I’m as guilty as anyone of placing the most importance on Ohio among today’s primaries, but it should be remembered that, from a delegate point of view, Ohio doesn’t really matter. Today’s contests are all proportional to some degree. A handful of states (Ohio, Vermont, and Virginia) are winner-take-all by congressional district, with some at-large delegates doled out proportionately. Santorum didn’t qualify for delegates in all of Ohio’s congressional districts, so he’s likely to lose the delegate battle even if he wins the popular vote. Romney and Ron Paul are the only candidates on the ballot in Virginia and write-in votes are not allowed, so Romney will win almost all the delegates there because he will win in every congressional district. Vermont only has one congressional district, and Romney will win the popular vote and therefore all the CD delegates.
In the states Romney is likely to lose, he will still win a fraction of the delegates. The real question is whether Romney will win more than 50% of the delegates today or he won’t. My guess is that he will. So, from a technical standpoint, Romney will probably improve his position tonight even if he loses Ohio’s popular vote.
So, why is Ohio so important? Mainly because it’s the best chance for Santorum to prove that he can actually beat Romney. It’s also Romney’s best chance to exceed expectations. No one is going to give Romney credit for winning his home state of Massachusetts or for winning in tiny Vermont or for winning in Virginia in a one-on-one contest with Ron Paul. He needs to win somewhere else to impress. If Santorum can carry Tennessee and Oklahoma, that will be nice and provide him with an excuse to keep going, but blowing a big lead in Ohio will be the main message people take away.
A good night for Romney will be if he can win Ohio, Virginian, Massachusetts, and Vermont. A great night will be if he can also win in Tennessee and come in second behind Gingrich in Georgia. A bad night will be if he comes in third in Georgia and loses in Ohio and Tennessee.
If Romney has a good or great night, we’ll probably see the electorate start to rally around him. But if he has a bad night, the contest will continue in its present form, and move to Alabama and Mississippi and Missouri with Romney looking to take a beating.
Ohio and, to a lesser degree, Tennessee are the keys tonight. If Romney falls short, the Republicans may simply give up on the idea of winning the presidency.
In a public service spirit, I’ve listened carefully to all the analysis of Super Tuesday and the elaborate reasons why Ohio is so critical to win. I would summarize it this way:
“Ohio, Ohio, Ohio, Ohio, Ohio,Ohio, Ohio, Ohio, Ohio, Ohio,Ohio, Ohio, Ohio, Ohio, Ohio,Ohio, Ohio, Ohio, Ohio, Ohio,Ohio, Ohio, Ohio, Ohio, Ohio,Ohio, Ohio, Ohio, Ohio, Ohio,Ohio, Ohio, Ohio, Ohio, Ohio,Ohio, Ohio, Ohio, Ohio, Ohio, I’m not listening to anything else, Ohio, Ohio, Ohio, Ohio, Ohio,Ohio, Ohio, Ohio, Ohio, Ohio,Ohio, Ohio, Ohio, Ohio, Ohio,Ohio, Ohio, Ohio, Ohio, Ohio,Ohio, Ohio, Ohio, Ohio, Ohio”
My take is that Romney and Santorum will be close enough in Ohio that it really doesn’t matter one way or the other. On the other hand, the delegate count will go something like 180 Romney, 152 Santorum, 58 Gingrich, 23 Paul.
Romney will not have a convincing advantage for the day and will be looking ahead in the rest of the month to a shellacking. By the appropriate day for reviewing the state of the GOP candidates, April 1, it will still appear that Romney has yet to knock anyone out of the running and that a brokered convention is likely.
There will then be only 50% of the delegates to be awarded and it means Romney will be even more pressed to do much better in that latter half of the primary season.
One of the fun delegate math things popping up today will be the fact that only one state will likely have a majority winner. In the states with no majority winner, a candidate will have to earn 20% of the vote in order to win any at-large delegates.
So this is where Paul is becoming a bit of the spoiler. In 1-3 states his voters will cause Gingrich to drop below 20%.
So ironically with 4 now in the race some of these states will award at-large delegates to only 2 candidates. If Paul were not in the race, more states would award at-large delegates to 3 candidates.
Yes, and that’s called a “proportional” system. Democracy. Gotta love it.
And how do the Green or Constitution Parties select their candidate?
Primaries are not supposed to be pure elections. It’s just a party building exercise and good practice and vetting for the candidate.
Where are you looking at delegate math, BTW?
“Primaries are not supposed to be pure elections.”
Never claimed that. You misunderstand me. The system is, however, extraordinarily convoluted. Of the 7 states deciding delegates today under so called “proportional” rules, no two states have the same method for portioning delegates.
And I’m not going to even go into the chronic problems with the primary systems most often criticized, because I assumed you’re informed about that.
I get my info on the at-large delegates and the proportional methods of each state as well as all delegate math material via The Green Papers.
I’m talking primary, not caucus states here. The 3 caucus/convention states are closer to what we think commonly of as proportional.
Turn out is so bad in VA, I wonder if Paul can “steal” some delegates from Romney there.