By Sean Trende - February 28, 2012
We're finally close enough to Super Tuesday to get a sense of how the overall delegate count might work out in the GOP primary. The end result: Assuming that none of the four candidates drops out of the race, it looks increasingly as if no one will be able to claim a majority of the delegates. The candidate with the best chance is Mitt Romney, but he probably wouldn't be able to wrap up the nomination until May or even June. The other candidates will probably have to hope for a brokered convention.
What I’ve done to reach this conclusion is take the delegate calculator I put together a few weeks ago and put the RCP Averages for the upcoming states (where available) into it (I’ve allocated undecideds evenly among the four candidates). I’ve then allocated the congressional districts in the following manner:
Michigan: Regardless of what happens, the two at-large delegates will be awarded one apiece to Romney and Rick Santorum. I allocated the congressional districts evenly as well; Romney will probably do well in southeast Michigan, while Santorum is stronger in the rest of the state.
Arizona: Little suspense here. Romney leads by a large margin in the polls, and will collect all of the delegates.
Washington: There hasn’t been much polling here, but Santorum has generally performed well in the caucus states. PPP confirms this, with a poll showing Santorum leading in Washington state. In terms of congressional districts, Romney probably still has some strength in the urban districts around Seattle -- even when getting blown out in South Carolina he was able to win the urban 1st District, so we will give him three delegates.
Georgia: Romney is running third in Georgia polling right now, with Newt Gingrich leading in his home state. Gingrich will probably take most of the congressional districts, but we’ll also assume that Romney picks up one of the urban Atlanta districts, and that Santorum can upset Gingrich in one of the other districts.
Ohio: Santorum’s Midwestern strength shows through here, and he leads in the polls by a seven-point margin. But the interesting thing about Ohio is that the blue-collar/Democratic vote has been gerrymandered into a few heavily Democratic districts, while suburban areas are disproportionately represented. In a close race (less than double digits), Romney could end up taking the most delegates while losing the state. Regardless, we’ll split the districts evenly between Romney and Santorum.
Tennessee: We only have one recent poll here, from a less-than-prolific pollster. It shows Santorum up big. How things work out at the congressional district level is still anyone’s guess, because Tennessee is such a big, diverse state. We’ll assume that Romney breaks through in one of the more urbanized districts (a la South Carolina), and that Santorum takes the rest.
Virginia: It’s just Romney and Ron Paul here, and the polling shows the former with a big lead. To be fair, just as I’ve allocated Romney a district in states he’s likely to lose, I’ve assumed Paul will win one in Virginia.
Oklahoma: Polling here shows Romney in third. Santorum’s lead is big enough that we can safely assume that he’ll win all of the congressional districts.
Massachusetts: Unsurprisingly, the Suffolk poll has Romney up big here, so he should take virtually all of the delegates.
Idaho: We don’t have polls here, but this is the nation’s second most-heavily-Mormon state. We’ll assume Romney does well here, and so I used his Arizona numbers.
North Dakota/Alaska: Again, no polls in these two. Since both states are caucuses (and Pat Robertson actually won Alaska in 1988), I substituted Santorum’s numbers from the Minnesota caucuses here.
Vermont: No polls are available, but I substituted the numbers from Massachusetts.
This would be a pretty brutal stretch for Romney in terms of states actually won and lost, and a good result for Santorum. But because so many states award delegates proportionately, and because Romney does well in the winner-take-all ones like Arizona, Idaho and Virginia (de facto), under this scenario he opens up a substantial delegate lead on Santorum, 349 to 222 (Gingrich would have 97, and Paul 40). No candidate would have a majority of the delegates at that point.
What’s interesting is that from Super Tuesday forward, only 1,580 delegates remain. This means that Romney would have to win 50 percent of the remaining delegates, Santorum would have to win 58 percent, and Gingrich and Paul need around two-thirds of them to reach a majority.
Now, in theory, this should be easier for Romney to do: 434 delegates would be awarded in the South, 389 in the Midwest, 89 in the Mountain West, 194 on the Pacific Coast (including 169 in California), 244 in New England, and 230 in other places (RNC delegates and territorial delegates).
When you consider that a lot of the New England and Pacific states are winner-take-all (or some variant of that), while the Southern and Midwestern states are proportional, Romney’s path becomes clearer.
But he will have just taken a drubbing on Super Tuesday. The headlines will be terrible, which may put downward pressure on his polling numbers in New England or in the Mountain West. That would help Santorum, but winning nearly 60 percent of the remaining delegates is a tall order for him, especially with Gingrich and Paul gobbling up delegates here and there.
In short, I think the Republican primary campaign is an even bigger mess than most realize. I’d increase the odds of a convention where no candidate has a majority of the delegates to around 20 percent.
Sean Trende is Senior Elections Analyst for RealClearPolitics. He can be reached at strende@realclearpolitics.com.
Page Printed from: realclearpolitics.com at February 28, 2012 - 03:05:11 PM PST |
