So far, Mitt Romney’s delegate team has been doing a good job. He has over twice as many delegates as second-place Rick Santorum, and over 50% of all delegates that have been awarded. He is on track to win the nomination on the first ballot in Tampa despite not having won a majority of the vote anywhere but Idaho, Massachusetts, Virginia, Guam, and the Northern Mariana Islands. Romney did benefit from his victory in Arizona, which gave him all 29 of its delegates, but he’s done the rest of this so far by simply out-hustling his opponents. For example, he won 43 out of Virginia’s 46 delegates simply because Santorum and Gingrich failed to get the signatures they needed to secure a place on the ballot. Similarly, Santorum lost delegates in Ohio (and will lose more in Illinois) because he didn’t get delegates placed on the ballot in all congressional districts.
Some are suggesting that Newt Gingrich can be of more help to Santorum by staying in than by dropping out. This is actually not that hard to decide. The goal for Santorum and for Gingrich is to deny Romney an outright majority of the delegates. This might allow them to prevent his nomination on the first ballot in Tampa. So, as long as Romney isn’t getting more than 50% of the delegates awarded on a given night, Santorum and Gingrich are making progress toward their goal. The problem with the theory that Gingrich can help Santorum is that I can’t identify one state where he has done so, so far. He denied Santorum certain victories in Ohio and Michigan, and he failed to win any delegates at all in states like New Hampshire and Florida.
Gingrich can help, in theory, if he and Santorum win more delegates combined in a given state than Romney does, despite Romney winning the state. As far as I can tell, that outcome has not happened once. On the other hand, Gingrich can help Santorum if, by dropping out, he causes Santorum to win in states he would have otherwise lost, or if he allows Santorum to win by much bigger margins or in a broader swath of the congressional districts within a state.
Santorum will benefit most clearly from Gingrich dropping out in winner-take-all states like Delaware and New Jersey. Those two states, which border Santorum’s home-state of Pennsylvania, might go all Christine O’Donnell on Romney’s ass and give Santorum the boost he needs to deny Romney an outright majority of delegates at the convention.
Meanwhile, it will be interesting to see whether Puerto Ricans are angry with Mitt Romney over his strident anti-Latino rhetoric or if they follow the trend of all other U.S. territories and protectorates and support the least socially conservative candidate.
Hispanics, a powerful bloc whose vote could decide the outcome in pivotal states such as Nevada, Florida, Colorado and Arizona, seem to have responded by abandoning Romney, with only 14 percent of Hispanic voters favoring him over Obama in a recent Fox Latino poll — one-third of the Hispanic support George W. Bush enjoyed in 2004.
I don’t think right-leaning Puerto Ricans are going to vote the same way as Mexicans and Guatemalans in Arizona and Colorado. But it will be a pretty alarming signal if Romney doesn’t win the primary there quite comfortably.
Finally, there are two things that Romney has in his back pocket just in case he gets to Tampa without an outright majority of the delegates. There will be approximately 150 delegates from the RNC that he can probably count on, and he may be able to cut a deal with Ron Paul to pick up the support of his delegates.
However, I can’t envision a more divisive and disastrous outcome than Romney winning on the first ballot through backroom deals after failing to win the majority of elected delegates.
Probably doesn’t hurt Romney that Rick said Puerto Ricans should speak English if they want to be a state.
Yes, but the trick is to use that so that only Puerto Ricans hear it and not Republican voters in Illinois and Wisconsin. Obviously, you run ads in Spanish. But Santorum can turn around and use that against Romney in the heartland.
I can definitely see Gingrich’s team quitting en masse again.
Who do you think Newt would endorse if his campaign collapsed again, giving him cover for a withdrawl? And how would that affect the numbers if all his deligates went to Santorum?
I can answer your question in two ways.
The first is in the spirit in which it was asked. The problem is, I think you asked the wrong question. I don’t think Gingrich would endorse anyone. He would take his delegates to the convention and to try to make a deal. But to answer partially, Romney has 20% of the delegates he needs. Santorum has 8% and Gingrich has 6%. So, if all his delegates went to Santorum, Santorum would have 14% of the delegates he needs. In other words, it would be virtually worthless at this point in time. Gingrich can hold them in his control or not, but he can’t put Santorum over the top.
The second way to answer your question is to try to figure out what would happen if Gingrich dropped out and endorsed no one. I expect that his share of the vote would dry up much like happened with Perry, Huntsman, and Bachmann. Most, but not all, of his vote share would go to Santorum, but that would mean very little in states like New York and New Jersey and California where Gingrich wasn’t going to get in double digits anyway.
The big benefit would come in states like Louisiana, Arkansas, Texas, and North Carolina. To give a comparison, Gingrich won 23 delegates in Oklahoma and Tennessee (combined), most of which would have gone to Santorum if it had been a one-on-one contest with Romney. There are some states where Santorum will win more delegates without Gingrich in the race. On the other hand, Romney will be going over 50% in any state he wins once Gingrich drops out. As long as Gingrich is in the race it is theoretically possible for Romney to win a state but fail to win the majority of the delegates. The truth is, though, that that outcome has been happening to Santorum, not Romney. Santorum won 14 delegates in Oklahoma and Gingrich and Romney each won thirteen. Romney has been lucky not to suffer the same fate (except, I think, in Alaska).
So, the bottom line is that Gingrich has not yet won enough delegates yet to matter. If the delegate count is close enough in the end, he might be able to make a trade, but he’ll have all his leverage then, not now as he drops out.
By dropping out, he probably will help Santorum win some states he might have otherwise lost, and he might help Santorum pocket more delegates, but it won’t have too much impact on Romney’s overall count, which is all that really matters. Romney is on a razor’s edge right now in terms of getting the needed delegates. Without the help of the 166 super delegates, I don’t think he will get there. He’ll need about two-thirds of the RNC-delegates to support him, by my estimation. Or, he’ll have to perform significantly better than he has been.
I plugged numbers into this delegate calendar and I discovered that Romney came up 5 delegates short of an outright majority. My assumptions were basically that Gingrich’s support would collapse and that the other three candidates would do about the same in future contests as they have in similar states in the past. Still a lot of guesswork about congressional districts, etc. Looks like a toss-up whether Romney gets his magic number.
Someone mentioned Chuck Hagel as a possible VP slot for Romney and I basically said that he probably wouldn’t accept it even if offered. I think this confirms that:
Hagel Praises Obama on Syria; Chides GOP on Iran
Wasn’t this guy also the person Ron Paul said he looks for wrt foreign policy?
Hagel played the monkey for the base longer than he could stand. He’s done with that.
There’s a great book out on delegate counting during the Obama-Clinton campaign, written by the Obama director for delegate hunting, Jeff Berman.
A nice read during the current chaos.
http://www.amazon.com/The-Magic-Number-Presidential-Nomination/dp/0984934014/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&
qid=1331829443&sr=8-1
I don’t care if he can be stopped..I just want it to continue.