Governing through Reason
Republican Primaries: Maryland, DC, Wisconsin
Today looks like it’s shaping up to be a very good day for former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney. Perhaps his campaign has managed to shake the Etch-A-Sketch meme.
Two states, plus our sole district, vote today: Maryland, Wisconsin, and the District of Columbia.
Maryland has 37 delegates up for grabs in a closed primary. Three are the usual assigned to the party, ten are at-large winner-take-all, and the remaining 24 are Congressional district winner-take-all.
Romney is assured to get the three party delegates and the ten at-large delegates. He’s also pretty much assured to get all but maybe three of the 24 districts. The panhandle is former Senator Rick Santorum’s (R-PA) strongest territory, and he may pick up one or two districts over there, which would translate to three or six delegates*.
Wisconsin has 42 delegates available in an open primary. Aside from the three party delegates, there are 15 at-large winner-take-all, and 24 Congressional district winner-take-all delegates.
As in Maryland, there’s little doubt that Romney will take the party and at-large delegates, given his near-double-digit lead over Santorum in all polls. But Santorum may be able to pick off a better ratio of the district delegates than he can in Maryland. Even so, Wisconsin can be expected to increase Romney’s delegate lead over the former Senator.
The District of Columbia has 19 delegates in a closed primary. There are the three party delegates, plus 16 winner-take-all. One party delegate has already been assigned to Romney.
This one’s a real snoozer. Romney will walk away with all 19 delegates, period.
So, yes, today’s a very good day for Romney. And a very bad day for those who have been hoping that something, anything, will keep the increasingly inevitable Romination from coming to pass.
*Note: in an earlier version of the article, I incorrectly stated that Santorum might win one or two delegates. In fact, since each district has three winner-take-all delegates, Santorum would either get three or zero for each district.
Related articles
- Romney, Santorum focus on Wisconsin ahead of Tuesday primaries (politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com)
- Romney Could Double Up on Tuesday (thewesternexperience.com)
- What to Watch in Wisconsin (thedailybeast.com)
- Battle of addition: 147 days until GOP convention (politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com)
- Romney’s Path to Nomination Runs Through Wisconsin (usnews.com)
- Mitt Romney predicts Wisconsin primary win (thehill.com)
- Mitt Romney sings ‘On, Wisconsin’ toward next primary vote (csmonitor.com)
- Romney Looks For Knockout Punch (npr.org)
- Rick Santorum says losing Wisconsin could be good news, vows to continue regardless of outcome (dailykos.com)
- Analysis: Uncertain Week Ahead For Rick Santorum (philadelphia.cbslocal.com)
- Romney Looks For Knock Out Punch (npr.org)
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#2 written by mclever 1 year ago
Of the 98 delegates available today (37+42+19), what percentage do you think Romney will get? As low as 70% or as high as 90%? I’m thinking about 80–85%. He’s looking more and more inevitable after each round, because even on Santorum’s “good” days, Romney gets the bigger share of the pie.
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mclever, I agree. Romney’s inevitable He’s got more than half of the delegates won so far. I don’t doubt he’ll get well over half of the remaining delegates. This means he’ll have more than half of all delegates going into the convention. This hands him the nomination on the first ballot.
It would have been amusing to watch a brokered convention, but alas, it is not to be. Republicans are stuck with an uninspiring Guy Smiley.
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mclever,
You’re right. I meant one or two districts, which would be three or six delegates. Fixed. Thanks for the catch.And I agree we’re looking at 80–85% of the delegates going to Romney. We know he’ll get 50 of the 98 for the at-larges. And, say, 18 of Maryland’s district delegates would give him 68 of the 98. There’s no way his percentage could then be as low as 70%. With Wisconsin running somewhat close, I could imagine Santorum getting a little over half of the district delegates, so say Romney only gets ten of those. That’d give him 78 of the 98, which is 80%. That should be Romney’s floor.
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DC,
Keep in mind that Santorum will almost certainly win Texas (155), Arkansas (36), Nebraska (35), South Dakota (28), Kentucky (45), and Indiana (46), and he still might win Pennsylvania (72). Also, the current delegate counts are estimates, since so many are unbound. Romney has focused his attention on winning the future states, while Santorum has spent more time on stealing delegates from the past unbound states.That’s not to say that Romney won’t still pull it off. But it’s not as cut and dried as it may otherwise sound.
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#6 written by mclever 1 year ago
The problem with focusing on stealing the “unbound” delegates (which is also Ron Paul’s strategy), is that the national narrative can get away from him. If the MSM is constantly reporting Romney’s insurmountable lead, then Santorum supporters in later states will likely get discouraged, creating a landslide for Romney that more than overcomes any delegates Santorum is able to chip away in the caucus/convention states.
I think Santorum would have to do something really surprising, like win California and New Jersey, in order to keep Romney from getting the necessary 50% of the delegates.
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#7 written by Mainer 1 year ago
Mac and most pundits out there don’t see Rick doing that well in either Ca or NJ so where does that leave him? I agree pirated delegates are not very trust worthy
Michael the states you listed as probable wins for Santorum are those all winner take all states or are there some of them where yet again even if Santorum wins he does not get enough out of it to put any amount of brakes on Mitt?
I think Mitts bigger problem may be some thing I read the other day that would seem to suggest Mitt could find himself running on a Republican platform built or driven by teapers, evangelicals and even Paulites. Have you seen any thing that would suggest that to be a possibility? Wish I had saved that site URL as the article seemed plausible. -
mclever,
The problem with focusing on stealing the “unbound” delegates (which is also Ron Paul’s strategy), is that the national narrative can get away from him.
Absolutely. It was OK for a while, because there was enough uncertainty about the future states. But now, with us being able to pretty definitively finish the map of the US, there’s no doubt who will win the most delegates in the narrative.
I think Santorum would have to do something really surprising, like win California and New Jersey, in order to keep Romney from getting the necessary 50% of the delegates.
And short of a complete meltdown on Romney’s part, that won’t happen.
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Mainer,
Michael the states you listed as probable wins for Santorum are those all winner take all states
Texas, Kentucky, Arkansas is proportional for at-large, and proportional within each district.
South Dakota is proportional for all delegates, (there are no “district” delegates since they have a single at-large Representative).
Indiana is winner-take-all within each district, but the at-larges are assigned at the state convention.
Nebraska is a non-binding caucus, with at-large and district assignments that are really made on July 14. It’s the very last bunch to be allocated.In other words, the rules in none of those states favor Santorum.
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#10 written by Mainer 1 year ago
Mike thanks bub. That was kind of how I saw it. So Santorum’s path is at this point to either do some thing spactuarly right wing to make Mitt follow him and thereby harm himself even more in the general or control the platform and harm him. Gee kind of looks the same either way. I’m thinking he is already driving the Romney response or Mitt would never have gone down his recent attack on secularism. Rick will assist Mitt’s destruction and then therabid right will declare they lost because they were not conservative enough. Can one imagine the 2016 campaign where Saint Rick will now look like a moderate? How far off the edge of the earth will they have to go before reality sets in?
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Mainer,
It’s fascinating to watch. One after another, the far-far-far-right Republican clowns have enchanted their base while the rest of America recoils in horror — Palin, Bachmann, Trump, Pawlenty, Cain, Perry, Gingrich, Santorum — a parade of extreme and offensive losers the likes of whom America has seldom seen. We’re witnessing buyers’ remorse in Wisconsin and Ohio and other states where the extremists took over. I suspect Minnesota will rethink having handed the legislature over to the radicals. America may be ready to give the US House back to reason as well.
The problem, of course, is that the anti-democratic totalitarians have redrawn the Congressional boundaries, and are now engaged in massive voter suppression efforts throughout the country. It will take a truly heroic and Herculean effort to unseat the inglorious basterds. But real Americans have never shrunk from a challenge. Time to saddle up, pardners. Failure is not an option.
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From Maryland’s exit polls:
Unsurprisingly, it was Romination Domination. But here were Santorum’s bright spots:The 12% that consider abortion to be the most important issue of the election.
The 37% that consider true conservatism and moral character to be the most important candidate characteristics.
The 41% that don’t think Romney is conservative enough.
The 39% that didn’t care who endorsed Romney.
Voters in Garrett County (the far west panhandle).Romney carried every county other than Garrett. He might lose the delegates in MD6, but that seems unlikely given that he carried seven of the eight counties in the district. So if he carries MD6, he gets a clean sweep of both DC and Maryland delegates.
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From Wisconsin’s exit polls:
Romney wins the at-large by 7 points.This is the first state in a long time with Ron Paul getting the youth vote. Even there, he wins by only a few points.
Middle-aged people were evenly split between Romney and Santorum. Old people strongly preferred Romney.
Low-income people weakly preferred Santorum. High-income people strongly preferred Romney.
Married people went for Romney, while single people went for Santorum.
Evangelicals, unsurprisingly, chose Santorum. But they only made up 38% of the voters in Wisconsin, which is the primary reason Santorum lost.
Devout Catholics (22% of the voters) were pretty evenly split between Romney and Santorum, but the less devout Catholics went heavily for Romney.As usual, those who want a true conservative or strong moral character were heavily in favor of Santorum, while those who don’t care who it is, as long as the candidate can beat Obama, were heavily in Romney’s court.
12% of respondents claimed to believe that Santorum was most likely to win the nomination. I suspect they’re not delusional, but rather are in the following group:
Perhaps the most important datum: The 11% of the electorate who are Democrats went heavily for Santorum. Spoiler votes. This is why those who oppose the Tea Party voted for Santorum in droves. -
#15 written by mclever 1 year ago
I think Romney got a new speechwriter. Some of the turns of phrase were quite adroit, like the egg/omelet analogy and the being an American “meant something unique to each of us, and something special to all of us” examples. It was a more appealing message than his prior victory speeches, and his delivery is also much improved. Not that I agree with much he said, but I can appreciate well-crafted prose.
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#16 written by shortchain 1 year ago
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#17 written by Mainer 1 year ago
Mac I noted that as well. Now stand by for Saint Rick to step all over his own dick when questioned as to what any of those empty platitudes mean. I can not wait for his speech at the convention. You want weird and wired just wait.
Mitt you are just about to win the Titanic 12 hours after a minor alision with a chunk of ice. Unbelievable. -
#18 written by mclever 1 year ago
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#19 written by mclever 1 year ago
Based on Romney’s strong showing in Maryland and Wisconsin, anyone think he can steal Pennsylvania from Santorum? He’s got three weeks to make up a 5–10 point deficit in the polls and plenty of cash on hand. If he tried, I think he could possibly pick up a majority of the PA delegates without winning the statewide vote.
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#20 written by mclever 1 year ago
@Michael
According to CNN’s tally, Romney’s got his 80 delegate “floor” already (16+3 in DC, 31 in MD, and 30 in WI). Delegates haven’t fully been allocated in MD and WI yet, because they’re still counting votes. Based on what’s in so far, Romney looks likely to pick up the remaining 6 in MD and a handful more in WI, so he might even crack 90. -
#21 written by mclever 1 year ago
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mclever,
Based on Romney’s strong showing in Maryland and Wisconsin, anyone think he can steal Pennsylvania from Santorum?
It’s hard to tell. Pennsylvania is a “loophole” type of primary, so the connection between the popular vote and the delegate count is tenuous.
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#24 written by Jean 1 year ago
Mainer,
I think Mitts bigger problem may be some thing I read the other day that would seem to suggest Mitt could find himself running on a Republican platform built or driven by teapers, evangelicals and even Paulites. Have you seen any thing that would suggest that to be a possibility? Wish I had saved that site URL as the article seemed plausible.
Well, there’s this,
Mitt Romney raised millions in March by warning would-be donors a brokered convention could mean a Huckabee-Palin ticket:
[O]n March 14 and 15, Romney had raised over $3 million in New York and Connecticut. … The Romney campaign had a clever pitch for the event. Schmoozing with his money pals before the events, a Romney fund-raiser pointed out that “slightly more than half the delegates” to the GOP convention at Tampa “are evangelicals.” These true-believer conservatives are averse not only to Romney but to semi-reasonable types like Chris Christie and Mitch Daniels. As a result, said this fund-raiser, the “responsible Republican guys” are “starting to realize” that at a brokered convention “it’s not going to be Paul Ryan and Marco Rubio or Jeb Bush and Paul Ryan, a ticket they could really love. It’s probably Huckabee-Palin or Palin-Huckabee.” That was enough to scare the Wall Street crowd into getting out their checkbooks.
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#25 written by Max 1 year ago
As we march to a Romney nomination, do not get cocky. Do not assume the majority will recoil in horror from the rightward drift of the GOP and the supposed lessons learned from 2010.
Gas can go through the roof and/or the economy can slip in the next 7 months. And people will look for change, irrespective of where that change may actually lead. -
#26 written by Rose 1 year ago
“And short of a complete meltdown on Romney’s part, that won’t happen.“
I realize at candidates now have Secret Service protection (at least I hope they do) at this point. That sentence reminded me of watching TV the night Bobby Kennedy was assasinated. Nothing is ever certain and it’s damn scarey. -
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In Maryland, if I understand the Green Papers correctly, there are only eight Congressional districts, each awarding its three delegates on a winner-take-all-by-district basis. Therefore, Santorum can’t win just 1 or 2 delegates in Maryland. He either wins 3 or nothing in each district where he’s competitive. He’s got a reasonable chance in the panhandle of picking up the three there, and iffy chance of maybe surprising and picking up another three in the adjacent district. Romney should still walk away with the lion’s share, either 31 or 34 of the state’s 37 delegates.
Poor Santorum. Gotta do better than 3 out of 30+ delegates if you want to catch up to the guy who’s already got a 300+ delegate lead!