Take a look at the Republican primary schedule and the polls in upcoming contests. Right now, Nate Silver predicts the following winners on Super Tuesday (with degree of confidence):
Georgia (76 delegates): Gingrich (86% chance of win)
Ohio (66 delegates): Santorum (78% chance of win)
Oklahoma (43 delegates): Santorum (96% chance of win)
Tennessee (58 delegates): Santorum (93% chance of win)
Virginia (49 delegates): Romney (94% chance of win)
Also voting on Super Tuesday are: Alaska (27 delegates), Idaho (32 delegates), Massachusetts (41 delegates), North Dakota (28 delegates), Vermont (17 delegates), Wyoming (29 delegates).
I think we can safely put Massachusetts and Vermont in Romney’s column. Romney should do well in Idaho and Wyoming (big Mormon populations). I’m not sure how he will fare in North Dakota or Alaska. As for Silver’s degree of confidence, that will change when he gets new data in post-Michigan/Arizona polling. If Mitt gets a little bump in the polls, those 90-plus percent chances of losing will come down.
Looking at the present situation, though, it doesn’t look very good for Romney. Of the five biggest prizes on Super Tuesday, Romney stands to win just one of them, in a state (Virginia) where his two main rivals are not even on the ballot. He will enjoy the delegates he gains in New England, but he’ll get no credit for them. And he’ll probably come in third place in Georgia, which is the biggest prize of all. I can’t predict how the delegates were be distributed without investigating each state’s rules and doing more analysis, but if the states were based on winner take all, and Romney were to win all the small states, he’d win the night by about 223-167-76. That might seem good, but he has no guarantee of winning all the small states and he won’t benefit from winner-take-all in all of them. It’s more likely to be closer to a tie when the allocations are made. And then there is that calendar.
On March 10, Kansas votes, along with Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, and the Virgin Islands. If results so far in Colorado and Missouri are any indication, Santorum will win Kansas. I don’t know that anyone really cares who wins the rest of these contests.
On March 13, Alabama, Mississippi, Hawai’i, and American Samoa vote. If results in South Carolina and the Florida panhandle, and polls in Georgia are any indication, Gingrich will win Alabama and Mississippi. Romney will probably win the pacific islands because nothing is less Polynesian than Rick Santorum’s attitude. But, still, the big prizes will go to Gingrich.
On March 17, Missouri has a vote that counts, unlike the primary they held a few weeks ago. But, remember, Santorum trounced Romney in that primary. Expect him to trounce Romney again.
On March 18, Puerto Rico votes. I have no idea how that will go. Seriously.
Then we get to the next really important contest. On March 20, Illinois votes. They have 69 delegates. Can Romney do what he failed to do in Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, and (most likely) Ohio? Can he win a big midwestern state where the trees aren’t just the right height?
I think this will be his last chance to win a majority of the delegates. Because failure in Illinois will likely be followed by failure in Louisiana, followed by failure in Texas, followed by failure in Wisconsin, and so on.
If Romney can stagger on long enough, if he can get all the way to April 24th, he will have the privilege of losing to Santorum in Pennsylvania. But he can expect to win New York, Delaware, Connecticut, and Rhode Island. Then he can go right back to losing in West Virginia, North Carolina, and Indiana.
The best way for Romney to avoid this future is to vastly exceed current expectations on Super Tuesday. His number one goal should be to defeat Santorum in Ohio and Tennessee. If he can do that, the bleak picture I’ve produced here may not come to pass.
