The Delegate Fight: 2012

[Erc]

In the manner of my similar 2008 topic, I'll be keeping a tally of the delegates for each candidate as best as can be done, discussing upcoming contests, and making (conservative) projections for future contests when useful.

For entertainment purposes: Map with Delegate Counts.

State	Romney	Santorum*	Gingrich	Paul	Uncommitted	Total
Iowa	10	10+1	-	5+1	1	28
New Hampshire	7	-	-	3	2	12
South Carolina	2	-	23	-	-	25
Florida	50	-	-	-	-	50
Nevada	14	3	6	5	-	28
Colorado	13	6	-	9	8	36
Minnesota	3	23	0+1	11	2	40
Maine	11+2	3	-	7	1	24
Arizona	29	-	-	-	-	29
Michigan	16	14	-	-	-	30
Wyoming	22+1	2	-	1	3	29
Washington	34	6	-	-	3	43
Alaska	8	8	2	6	3	27
Georgia	21	3	52	-	-	76
Idaho	32	-	-	-	-	32
Massachusetts	38+2	-	-	-	1	41
North Dakota	0+7	0+8	0+1	0+2	10	28
Ohio	38	21	-	-	7	66
Oklahoma	13	14	13	-	3	43
Tennessee	17	29	9	-	3	58
Virginia	43	-	-	3	3	49
Vermont	9	4	-	4	-	17
Guam	6+3	-	-	-	-	9
Northern Marianas	6+3	-	-	-	-	9
Kansas	7	33	-	-	-	40
Virgin Islands	3+4	-	-	1	1	9
Alabama	12	22+1	13	-	2	50
Mississippi	12+1	13	12	-	2	40
Hawaii	9	5	-	3	3	20
American Samoa	6+3	-	-	-	-	9
Puerto Rico	20+3	-	-	-	-	23
Illinois	42+2	12	-	-	13	69
Louisiana	5	10	-	-	31	46
District of Columbia	16+1	-	-	-	2	19
Maryland	37	-	-	-	-	37
Wisconsin	33	9	-	-	-	42
Total	676	260	132	61	104	1233
Other Supers	+9	-	+1	-	-	+10

Recent Updates:
4/15:  Minnesota, Colorado results updated.  (Final Main Page updates for the season)
4/6:  North Dakota results updated.
4/3:  Tennessee results updated.  DC/MD/WI results added.

* Santorum has suspended his campaign.  Discussion here.

The +1 or similar on delegate counts above represent unpledged delegates (RNC members, or delegates explicitly elected for Huntsman or as Uncommitted) who have endorsed that candidate.  As these are delegates who are free to change their minds and whose seats at the convention are not tied in any way to the will of the voters, I think it best to denote them separately.

The "Other Supers" row represents the RNC member endorsements in states yet to vote.  I'm taking my figures from Demconwatch, which is generally more conservative in counting endorsements than CNN or the AP.

Italicized States represent Caucus/Convention states that have not yet finished their processes.  As a result, their final delegate counts may be substantially different than those listed here, due to a variety of factors.  These include but are not limited to: winnowing of less popular candidates at the process continues; tactical voting; local 'superdelegates' in certain states; unknown particulars of the delegate selection process; and motivation gaps, including the "Stealth Paul Effect."  

Underlined States have been penalized by the RNC for having their contests too early in the season.  It is possible the RNC may eventually remove these sanctions (or, in the case of AZ/FL, add more).  Click on the state's link to find their delegate allocations in the absence of sanctions.

Other state-particular uncertainties include:

AL/GA/TN:  Different sources are reporting different results in these states.  In AL & TN, the RNC claims Gingrich has an extra delegate (at the expense of Romney); in GA, the results provided by the Secretary of State would seem to indicate Gingrich has two extra delegates (at the expense of Romney).
OH: 4 delegates in the 'Uncommitted' column will be assigned by a contest committee; it is likely they will be assigned to Santorum.
ND:  The delegation may choose to allocate itself based on the caucus results (7-11-2-8-0) or by their personal conscience (13-8-1-2-4).  Listed above is the worst case scenario for each candidate.

The Upcoming Calendar:  
May 5:  Minnesota State Convention ends.
May 6:  Maine State Convention.
May 8:  Indiana, North Carolina, West Virginia Primaries.
May 15:  Oregon Primary, Nebraska Beauty Contest.
May 22:  Arkansas, Kentucky Primary.
May 29:  Texas Primary.
June 2:  Louisiana, Missouri, Washington State Conventions.
June 5:  California, New Jersey, New Mexico, South Dakota Primaries, Montana Beauty Contest.
June 9:  Indiana, Illinois State Conventions end.
June 10:  Nebraska County Conventions end.  Pennsylvania State Committee Summer Meeting.
June 16:  Iowa, Montana State Conventions end.
June 26:  Utah Primary.
July 14:  Nebraska State Convention.

[Erc]

The Green Papers is as always your best friend, though it helps to go back to the source since they aren't completely infallible.

Since the Republicans never had McGovern-Fraser, the delegate selection can often be a bit arcane for the Republicans and varies wildly from state to state, the delegate allocation is a lot less complicated---and, thank goodness, there are far fewer "superdelegates:"  there are only 168 of them (3 from each state / territory / DC), around 7% of the total.  While that could make a difference in a tight race, they'd need to break overwhelmingly one way of the other.

As for the 'regular' delegates, it's really quite simple:

--10 delegates At-Large [to wit, 5 for each Senator]
--3 for each Congressional District
Plus some "Bonus Delegates" At-Large for the more Republican states:
--If it voted for McCain in 2008, it gets a bonus (4.5 + 60% * Electoral Vote) delegates, rounded up.
--1 Bonus Delegate for a Republican Governor elected since January 1, 2008
--1 Bonus Delegate for an at least 50% of its House Representatives being Republican since January 1, 2008
--1 Bonus Delegate for one chamber of the state legislature having a majority of Republicans with a Republican presiding officer
--1 Bonus Delegate for both chambers
--1 Bonus Delegate for each Republican Senator elected since January 1, 2006 (max 2)  [Does Murkowski count as a Republican?]

Puerto Rico gets 20 delegates, DC 16, the other territories 6 each.

States that go "early" (before March for most states, before February for NH/IA/NV/SC) are penalized and lose half their delegates (rounded up), and the "superdelegates" can't be among the half that remain.  Iowa is not penalized, since the caucuses don't actually choose the delegates, the State Convention in June does.  New Hampshire, South Carolina, Florida, Arizona, and Michigan [and perhaps Puerto Rico and the Northern Marianas] will be penalized.

Iowa, which did not vote for McCain in 2008, has considerably fewer delegates than it did last time around, only getting 3 bonus delegates:  1 for Gov. Terry Branstad, 1 for Sen. Chuck Grassley, and 1 for a Republican majority in the Iowa House of Representatives.

[Erc]

Certainly, even if Romney wins both IA & NH (or Paul IA, Romney NH), the race isn't over yet.  If Romney wins SC, though, does anyone honestly think that anyone else would have a real chance at the nomination at that point?  I could see Perry or Huntsman sticking it out past then if they did reasonably well, if only because they have the money to do so (and of course Paul will regardless).  But I'd say that a Romney win in SC would pretty much cement him as being at least acceptable to conservatives (especially since I doubt the field would be much divided at that point, unlike the 4-way race that was SC in 2008).

[Erc]

Erc's Unofficial Delegate Projection: Iowa

With the results mostly in (in fact, I could have called this hours ago), I can feel confident to make a delegate projection as per the method I stated before the caucuses:

Rick Santorum: 7
Mitt Romney: 7
Ron Paul: 7
Newt Gingrich: 2
Rick Perry: 1
Michelle Bachmann: 1

Each of the top three candidates get a delegate from each CD and 3 delegates statewide.  The remaining candidates that competed in Iowa got enough votes statewide to potentially earn a delegate or two out of the 13 At-Large delegates.  I really don't like giving Bachmann a delegate (and even if she had completely loyal supporters and she stayed in the race, it'd be incredibly unlikely she'd come up with a delegate here), but the alternative is giving it to the winner, and with the vote as close as it is, it would be disingenuous to give it to anyone.

Of course, it's very likely that the final delegate count will look nothing like this, even if the race is still competitive by the time of the State Convention in June.  Clearly, Rick Perry and Michelle Bachmann's supporters at the County Conventions are likely to support other candidates after they've (presumably) dropped out.  Furthermore, the multiple layers of conventions are likely to favor the leading three candidates over the trailing three, if only by rounding errors.  And of course, any amount of tactical voting or collusion (to lock out Ron Paul from getting delegates, for example) we won't know about until the conventions themselves.


Going forward:

With Bachmann's 6% place finish and Perry going back to Texas, I'm going to consider them effectively out of the race until they show a sign of life elsewhere.  To save space, their 2 delegates in Iowa are going into the "Other/Uncommitted" column along with the 3 RNC members from Iowa.

Main post will be updated to reflect this and with New Hampshire info shortly!

[Erc]

Iowa: January 3, 2012

Overview
28 Delegates (1.22% of total)
Caucus, Conventions
13 At-Large
12 by Congressional District
3 Party Leaders

At the Caucus / What the Media Reports
Republican caucus-goers participate in a straw poll, and the results of this straw poll are reported to the media---unlike for the Democrats, it is an actual vote total being reported.  Caucus-goers in each precinct also choose delegates to the County Conventions.  

County Conventions
March 10: Delegates were chosen to the [Congressional] District Conventions and the State Convention.  Apart from the usual Paulista rumors, there are no reliable statewide reports of what occurred at each convention, so we will have to wait until the state convention in June to get a better idea of the final totals.

District Conventions
April 21: Each of the 4 districts reports its preferred presidential candidate.  This has no binding effect whatsoever on final delegate selection.

State Convention
June 16:  
First, the caucus of delegates from each CD choose their 3 delegates each.
Then, the Convention as a whole decides on the 13 At-Large delegates.

Caucus/Convention Caveat
The entire system is very informal, with no explicit method for tying the ultimate selection to the wishes of the initial caucus-goers.  The delegates themselves aren't chosen until June, at a convention whose delegates were chosen at other conventions whose delegates were chosen by the caucus-goers.  In general (especially if there's a strong Paul showing), expect the final delegate counts to differ greatly from the original caucus result, whether due to tactical voting or due to simple bandwagoning around a presumptive nominee.

Erc's Unofficial Delegate Count:  IA
Statewide and in Each CD:  'Alabama Method'--chosen as it gives a distinct advantage to the winner of the state, as we would expect, and we really have no good idea how the conventions will choose delegates in any event.  Nevertheless, this will still likely give too much support to minor candidates and too little to the frontrunner.  I would especially not expect this to work well if Paul has a good showing.

If a candidate receives a majority in a jurisdiction, give him all the delegates therefrom.
Multiply the total number of delegates in the jurisdiction (13 statewide, 3 in each CD) by the candidate's percentage of the popular vote in that jurisdiction.  Round to the nearest whole number for each candidate.  Should there be an excess of delegates, remove delegates from the least-popular candidate.  Should not enough delegates be assigned, assign the remainder to the winner of that jurisdiction.

As the polling is all over the place at the moment, and there are likely to be variations in the result across districts, I am not going to even bother making a preliminary projection for Iowa.

RNC Members
AJ Spiker - Paul
Steve Scheffler
Kim Lehman - Santorum

Preliminary Delegate Allocation ( as of January 8 )
Romney - 10
Santorum - 10
Paul - 5

Details and justification for this breakdown found here and here.  These results are subject to change given more data on the election of delegates to the county/state conventions, especially after the county conventions on March 10th.

[Erc]

If I can find any good info on how many delegates each county (or heck, each precinct) sends to the State (or County) Conventions, I may do a more detailed projection for the Iowa delegates.

[Erc]

New Hampshire: January 10

Overview
12 Delegates (0.53% of total)
Primary
12 At-Large, P10%

Delegates are assigned proportionally to the statewide vote, with a 10% cutoff.  Rounding is done to the nearest whole number.  If any delegates remain, assign them to the winner.

New Hampshire violated RNC rules by holding its primary before the first Tuesday in February, and thus lost its half its delegate (including the RNC member seats).  It is possible these may may be restored later by the RNC, in which case the New Hampshire Primary would be assigning 20 delegates.

RNC Members

Note:  Due to RNC sanctions, no RNC members from New Hampshire have voting privileges at the convention unless the sanctions are removed.

Wayne MacDonald
Steve Duprey
Phyllis Woods

Pledged Delegate Allocation (as of January 10)
Romney - 7
Paul - 3
Huntsman - 2

There is some uncertainty in this allocation due to the sanctions imposed by the RNC.  In the absence of sanctions, the allocation would be Romney - 12, Paul - 5, Huntsman - 3, and the campaigns have since chosen their delegates based on the unsanctioned numbers.

This leaves it unclear as to which of these 20 delegates will be seated.  A 7-3-2 split still makes the most sense, but there is some room for rounding ambiguities (most likely in favor of Romney at the expense of Huntsman; as Huntsman delegates are likely in the Romney camp at this point anyway, the issue is likely moot).

Huntsman's Delegates

Huntsman has since dropped out of the race, leaving his two delegates effectively as unpledged 'superdelegates.'  In particular, they do not need to pay any attention to Jon Huntsman's endorsement of Romney.

Due to sanctions, there is some ambiguity over who Huntsman's two delegates to Tampa are, precisely.  However, we do know they will be two out of three of the following:

Paul J. Collins, Jr. - Romney
Renee Plummer
Sarah Stewart

Plummer and Stewart remain Uncommitted; Plummer has stated she will remain uncommitted until the convention.  Stewart was in the Pawlenty camp until he dropped out.

Note that Huntsman's delegates do differ from ordinary superdelegates in one respect; they have pre-determined alternates!  Their names can be found in the link above.

[Erc]

Where are Romney, Santorum, and Perry's 'unpledged' delegates in your count coming from, Bushie?

I assume from the Republicans' version of 'superdelegates'---the 3 RNC members from each non-penalized state, who attend the convention as unpledged delegates by virtue of their position.

Some of them have apparently already endorsed candidates, and are thus counted by CNN in their delegate totals.

In keeping with my practices last time around, I will not include such RNC members in candidates' delegate totals until after the state has voted.  CNN seems to believe one of the RNC members from Iowa has already endorsed Santorum---once I verify this, I will include it in my totals.

[Erc]

With Perry apparently still in the race, I've given him his own column of delegates once again on the front page.  I've also decided to give him the delegate I had originally, in foolishness, awarded to Bachmann.  This is not in line with my original prescription for assigning delegates, which would have given the extra delegate to the overall winner---but since Romney won by only 8 votes, it's not a fair reflection of reality to give him an extra delegate than Santorum on that basis alone.  Perry was the closest to getting an additional delegate before rounding, and as such I'm giving him that extra delegate.

If I can find any information whatsoever about the Iowa Republican Convention in June (even the total number of delegates would allow me to say something), I may refine my prediction further, but this is as good of an estimate as any for now.  Giving the delegate to Perry has the added benefit of bringing my count in line with CNN's, for now.

Santorum receives an additional delegate in Iowa beyond what he won last night due to the endorsement (made last summer, as a matter of fact), of Iowa National Committeewoman Kim Lehman.  (EDIT: thanks also to Lief for a separate link, above)

Iowa's other two RNC Members, Matt Strawn (Chairman), and Steve Scheffler (who heads the Iowa Faith & Freedom Coalition), did not endorse a candidate prior to the caucuses, and have not done so since.

Note that New Hampshire's RNC Members do not have voting privileges at the convention due to RNC penalties for going too early, unless the penalties are later removed by the RNC.

[Erc]

Different delegate counts you may see elsewhere:

CNN is including unpledged delegates (the RNC members) from states other than Iowa.  While these are delegates the candidates can presumably count on (unless they change their minds), I prefer not to include these in the totals until their states vote, for a variety of reasons.

MSNBC has used a different method to allocate Iowa's delegates, giving Romney 11, Santorum 11, Paul 3, and the others nothing.  Presumably, this is based on some sort of modeling of the results of the later county and state conventions.  While this result is probably closer to reality than CNN's (and mine), I have no idea how they did their modeling---and I don't see how Paul would do so terribly without tactical voting against Paul (which, while probable, shouldn't be counted on at this point).

The Associated Press did a similar sort of modelling, and somehow came up with 13 for Romney, 12 for Santorum, and 0 for Paul.  They've provided some details of the modeling, which I'll get into in another post.  Suffice it to say, unless I am greatly misunderstanding the process that occurs in Iowa, they've got it very wrong.

The Green Papers, knowing that the multiple conventions between now and the selection of the delegates will make it impossible to predict the final delegate numbers accurately, simply threw up their hands and allocated all 25 delegates based on the statewide vote.  While I appreciate their agnosticism in some sense, we know that certain delegates (12 out of the 25) will be chosen on a CD basis, and there is no way Gingrich or Perry will win any of those.  Those who finish below 3rd will be at least somewhat winnowed out, and the Green Papers' numbers don't reflect that.

[Erc]

Delegate Selection in Iowa

IA GOP Constitution / The Green Papers

The source to go to, of course, is the GOP itself---The Constitution of the Republican Party of Iowa.  This agrees entirely with the Green Papers description, which I outlined earlier.  The Green Papers has the advantage of concision and actually including dates, while the Constitution has some more details if they are deemed necessary.

The IA GOP Constitution is unfortunately lacking in saying how many delegates each precinct/county is awarded to the next layer of convention (saying only the counties will be "advised" as to how many delegates they will elect, and I do not know how they have been "advised").  There are reasons to believe it may be proportional to population, and there are reasons to believe it may be proportional to the vote for Terry Branstad in 2010.

The Associated Press

The AP gives an entirely different description of the process, given e.g. here.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

That's an interesting analysis.  Why do they place such a premium on winning CD's?

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This "slate committee" / "nominating committee" is interesting, but I can't quite find an official source for it (though it of course makes sense that a mechanism like this would exist).  There is some more anecdotal evidence---see some information as to how to become an RNC delegate in Iowa and some comments from the same process in 2008.

The fact that there are only 2 members per CD, if true, is crucial.  If you come in third in a district, it's far less likely you get a member on the nominating committee.  However, this is something that is going to come down entirely to tactical voting with the vote split as much as it is.  And don't assume automatically that tactical voting means that Paul loses---if the race really is down to the wire between Romney and Santorum (or Romney and some other anti-Romney), it's at least half plausible to imagine a Paul supporter and a Santorum supporter winning seats on the nominating committee in an effort to stop Romney from winning on the first ballot, say.

Regardless, the CD delegates, and there are 3 of them per CD, are chosen by the Congressional District Caucuses in toto, so there's more of a possibility Paul picks up the third here.

What I think the AP did:

Romney and Santorum each won a CD, so they get all 3 delegates and both Nominating Committee members in their respective districts.  The Nominating Committee (split evenly, and knowing it will have to get its slate approved by the convention as a whole), splits the 13 At-Large Delegates 7-6 for Romney (Romney by the strength of his 8-vote win, apparently).

This is very wrong, because although Romney and Santorum did win 2 CD's a piece, they didn't win majorities in them, and can't force through a slate on their own.  In a 3+ way race like this one, there's going to be some compromising or tactical voting to pick the CD Delegates and Nominating Committee members.

A more sensible method:

The apportionment of the 3 delegates per CD happens as before:  1 each for Romney, Santorum, and Paul.  Of course, if there is tactical voting against Paul for the Nominating Committee, there's likely to be tactical voting here as well, though of course who gets that third slot?  I stick with Paul here to be as agnostic as possible.

The Nominating Committee members go to supporters of the top 2 in each CD (which are I assume Romney and Santorum in all cases?  I'll check tomorrow).  The nominating committee (split evenly) chooses 6 Romney and 6 Romney delegates.  The 13th At-Large delegate is a mystery, and probably goes to some technically unpledged compromise candidate.

Final result:
Santorum 10
Romney 10
Paul 4
Unpledged 1

Again, this isn't free of assumptions about tactical voting / likely coalitions, but what isn't?

I may switch to this delegate assignment for the front page at some point, though I'll have to think about it.

If Paul did as well as he claims at electing his supporters as delegates to the county conventions, of course, this is all out the window.

[Erc]

Paul did place second in CD 1, behind Romney.  I am going to choose to remain completely agnostic about tactical voting, which, while completely unrealistic, is the only unbiased way to move forward until I hear a clear intention of doing so.

As a result:
Romney, Santorum, and Paul each receive a delegate from all 4 Congressional Districts.

The Nominating Committee for the At-Large delegation is comprised of 4 Romney, 3 Santorum, and 1 Paul supporter(s), and nominates a slate of 6 Romney, 6 Santorum, and 1 Paul delegate(s), which is approved by delegates at the State Convention (Paul/Gingrich/Perry supporters are presumed to vote against any slate which so underrepresents them, while Santorum supporters would vote against a 7-5-1 split).

Total:
Romney: 10
Santorum: 10
Paul: 5

Again, this is probably pretty far removed from reality, mainly in that it probably overstates Paul's final delegate total.  I'd assume that the Romney and Santorum camps would rather find their own compromise delegates who would be truly unpledged going into the convention rather than picking Paul supporters as a compromise.  That said, maybe things get so bitter between Romney and Santorum (or the Anti-Romney of the season), that a bargain with Paul is deemed preferable.

Or maybe Paul really has managed to stack the County Conventions and has much more bargaining power than any of us think (hah!).

I'm updating the main page with this new delegate allocation.

[Erc]

I have a question. Let's say that Democrats want to create mischief and enough of them vote into a primary for Obama so that he is awarded a delegate. What happens then?

I know there are provisions in the RNC rules to remove any RNC members who refuse to support the Republican for President, but I don't know of any to prevent pledged delegates from being assigned to a Democrat.

That said, if the Democrats, who are far more formal with the entire process post-McGovern-Fraser, were able to prevent the seating of the LaRouchies in '96, I'm sure the Republicans would be able to do the same if somehow Obama won a delegate somewhere.  Nobody wants to see a repeat of Mao Zedong for VP.

Obama came pretty close to beating Fred Thompson in NH last time, but nowhere near the threshold for winning a delegate.

[Erc]

As it currently stands (10:53 PM EST)

Romney has 38.3%, Paul has 23.2%, Huntsman has 17%.  All other candidates are below 10%.

This would yield a delegate allocation of 7 for Romney, 3 for Paul, and 2 for Huntsman.   How stable is this to changes?

Paul would need to break 29.2% to receive an additional delegate, or drop below 20.8% to lose a delegate.

Huntsman would need to break 20.8% to receive an additional delegate, or drop below 12.5% to lose a delegate.

The most likely changes are with Gingrich and Santorum, who, at 9.7% and 9.6% respectively, are just shy of the 10% cutoff to receive a single delegate.

All changes about would come at the expense of Romney, who gets as many delegates as he does by virtue of being a winner (his vote share would only entitle him to 5 out of the 12).

[Erc]

South Carolina: January 21

Overview
25 Delegates (1.09% of total)
Primary
11 At-Large, WTA
14 CD, WTA

In each Congressional District, 2 delegates are assigned to the winner.  Statewide, 11 delegates are assigned to the winner.  This is completely winner-take-all in each jurisdiction.

South Carolina violated RNC rules by holding its primary before the first Tuesday in February, and thus lost half of its delegates (including the RNC member seats).  It is possible these may may be restored later by the RNC, in which case the South Carolina Primary would be assigning 47 delegates (21 by CD and 26 At-Large).

RNC Members

Note:  Due to RNC sanctions, no RNC members from South Carolina have voting privileges at the convention unless the sanctions are removed.

Chad Connelly
Glen McCall
Cindy Costa (was in the Romney camp in '08, does not appear to have offically endorsed this time)

Pledged Delegate Allocation (as of January 21st)

Gingrich - 23
Romney - 2

If the sanctions on South Carolina were removed, the total would be Gingrich - 44, Romney - 3.

[Erc]

New Hampshire: January 10

Overview
12 Delegates (0.53% of total)
Primary
12 At-Large, P10%

Delegates are assigned proportionally to the statewide vote, with a 10% cutoff.  Rounding is done to the nearest whole number.  If any delegates remain, assign them to the winner.

Proportional to the statewide total vote, despite a non-natural threshold? Whoever came up with that sick silly excuse for a pr allocation? (The net result is Romney nicks one delegate; whether from Huntsman or Paul depends on whether you like Largest Remainder - or Sainte Lague - or D'Hondt). Basically they're claiming anyone who voted for someone below 10% voted for Romney.

It's designed to be "proportional," but with a nice bonus to the winner.  Not representative at all, but helps speed up the process.  Similar systems are in place in most Republican states that don't just do WTA by jurisdiction.

The Democrats, with McGovern-Fraser and all that, allocate it proportionally based on the "qualified" vote (i.e. throwing out all votes for anyone below 15%), and then use largest remainder.  (Such a method, if used on the same 12-delegate slate, would, as you said, give Huntsman an extra delegate at the expense of Romney).

[Erc]

Upcoming Primary rules (now to March 6):

SC: WTA by jurisdiction
FL: WTA
NV: Prop-4%
CO/MN/ME:  Iowa
AZ: WTA
MI: WTA by CD, Prop-15% at Large
WA: Iowa
AK: Prop
ID: Prop (top 2 only)
ND: Iowa
TN:  Prop-20% by jurisdiction (top 2 by CD), 14 chosen by Executive Committee
VA:  WTA by CD, WTA at-Large if majority, Prop-15% otherwise
VT:  WTA by CD, WTA at-Large if majority, Prop-15% otherwise
GA:  Prop-20% by jurisdiction (by CD, top 2, WTA if majority)
MA:  Prop-15%
OH:  WTA by CD, WTA at-Large if majority, Prop-20% otherwise
OK:  WTA by jurisdiction if majority, Prop-15% otherwise (top 2 by CD)

"Iowa" denotes an Iowa-style caucus, where most of the actual decision-making happens at State Conventions later.  What exactly is meant by "Proportional" varies a lot by state to state---some use a New Hampshire-esque method, others use a method more like the Democrats', while some have their own homebrewed variety.

[Erc]

Question:

What happens to pledged or unpledged delegates for a candidate who drops out later ?

Does the drop-out candidate need to "free" these delegates or will they vote for the candidate who dropped out anyway or can they just choose at the convention for which candidate they vote for ?

The 'pledging' of delegates is completely left up to the states (whether state law or state Republican Party rules) by RNC rules, so be aware that policies may vary wildly from state to state.  Also unclear is how any such rules would (or could) be enforced at the RNC.

Often, they don't provide explicit rules for candidates dropping out of the race.  This is complicated by the fact that so few people actually 'drop out' officially (they 'suspend their campaign,' for FEC purposes).

Due to the lack of any real enforcement mechanisms (or a desire to enforce them, especially for dropped-out candidates), I imagine once a candidate has dropped out and expressed verbally that he's releasing his delegates, the delegates will be able to vote for whomsoever they wish.

Note that officially, any candidate for nomination at the convention must be able to call upon a plurality of delegates from 5 states in order to have his name put forward.  So a candidate who dropped out early couldn't be put forth in the first place (though of course Romney '08 or Huckabee '08 could have in theory).  In practice, this doesn't seem to actually mean much---Ron Paul got 21 votes at the 2008 convention despite obviously not meeting this standard.

[Erc]

Also of interest in Iowa-style caucus states where the process has multiple steps over several months is what happens to supporters of dropped-out candidates in the meantime.

This was of some importance on the Democratic side in Iowa last time, where Edwards you will recall placed 2nd in the caucuses.  Clinton supporters should have made a better effort to make sure Edwards supporters continued to support Edwards (or remained unpledged), voting tactically when feasible and necessary.  Instead, a lot of support flaked off at the county conventions in favor of Obama.  They realized their mistake by the next round of conventions, but a lot of damage had been done already.

This may be of some importance in Iowa this time around, depending on who drops out.

[Erc]

With Huntsman dropping out, I've moved his two delegates to the uncommitted column.  Hopefully this isn't too premature (a la Perry's "reassessing my campaign").

Even if Huntsman should endorse someone, he can't force his delegates to do so, so unless I hear from the delegates themselves, they're staying uncommitted.  That said, I don't even know who they are at the moment.  (I found an alphabetical list of all the delegate candidates, which is apparently what was filed with the NH SoS, but I have no idea which 2 of those are going to the convention).

[Erc]

Iowa and Perry's Endorsement of Gingrich

With Perry dropping out and endorsing Gingrich, it's entertaining to think about what might happen if Perry's supporters at the County Conventions took this to heart and supported Gingrich.  Note that a combined Perry + Gingrich takes 3rd place in Iowa, ahead of Paul.

Before I go forward, note that this 'analysis' doesn't take into account that each precinct only got an integral number of delegates to the county conventions, and so candidates further down the line (like Perry and Gingrich) are the most likely to get short shrift.  Thus, the following gives far too much credit to Gingrich, but can be viewed as somewhat of an upper bound (assuming Santorum stays in the race).

We note that Gingrich (+ Perry) placed 3rd in CD 1 (ahead of Santorum and just barely behind Paul), 4th in CD 2, 2nd in CD 3 (behind Romney but ahead of Santorum), and 2nd in CD 4 (behind Santorum but ahead of Romney).

Applying the recipe I used earlier, this means the winners of delegates by CD are:
Romney 4
Santorum 3
Gingrich 3
Paul 2

while the nomination committee has a breakdown of
Romney - 3
Santorum - 2
Gingrich - 2
Paul - 1

The committee nominates a slate of 5 Romney, 5 Santorum, and 3 Gingrich delegates, which is approved by the convention at large over the objections of the Paul delegates.

Total Delegates:
Romney - 9
Santorum - 8
Gingrich - 6
Paul - 2

Again, this is for entertainment purposes only, and I'm not changing the main page results for Iowa at the moment.  Perry's supporters at the caucuses are not guaranteed to all jump on the Newt Bandwagon, repeated rounding errors tend to disfavor Newt & Perry, and above all it's very unlikely that both Gingrich and Santorum will both be in the race in June.

[Erc]

There has been some movement to penalize them again, but I don't think anything has come of it.

[Erc]

Florida: January 31

Overview
50 Delegates (2.18% of total)
Primary
Winner-Take-All

All 50 delegates in Florida are assigned to the statewide winner.

Florida violated RNC rules by holding its primary before the first Tuesday in February, and thus lost half of its delegates.  It is possible these may may be restored later by the RNC, in which case the Florida Primary would be assigning 99 delegates (2 per CD, for a total of 54, and 45 At-Large.  Both would be Winner-Take-All by jurisdiction).  

Since Florida is assigning its delegates as Winner-Take-All, it is also violating RNC rules forbidding such contests before April.  The RNC may choose to again penalize Florida, but this seems very unlikely.

RNC Members

In the event sanctions are lifted on Florida, its RNC members are bound to the winner of the primary, and are included in the 45 At-Large delegates noted above.

Results (as of 2/1)

Romney won the state and all 50 delegates.

In the event sanctions are removed, it appears Gingrich won no more than 5 CD's in the state (as an absolute maximum), which would correspond to a breakdown of 89 Romney - 10 Gingrich, as a best case scenario for Gingrich.  Note that this is a far worse relative result than the penalized case, so it will be Romney pushing for a removal of sanctions at the convention (while Gingrich would be pushing for further sanctions).

The exact breakdown in the absence of sanctions is further complicated by the fact that redistricting has not been finalized in Florida, so tabulating the vote according to whatever district lines are finalized may be very difficult, if not impossible if precincts are split.  It is telling that the 50 delegates that Florida gets with sanctions will be selected two per current (2000 census) CD.  If sanctions are removed, my bet is that the remaining 49 delegates will be chosen at-large.

[Erc]

As Gingrich has been projected to win South Carolina, I've assigned him the 11 At-Large delegates from the state.  The 14 CD delegates are to come later pending results.

[Erc]

With Beaufort County finally coming in, I'm feeling confident enough to call CD 1 for Romney, with the other 6 CD's, of course, for Gingrich.

Romney narrowly avoids getting shut out in SC, but Gingrich still makes off like a bandit, with 23 delegates to Romney's 2.  In fact, in the span of the last few hours, Gingrich has gone from having zero delegates to having the lead.

And to think I thought this thread would be coming to an early conclusion in a couple of weeks.  Looks like we're in for the long haul, folks.