Romney winning the majority of delegates: Still a tossup and here's why.

[retromike22]

According to realclearpolitics' delegate count, http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2012/president/republican_delegate_count.html
after counting in Illinois:

Romney has 554 delegates, and needs 590 more delegates to get to the magic nomination number of 1,144. I added up the remaining contests, and there are 1197 delegates remaining to be allocated. 590/1187... 49.7%. So Romney needs 49.7% of the remaining delegates to become the nominee.

Of the delegates awarded so far, (1008) Romney has 554, and so 554/1008... 54.9%. If he keeps at that percentage, he'll win the nomination. But it's really close to the 49.7% he needs. But look at the map, and look at the grey blank spaces, and then let's look at the calendar.




Imagine a line on the Utah-Colorado border, extending to both Mexico and Canada. Now imagine another line from Cleveland to Washington D.C. Everything within these two lines, that remain, is NOT ROMNEY COUNTRY. In addition, outside these lines is the home state of Rick Santorum.

Sure Romney won Michigan, Ohio, Florida, and Illinois, but look at the county results. It was only because of the large urban areas which gave him the win. Some of the strongest Santorum counties border Indiana, South Dakota, West Virginia, Kentucky, Wisconsin, and Arkansas.

So let's go through the calendar:

3/24:
LA Strong Santorum (or Gingrich lol)

4/3
DC Strong Romney
MD Strong Romney
WI Strong Santorum

4/21 The stupid 3rd event of MO's delegates, god I hate caucuses.
MO: Strong Santorum

4/24 Super Big Northeast Romney win but Santorum gets his home state.
CT Strong Romney
DE Lean Romney
NY Strong Romney
PA Strong Santorum
RI Strong Romney

5/8 Super Anti Romney Tuesday:
IN: Strong Santorum
NC: Strong Santorum or Gingrich
WV: Strong Santorum

5/15:
NE: Strong Santorum
OR: Strong Romney

5/22:
AR: Strong Santorum
KY: Strong Santorum

5/29: Romney's uh oh Primary:
TX: Strong Santorum or Gingrich

6/5: The Last Super Tuesday:
CA: Lean Romney (CA GOP is more conservative than you think)
MT: Toss-up
NJ: Lean Romney
NM: Toss-up
SD: Strong Santorum

6/26: The Mormon Lifeline:
UT: Toss-up....jk. Strong Romney.

Grouped out, they look like this:
Strong Romney: DC, MD, CT, NY, RI, OR, UT: 266 Delegates
Lean Romney: CA, DE, NJ: 239 Delegates
Toss-up: MT, NM: 49 Delegates.
Lean Santorum or Gingrich: 0
Strong Santorum or Gingrich: AR, KY, LA, NE, WI, MO, PA, IN, NC, WV, TX, SD: 643 Delegates.

Yes I know the categories might be off, and I know they're not winner take all. But my point is, is that there is more 643/1197 (53.7%) delegates in NOT ROMNEY country than there are in Romney country.

There's no way Santorum or Gingrich will win the majority of delegates left, let alone catch up. But for Romney to win the majority of delegates, that's still very much a toss-up. Remember he's won 54.9% of the delegates so far, now he needs to win the remaining 49.7%, most of which are in states and counties that are not favorable to him. It's close.

[IDS Speaker Ben Kenobi]

So Utah will be relevant. Good analysis.

Matches my analysis of the current situation. Mitt did ok in IL but not well enough to seal it. Haven't we seen this show before?

[IDS Speaker Ben Kenobi]

AR: Strong Romney
KY: Strong Romney

Uh, No. Both of these are Strong Santorum. Edit, I see you have them strong santorum in the final column.

That makes more sense.

[Bacon King]

The problem is, most of Romney's good states are WTA (either at-large or by district) so will only give a pittance of delegates to Santorum, while a lot of the big Santorum states are proportional (NC, TX, and PA has the directly-elected delegate thing) so Romney will still pull some notable support from them even while losing.

 

[Likely Voter]

The problem is that the delegate rules help Romney. UT, NJ, DE and DC are all WTA so he gets 126 delegates just from those 4, with 0 for Santorum. That brings him to needing 470. Then the rules in NY and CA make it easy for him to win the vast majority of delegates so he should get at least 200 out of those two alone so that leaves him needing 270. Then you have the remainder of the "strong Romney" states (MD, CT, OR and RI) where he should easily be able to get 70 so now he needs 200. Let's say that Romney then splits on the tossups and now he needs 175 out of the 643 "Strong Santorum" states. Firstly you have TX which is very proportional so Romeny shoujld easily get 55 so now you have him needing 120 left out of 498 "Strong Santorum" category. Romney should easily be able to scoop up 25% of the delegates from those states based on the rules.

As of now Romney remains on a trajectory where he crosses the 1144 line on June 5th. As Nate Silver pointed out today, Romney is entering the live girl/dead boy territory. . Santorum can win all those "strong" states and the tossups and he can't stop it.  And lets not forget that if Romney is close the unpledged (all GOP establishment) will likely push him over the top to avoid an open convention.

The only way to stop the Romney train is for Santorum to win some of the Romney states, especially some of the WTA states and for Sanotrum to seriously compete in NY and CA.   And the only thing that can make that happen is some kind of game changing event (and Santorum will also need a lot more money).

[Gustaf]

Another issue is that the category strong does not capture the full picture here.

Romney has tended to win and will likely continue to win by large margins in many places. Santorum has done so to a much smaller extent.

[GLPman]

This is a good analysis, but it disregards any momentum that Mittens picks up. Not all voters are as politically intelligent like us folk and those who haven't made up their minds completely could easily be swayed by momentum.

[Gass3268]

If Santourm can win Wisconsin this thing is going to go on for a long time. Which is why I am going to be voting for Santourm in Wisconsin's open primary, lol. Operation Hilarity/Backdoor lives!

[J. J.]

If Santourm can win Wisconsin this thing is going to go on for a long time. Which is why I am going to be voting for Santourm in Wisconsin's open primary, lol. Operation Hilarity/Backdoor lives!

WI many not make a difference.

[angus]

There's no way Santorum or Gingrich will win the majority of delegates left, let alone catch up. But for Romney to win the majority of delegates, that's still very much a toss-up. Remember he's won 54.9% of the delegates so far, now he needs to win the remaining 49.7%, most of which are in states and counties that are not favorable to him. It's close.

agreed.

I'm still hoping for a brokered convention, so I may be optimistically biased in favor of your analysis.

By the way, when I link to RCP, I see that they have Willard down for 560 delegates.

[J. J.]

There's no way Santorum or Gingrich will win the majority of delegates left, let alone catch up. But for Romney to win the majority of delegates, that's still very much a toss-up. Remember he's won 54.9% of the delegates so far, now he needs to win the remaining 49.7%, most of which are in states and counties that are not favorable to him. It's close.

agreed.

I'm still hoping for a brokered convention, so I may be optimistically biased in favor of your analysis.

By the way, when I link to RCP, I see that they have Willard down for 560 delegates.

AP has it 563, Greenpages 558.

[Gass3268]

If Santourm can win Wisconsin this thing is going to go on for a long time. Which is why I am going to be voting for Santourm in Wisconsin's open primary, lol. Operation Hilarity/Backdoor lives!

WI many not make a difference.

Romney has already won the nomination. What I was trying to say is that Santourm probably needs Wisconsin to keep going and possibly cause a brokered convention.

[retromike22]

AR: Strong Romney
KY: Strong Romney

Uh, No. Both of these are Strong Santorum. Edit, I see you have them strong santorum in the final column.

That makes more sense.

I fixed it, sorry I was doing this in the middle of the night.

[Chareth Cutestory]

The problem is, most of Romney's good states are WTA (either at-large or by district) so will only give a pittance of delegates to Santorum, while a lot of the big Santorum states are proportional (NC, TX, and PA has the directly-elected delegate thing) so Romney will still pull some notable support from them even while losing.

Yeah, exactly. One of Romney's strengths has been picking up relatively large proportions of delegates in states he loses and smashing opponents in delegate counts where he wins. Santorum hasn't been able to crush Romney and take a dominant amount of delegates often enough to catch him. And now with Romney likely to take big winner-take-alls down the road, I don't see a way he doesn't get a majority of delegates.

[Nagas]

Santorum could potentially pick off several CDs in Eastern California. Wisconsin is WTA.

It'll be tough, be he can keep Romney under 1144.

[Landslide Lyndon]

If Santourm can win Wisconsin this thing is going to go on for a long time. Which is why I am going to be voting for Santourm in Wisconsin's open primary, lol. Operation Hilarity/Backdoor lives!

WI many not make a difference.

Romney has already won the nomination. What I was trying to say is that Santourm probably needs Wisconsin to keep going and possibly cause a brokered convention.

JJ is unable to understand that we want the primary to keep going for the lulz, not because there is any realistic possibility to deny Romney the nomination (even though Mittens does his best to keep our hopes up).

[J. J.]

If Santourm can win Wisconsin this thing is going to go on for a long time. Which is why I am going to be voting for Santourm in Wisconsin's open primary, lol. Operation Hilarity/Backdoor lives!

WI many not make a difference.

Romney has already won the nomination. What I was trying to say is that Santourm probably needs Wisconsin to keep going and possibly cause a brokered convention.

JJ is unable to understand that we want the primary to keep going for the lulz, not because there is any realistic possibility to deny Romney the nomination (even though Mittens does his best to keep our hopes up).

It won't.  Santorum will soon be in the position Gingrich is, unless he, Rick, starts winning big.

LA is his best hope to start, but he needs to win 17-20 delegates.