The Delegate Fight: 2012

[Хahar 🤔]

If the straw polls don't matter, why do candidates compete for them? They should just focus on getting their delegates elected at each step of the process, instead of courting voters. I believe that was how Barry Goldwater captured the 1964 Republican nomination.

Because delegates are completely meaningless except in the exceedingly unlikely situation that no candidate has a majority. It's all about perception; the candidate who is perceived to have the best chance of winning will win. Straw polls are part of said perception.

[Хahar 🤔]

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So basically if a district splits 60%-20%-20%, its delegates are split evenly. What a dumb system.

Reminds me of the Chilean Senate.

[Хahar 🤔]

I need to display Maine and Nebraska's CDs in order to get the proper delegate total to show up in the state itself; pay no attention to the '1' value in each CD (though I have colored the Maine CDs appropriately for reference).

The numbers off the coast of Florida correspond to Puerto Rico and the insular territories (Virgin Islands, American Samoa, Guam, and the Northern Marianas).  Puerto Rico unfortunately no longer displays on the map as it used to.

Atlas conventions for the colors:  Green = Romney, Blue = Gingrich, Orange = Santorum, Yellow = Paul (ME CD 2).

Of course, most states are not winner-takes-all (only AZ & FL have been so far), so don't take a map like this too seriously.

Just change the year to 1968 and the Maine and Nebraska CDs go away.