Not Enough Delegates
Posted by John Gaver on March 11, 2012 at 2:14am THE TEA PARTY
It's effectively "Game Over." The numbers tell the story.
After today's vote (March 10), baring a cataclysmic change in
the principles of mathematics, there are just not enough delegates left for any
candidate but Romney to win the GOP nomination. Oh sure,
"technically," Santorum or Gingrich "could" pull off a
miracle. But the numbers are so
overwhelming that it really would take a miracle.
Consider that after today, there 30 more contests yet to be
held, representing a total of 1385 delegates. That means that in a best case
scenario, Santorum would have to win 67% of the remaining delegates, to reach
the 1144 delegate magic number. Gingrich would have to win 75% of the remaining
delegates. The chances of either happening is effectively zero.
Here's the count. Do the math yourself.
3/13: AL-50, MS-40, HI-20, AS-9 (total 119)
3/17: MO-52 (total 52)
(Note: The first Missouri
race was a beauty contest)
3/20: IL-69 (total 69)
3/24: LA-46 (total 46)
4/3: WI-42, MD-37, DC-19 (total 98)
4/24: NY-95, PA-72, CT-28, RI-19, DE-17 (total 231)
5/8: NC-55, IN-46, WV-31 (total 132)
5/15: NE-35, OR-28 (total 63)
5/22: KY-45, AR-36 (total 81)
5/29: TX-155 (total 155)
6/5: CA-172, NJ-50, SD-28, MT-26, NM-23 (total 299)
6/26: UT-40 (total 40)
That's 1385 remaining delegates.
For Santorum:
1144 magic number - 217 delegates won = 927 needed
(927 / 1385 remaining) x 100 = 66.9% of remaining delegates
For Gingrich:
1144 magic number - 107 delegates won = 1,037 needed
(1,037 / 1385) x 100 = 74.9% of remaining delegates
Now I know that some Santorum and Gingrich supporters are
very optimistic about their candidate's chances. But there's a big difference
between optimism and believing in the Tooth Fairy.
It's easier to see what has to happen, if we reverse those
numbers. For Santorum to win, Romney would have to win less than a third of the
remaining delegates. So how likely is that to happen?
Well, here are the facts.
Romney has won 54.8% of all delegates that have been
assigned, so far.
Romney has a greater than 10 point lead in the national
polls, with 37.7% to Santorum's 27.3%.
Is there anyone who thinks that Romney's well oiled campaign
will drop to less than 33% of the remaining delegates?
But it gets worse for the the second tier candidates.
Romney will win Delaware
walking away - 17 winner-take-all delegates
Romney will win Washington, DC
walking away - 19 winner-take-all delegates
Romney will win New Jersey
walking away - 50 winner-take-all delegates
Romney will win Utah
walking away - 40 winner-take-all delegates
That's 126 delegates taken out of the mix. So instead of
having to win 927 delegates out of 1385, Santorum would have to win 927
delegates out of 1259 "available" delegates. Let's do math again.
(927 / 1259 "available" delegates) x 100 = 73.6%
of remaining "available" delegates
But scratch that. The numbers are already so overwhelming
that we don't even need to consider those Romney winner-take-all states.
But we should consider that Romney's 33% number assumes that
BOTH Paul and Gingrich will drop out and it will be a two man race between
Romney and Santorum. If Santorum were to drop out, and Gingrich stayed in,
Romney would have to win less than 25% of the remaining delegates.
In actuality, we all know that Paul is going to stick around
and he'll take another 20 to 40 delegates, before the convention, which will
reduce the number of "available" delegates even further. We also know
that neither Gingrich nor Santorum will drop out before next Wednesday, after
119 delegates are awarded on Tuesday. But whether or not anyone drops out, the
number of "available" delegates will then drop even further.
Right now, it's looking like the leading second tier
candidate, Santorum, will come in third in both Alabama
and Mississippi. That's certainly
no way to get to 67%.
This leads to what the media isn't saying, because they want
the advertising dollars that a prolonged race will generate. You see, this
means that in any race or group of races on a single day, where Santorum
doesn't win by at least that minimum percentage of the delegates (currently
67%), it counts as a loss, because less than that percentage means that he's
falling further behind.
So just winning a state, is no longer enough. Just winning a
majority of the delegates is no longer enough. Santorum has to win at least 67%
of delegates next Tuesday, in order to be closing the gap. Gingrich has to win
by at least 75% of delegates on that day, in order to be closing the gap.
Anything less is losing ground.
Today, Santorum won 82.5% of the delegates in Kansas.
That's great. It counts as a real win for him. But he lost the day, since he
only won 36 delegates (KS-33 & WY-3), while Romney won 37 (KS-7, WY-8,
GU-9, MP-9, VI-4). Then add in the fact that Romney already had three super
delegates from USVI that had not been
counted, prior to the caucus.
This time Santorum had to win 63%, to qualify as a win. He
didn't. So on Tuesday, he has to win more than 67% of the delegates, to keep
from falling further behind.
If he comes in third on Tuesday, then the in the following
primary, the best that he can hope for is that he'll have to win more than 70%
of delegates, in order to qualify as advancing. Each time Santorum or Gingrich
loses ground, like they did today and Santorum likely will on Tuesday, that
necessary winning percentage goes up for the next primary.
So while there are still enough delegates left to allow one
of the second tier candidates to win, in a best case miracle scenario, it's
just not going to happen. And it only gets worse for the second tier
candidates, with each primary, where they don't reach the advancing percentage
for that race.
There just aren't
enough remaining delegates for anyone but Romney to win.
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