Likely Voter
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Junior Chimp
Posts: 8,344
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« on: March 21, 2012, 11:55:38 AM » |
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« edited: March 21, 2012, 12:07:05 PM by Lightweight Voter »
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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).
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