stopping Mccain in South Carolina primary

[Mr. Morden]

Huckabee came pretty close.  Interesting to think about what would have happened if Huckabee had pulled it out in SC.  Maybe Romney would have managed to win in Florida, and McCain would have been seen as a one state wonder.

[Mr. Morden]

I doubt it would have mattered. The switch to winner take all in NY and NJ would have ensured that McCain would have come out of Supertuesday with a massive delegate lead, while the PR system all of the potential Huckabee and Romney states used would have prevented them from catching up. Both primaries this year were determined by the electoral system imho.

Romney could have won both California and Missouri if he'd gone into Super Tuesday after having just won Florida (and after McCain lost to Huckabee in SC).  Huckabee also would probably win Oklahoma in this scenario.  Anyway, MO is WTA, and CA is WTA by district.  If Romney won the popular vote in CA, he would have racked up quite a few delegates.  Combine that with the other states that Romney and Huckabee won, plus Romney and Huckabee winning everything pre-Super Tuesday (except NH), and I don't think it's so clear that McCain would have had a "massive delegate" after Super Tuesday.  NY & NJ accounted for, what?  About 15% of all the delegates on Super Tuesday?  Certainly not chump change, but there are other places where Romney would have closed the gap somewhat.

[Mr. Morden]

OK, let's consider some hard numbers.  Using the Atlas's numbers, these are the delegate totals I get for all the primaries up through Super Tuesday:

McCain 700
Huckabee 195
Romney 189

However, those are certainly underestimates, as it undercounts delegates in numerous states where the primary/caucus results aren't formally binding, but where the final delegate allocation usually follows what happened in the caucus.  It allocates zero delegates for states such as Colorado, Minnesota, and Maine.  Whereas news organizations like the AP were keeping a running tally of approximate delegate counts for states like that.  If you used those approximate counts, Romney would be in better shape.  Still, for now, let's be generous to McCain, and use the above numbers.

Now, let's change a few things, under the scenario where Huckabee wins SC and Romney wins FL:

Make the delegate split in SC 18/6 Huckabee/McCain rather than 18/6 McCain Huckabee
Take the 57 WTA delegates from FL away from McCain and give them to Romney
Take the 58 WTA delegates from MO away from McCain and give them to Romney
Assume Huckabee wins OK with a 32/6 delegate split over McCain rather than the other way around
Assume Romney wins CA.  Rather than a delegate split of McCain 155 / Romney 15, make it Romney 105 / McCain 65

After doing all of that, you bring McCain's delegate tally down to 457, while Romney's is up to 394.  So McCain's lead over Romney is already down to just 63 delegates, and I haven't even counted states like CO or MN yet, nor made any adjustments in other states, such as IL, where Romney could have won more delegates.  So it's entirely possible that McCain could have ended Super Tuesday with a negligible/nonexistant delegate lead, and then, on Feb. 9th, Romney could have taken the lead, following a victory in the Washington caucuses, while Huckabee wins Kansas and Lousiana.

[Mr. Morden]

Missouri was never going Romney. He was in third.

Yes, but he was less than 4% out of 1st place.  It was basically a 3-way tie.  If Romney had won Florida instead of McCain, it might well have given him enough of a boost to win Missouri.

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To clarify, I never said that this scenario would necessarily to Romney winning the nomination....just that it would derail McCain's chances of virtually locking up the nomination on Super Tuesday.  It's quite possible that the scenario I described would have instead led to some kind of "brokered convention" scenario, where McCain might have ended up the winner anyway.

Basically, I was spinning the scenario:

Huckabee wins SC --> McCain weakened enough that Romney wins Florida --> Super Tuesday turns out rather different

In the real timeline, McCain's wins in SC and FL were virtually enough for the media to crown him presumptive nominee.  Super Tuesday was almost seen as a victory lap for him....the media pretty much treated him as if he'd already won.....and Romney didn't even really make that big an ad buy in the major media markets for Super Tuesday, because he saw the writing on the wall.  But despite all that, both Huckabee and Romney actually had a respectable showing on Super Tuesday, at least in terms of votes.  In delegates, they ended up well behind.

I was just wondering how the media narrative might have been different have McCain had lost both SC and FL.  If Huckabee and Romney had split all the victories throughout January except for NH.  The storyline going into Super Tuesday would have been quite different.

And of course, you could take it a step farther and ask "What if McCain hadn't even won New Hampshire?"  It's not like he beat Romney there by an overwhelming margin.  Huck and Romney would have won *everything* in January.  How would that counterfactual have gone?