The Delegate Fight: 2012

[Likely Voter]

Although people often talk about how "this thing could be over by NH", Only a fraction of delegates are being decided in all the contests before Super Tuesday.

I think that January and February will winnow the field down to Romney, Paul and one conservative (probably Perry or Gingrich). And even if that conservative hasn't won any races until that point, they will still ahve a chance because there are still 80-90% of the delegates still up for grabs

[Likely Voter]

Well both Perry and Gingrich have (at different times) been the overwhelming favored choice of Self-described conservatives and tea party supporters according to the polls.

And Romney certainly isn't a conservative and Ron Paul is a libertarian/conservative.

I guess I find it hard to believe that conservatives in the post IA/NH states will just jump onto the Romney train just because the conservative vote was split, letting Romney and Paul perform well. Once people start dropping out there will be time for someone to consolidate that vote and with so few delegates chosen early on there is plenty of time to actually win delegates, especially in all the southern primaries.

[Likely Voter]

I know that momentum in past years has been a big factor. However 2012 has been unusual. We have seen the conservative/tea party/evangelical vote go from one non-Romney to the other. Are all of these people going to suddenly all rally to Romney after he wins a couple of primaries (and after 2 or 3 non Romney's drop out)? 

I still think Someone will emerge as the conservative champion in addition to Paul and Romney, unless Santorum, Bachmann, Gingrich and Perry all hold on until Super Tuesday (which seems unlikely).

[Likely Voter]

I am confused by the whole committed vs. uncommitted delegates thing. Is this like Democratic super-delagates. The WSJ has Romney ahead when factoring in uncommitted.

Could we end up in a situation like Obama v Hillary when at one point it looked like Super Delegate party insiders could give the win to Hillary

[Likely Voter]

well these GOP superdelegates are enough to give the current delegate lead to Romney
http://projects.wsj.com/campaign2012/delegates

Lets face it, the superdelegates will go overwhelmingly for Romney given a choice. If this thing is close, they could make the difference

[Likely Voter]

A measure I would like to see from one of you number crunchers is what % of upcoming outstanding delegates each candidate needs to win in order to secure the nomination.

This metric can be updated after each primary.

I suspect that sometime in April Gingrich, Santorum and Paul will all reach the 100% mark, and so while Romney will still not have enough to win, the remaining candidates will be guaranteed not to win. At that point they will only remain in hopes of forcing a contested convention, and calls for them to withdraw will probably rise to a new level.

[Likely Voter]

That is cool. Why not break out all the candidates. I think it will be interesting to see how each approaches the 100% mark.

We know once Santorum hits the mark, phrases like "impossible to reach" and "mathematically eliminated" will feature prominently in every press release when talking about Rick, Newt and Ron.

[Likely Voter]

Nobody thinks somebody not named Mittens has a shot to get to a majority of delegates on their own.

Obviously that is true. But I think it is interesting to countdown to the 100% threshold as we know that Romney will make a big point about that. I expect it will happen on 4/24.

Also it is interesting to keep track of the % won for each candidate and not just Romney.

Just a suggestion, it is your chart. I was thinking of doing one myself but since you are that close I was hoping you could save me the trouble. Maybe others will find it useful too.

[Likely Voter]

great thanks!