could make the difference between handing Romney hundreds of delegates or not...the first 3 groups below. These are the kind of mixed/moderate states/districts like Ohio and Michigan where vote-splitting WILL kill us.

We have upcoming 228 from pure winner-take-all, where I guess Romney might only lose in Wisconsin for 42. But that’s 42 we might not get with vote-splitting and EVERY DELEGATE COUNTS.

And we have 439 from proportional. If one conservative drops out, we lose nothing here, because all those votes and delegates go to the other conservative instead.

We have EVERYTHING to gain by one conservative dropping out and pretty much nothing to lose.

The types:

Direct delegate election by district. If Romney wins every district in the state with 26-25-25-24 or more, he gets ALL the delegates. The nature of these states shows there is very serious vote-splitting potential to help Romney in these:

Illinois
Pennsylvania
West Virginia
(172 total)

Winner-take-all by district:

California

(172 total)

Election becomes winner-take-all if a candidate meets a certain threshold (usually 50%):

New York
Texas
Connecticut (a mix)

(278 total)

Proportional:

Louisiana
Rhode Island
North Carolina
Oregon
Arkansas
Kentucky
New Mexico
South Dakota
Nebraska
Indiana
Montana
Missouri

(439 total)

Winner-take-all:

Puerto Rico
Maryland
Washington D.C.
Wisconsin
Delaware
New Jersey
Utah

(228 total)

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2012/president/republican_delegate_count.html

[pollywog]

He can win the Nomination, but he has no shot in the General.

So if he does win the nomination, and IF a third party would immerge, WOULD the third party have a crack at winning? Just wondering........

[JediJones]

For instance, how can Rick or Newt singlehandedly prevent Romney from getting any delegates in California? That’s kind of naive IMO.

No, the opposite is naive. The Illinois polls show Romney winning with 35% and Newt and Rick split lower. But combined, Newt and Rick are 43%. With a 35-25-15 split in any given California district, Romney wins all its delegates. Combine our vote and we beat him 40-35, and we win all the delegates. Look no further than Ross Perot to see how a conservative split awards a win to a single liberal.

[JediJones]

It is a Congressional District Winner-Take-All primary, effectively making it a proportional state.

That's a bad misreading of district winner-take-all. Just see South Carolina. Newt won 92% of the delegates but only got 40% of the vote. District winner-take-all are likely to give someone the vast majority of delegates even with a small plurality of the vote. It all depends if each district votes about the same as the whole state did or not. Every district is its own mini winner-take-all state. It all depends how many districts are liberal enough to give Romney over 50% regardless of who else runs, and which would split more like 40-30-20, Mitt-Rick-Newt. Nevertheless, we lose nothing in either district if we move to just one candidate. Advantage is for one of our guys to drop out. New York is probably the only state out of them all where it might help Mitt if one of our guys drops out. Because it shuts out the opponents from delegates if the winner gets over 50%. But looking at the map, we can pull the same move on Mitt in Texas with even more delegates at stake, and we get big advantages in all the district winner-take-all and direct delegate election states with one candidate and no splitting.

[JediJones]

REPOST FROM ABOVE WITH SPACING FIXED

It is a Congressional District Winner-Take-All primary, effectively making it a proportional state.

That's a bad misreading of district winner-take-all. Just see South Carolina. Newt won 92% of the delegates but only got 40% of the vote. District winner-take-all are likely to give someone the vast majority of delegates even with a small plurality of the vote. It all depends if each district votes about the same as the whole state did or not.

Every district is its own mini winner-take-all state. It all depends how many districts are liberal enough to give Romney over 50% regardless of who else runs, and which would split more like 40-30-20, Mitt-Rick-Newt. Nevertheless, we lose nothing in either district if we move to just one candidate. Advantage is for one of our guys to drop out.

New York is probably the only state out of them all where it might help Mitt if one of our guys drops out. Because it shuts out the opponents from delegates if the winner gets over 50%. But looking at the map, we can pull the same move on Mitt in Texas with even more delegates at stake, and we get big advantages in all the district winner-take-all and direct delegate election states with one candidate and no splitting.

[nitzy]

Mitt Romney, needing 46% of the votes

He doesn't need 46% of the vote. He needs 46% of the delegates. That could take as little as 30% of the vote depending on how many other candidates are running and how he does in winner take all states.

[stars & stripes forever]

The "war" is coming either way. If the American people are still so stupid to vote barry or mittens, perhaps we deserve to be destroyed...

I just heard this from the mouth of Mitt Romney on FOX. "This election is about the soul of America."

This election is about ONE NATION UNDER GOD. The question every voter will have to answer is WHAT GOD WILL AMERICA BE UNDER?

As Joshua said, "Choose this day whom you will serve, but for me and my house we will serve the LORD.

Vote your faith, not the party line.

[trappedincanuckistan]

Do you think all Newt’s support goes to Santorum, or vice versa? I don’t.

[mojitojoe]

I wanted Palin, thought about Perry, then jumped on the Cain train, when that fizzled I went with Newt who is still the only candidate I like.

I’m not going to spend time on FR bashing any of the candidates because in Nov. I’m going to vote for whoever has an R beside their name and I hope it’s Newt.

Were MS and AL open primary states? Is it possible the Dems voted for the weakest link against Obummer, the one least likely to beat him? How do you think Rick will do with the independent vote? I think we all know the answer to that. We need someone that can get the conservative and independent votes, and if they have to choose one at the convention, so be it.

[SoConPubbie]

He doesn't need 46% of the vote. He needs 46% of the delegates. That could take as little as 30% of the vote depending on how many other candidates are running and how he does in winner take all states.


Furthermore, there are only around 200 delegates available in WTA primaries left. Hardly enough to support your 30% number.

Don't count California in your WTA column, it is WTA by Congressional District which means it is basically a proportional state.

[JediJones]

Rick is way ahead in PA in a new poll this week. He's pretty safe there probably even if Newt stays in, but would probably need Newt out to win the southeastern PA counties. Keep in mind that 18-point loss was with Dems voting. PA is a closed primary, requiring a party switch 30 days in advance to vote in it.

But, the math shows improbable path to Rick reaching 1144.

It's all but impossible for Rick to get there, but unless we stop vote-splitting, it's improbable that we stop Romney from getting there. Vote-splitting in the below helps Romney for sure and we can't afford to let him have ANY extra delegates. He's gotta be a couple hundred south of 1,144 to stop Ron Paul or the unbound party members putting him over the top. A single one-on-one race in the below states could mean moving maybe 100-250 delegates from Romney to us.

Wisconsin
Illinois
Pennsylvania
West Virginia
Connecticut
Texas
California

[JediJones]

Don't count California in your WTA column, it is WTA by Congressional District which means it is basically a proportional state.

Bzzzt. See South Carolina, WTA by district. Newt got 92% of the delegates with 40% of the vote. Districts are not likely to vote all that differently from the rest of the state, so whoever wins the state is likely to win most or virtually all the districts.

[JediJones]

2/3rds of the remaining or about 850 delegates are in WTA states, WTA districts or districts which conditionally turn WTA if the winner gets 50%. This back half of the primary is FAR more WTA than the first half. The states are not as favorable to Romney, but vote-splitting from two strong conservative candidates will hand him maybe 100s of free delegates in these contests.

[JediJones]

Do you think all Newt’s support goes to Santorum, or vice versa? I don’t.

Virtually all of it would I think, and in many cases he wouldn't need 100% of it to raise his numbers high enough to beat Romney. It's hard to imagine Newt dropping out flipping any contest Santorum is winning over to Romney. The reverse, though, is what we want and far more likely to occur.

[NoGrayZone]

I do vote my faith....and it isn’t mittens nor barry, one of a kind.

[katiedidit1]

Didn’t Santorum fail to register in some counties in Illinois? not sure but read something

[Kenny]

Romney’s Delegate Lead Grows

Even as his momentum and electability shrinks.

[Kenny]

Romney’s Delegate Lead Grows

Even as his momentum and electability shrinks.

[katiedidit1]

Well, I am going out on a limb here and predicting that Ron Paul will come in 4th:)