Governing through Reason
Republican Delegate Counts: April 7
One big elephant and two little ones. The walrus is Paul.
We’re in a three-week hiatus with no primaries or caucuses, which probably accounts for the punditocracy focusing on the status of the horse — uh, make that elephant — race.
A sure sign that former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney has the nomination all but sewn up: Politico has turned to handicapping the Vice-Presidential slot. Politico’s Maggie Haberman feels former Office of Management and Budget director and current Senator Rob Portman (R-OH) is the favorite.
We at Logarchism like to look at Intrade numbers. As of Friday on Intrade, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) is the favorite with a 25 percent chance of securing the VP nomination, followed by New Jersey Governor Chris Christie (11 percent), Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell (nine percent), Portman (nine percent), Representative Paul Ryan (R-Janesville, WI) (nine percent), and New Mexico Governor Susana Martinez (eight percent).
Romney’s Intrade numbers are a virtually certain 96 percent, with none of the other candidates above one percent.
To see the reason why, examine the graph of delegate counts (data courtesy of The New York Times/Associated Press), after the jump.
According to the Associated Press delegate count, Romney has 658 of the 1,144 delegates he needs for a win on the first ballot at the Republican National Convention in Tampa, Florida, on August 29. Former Senator Rick Santorum (R-PA) is far behind at 281, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich is further behind at 135, and Representative Ron “the Walrus” Paul (R-Lake Jackson, TX) at a hopeless 51.
Put another way, through the remaining caucuses and primaries ending with Utah June 26, there are still 1,160 delegates available. Paul would have to secure 94 percent of the remaining delegates, Gingrich would need 87 percent, and Santorum would need 74 percent of the remaining delegates to reach 1,144 and a first-ballot win. Thus, it seems virtually impossible for any of them to secure the nomination on the first ballot. Their best hope is to force a second ballot.
What are Romney’s chances of getting a first-ballot majority? Virtually certain, as he would need only 42 percent of the remaining delegates to secure the nomination. The graph above starts with Washington State (March 3) and Super Tuesday (March 6). At the end of February (left side of the graph), the delegate race was much closer. If one extrapolates Romney’s staircase, it’s easy to see that his delegate counts are going to easily outstrip Santorum’s somewhere in early June, barring some major disaster.
Related articles
- Republican Delegate Counts: March 15 (logarchism.com)
- The 2012 Republican Primary Field: March 8, 2012 (logarchism.com)
- RPOF: Santorum-McCalister aide holds “delusional fantasy” about Republican rules (miamiherald.typepad.com)
- Fla GOP scoffs at Santorum holding out hope for Fla delegates (tampabay.com)
- Santorum campaign memo claims delegate count tighter than media reports (thehill.com)
- Hatch counts on Mitt-mentum (politico.com)
- Santorum campaign disputes delegate counts as it claims race is closer (politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com)
- Santorum Claims Delegate Count Wrong (themoderatevoice.com)
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#3 written by Mainer 1 year ago
Michael and I am even less sure that Rubio will in any way want to be attached to the Republican platform they are going to be forced to run with regardless of who the nominee is. Rubio is not Palin. I do not have to like him to appreciate that. Rubio is going to do what he sees is best for Rubio long term and a tag team with Mitt and a deranged platform may not fit that bill.
I would still say a Jim Demint would have to be considered. -
The interesting thing for me is 2016. Republicans tend to give a presidential nomination to whoever has the next turn. That’s why Romney is going to be the sacrif– I mean nominee this year. He was the second-place finisher last time. According to Republican custom, that means it will be Rick Santorum’s turn in 2016.
But I don’t honestly believe the Republican establishment is stupid enough to allow Santorum to get the nomination. Democrats could not possibly be that lucky. I suspect that whoever becomes Romney’s Veep pick might be the choice for 2016.
Of course, once Romney loses, the Teaper crowd will claim it was because Romney wasn’t conservative enough (actually they’ll say it was because Romney isn’t conservative at all) and that the solution is to go somewhere to the right of Paul Ryan next time around. Which means the 2016 nominating fight could make the 2012 contest look tame.
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#5 written by Mainer 1 year ago
Already seeing that locally dc. The coffee shop has been a very testy place of late. The rabid teaper/evans are already singing the we lose because we are not conservative enough boogie, the more old line Republicans have taken to screaming obsenities at them and the few Democrats and fair number of Indies sit in the back room/corner and laugh our asses off which seems to not help at all. What is becoming a patern though is that more moderate/traditional Republicans in the lot have taken to sitting with us and once we can get them calmed down generally we can have a productive discussion. The owner has told the teaper/evan group that they may have to settle for the back area so his adult customers can have better space and besides we tip better and generally don’t just sit there nursing a cup of decaf.
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#7 written by Max 1 year ago
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#8 written by Mainer 1 year ago
Michael that is a good question. Lets start with another right wing redefinition. Are we actually looking for conservatives or regressives of either or the religious/social or economic bent? If it is the latter then probably no. An actual conservative with a functional brain maybe.
Lets look at Mississippi. They are about to close down and drive out the last semi functional abortion clinic in the state. I’m sure there will be parades and rejoicing in the streets. Saddly with some of their regressive actions of late I read some where the other night that trained obgyn types have abandoned the state in such numbers that it and some of the others you mentioned may well have to putting in place sort of trained midwifes as some level of stop gap but may even have trouble getting people to do that with some of the laws they have implimented. So we have states that sit on the bottom of most measurements of quality of a society instituting policies that will make the quality of life even worse.
So no I guess even depending on how you define them at this date and time there could not be some one conservatively regressive enough not to win. -
It is amazing that “conservatives” seem insistent on turning America — or at least, vast pieces of it — into a pre-medieval feudal hellhole consisting of wealthy overlords who rule a peasantry that lives in dirt and has medical care on the level of leeches and trepanning. Repeal all science since Galileo, and all social programs since the Roman aqueducts. Call me a fool, but I can’t see why any of this is a Good Thing, and I have a really hard time understanding what level of self-hatred causes people to vote for it.
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#10 written by Mainer 1 year ago
dc it is actually quite easy to understand and all one has to do is revisit history. How many untold thousands of poor ill educated whites died in the Civil war to support an oligarchy that saw them as being little better than the slaves? The same unwholey alliance of wealth and privelege with church that then malgoverned caused those deaths and improvished the many for the few since colonial times.
We almost pulled away from some of that and there was strong hope that the South of the late 20th Cen would undergo a transformation. But the whole evangelical movement and crooked politicians allied with wealth and privelege has been reinstituted even stronger. A friend once said that the South would never truely rise again until churches all over the South were in ashes. Now that seems a mite harsh to me but with some of what is going on in some of the states Michael mentioned above he could be right and that is a sad state of affairs.
I keep thinking of East Germany and how when things got bad enough and the masses had nothing more to loose how they defied the oligarchy and the troops andthe secret police and in the end the East German horror state collapsed of its own excesses. I will probably never see that but I believe it will happen in my son’s time in some manner and the accelerated pace of regressive actions in many places will hasten it. -
#11 written by Mainer 1 year ago
dc here is a piece I don’t get. There are some pretty darn good colleges and universities in the South. Places where cutting edge research is done, facilities that have moved us into space and advanced human possibilities. How on earth can the good people that inhabit those institutions coexist with all those around them that would denigrate their very existence? That baffles me.
Also I have a fishing friend that works in the automotive parts supply chain. He spends quite a bit of time at various car plants down their (mostly foreign companies) he is amazed at the level of tension that exists between local movers and shakers and the people that are required to keep those plants functional. Engineers from all over the damned world, really sharp people that don’t seem that comfortable with some of what they have experienced. I know the South has pulled a bunch of those plants in with their publilc (federal in many cases) financing, tax write offs and bullshit right to work for less laws but he questions how many more will do so and even if at some point some of them will bail. The Carolinas gutted the New England textile and shoe industry and poultry industry and their leaders thought they were oh so clever. But the same owners that sold out one region then sold them out and now it seems to not be so funny. We are actually seeing some businesses moving equipment back North. You have not built a heaven on earth when the bosses and owners no longer wish to live there. While not a large movement it is happening and I find it interesting. -
#12 written by Max 1 year ago
Nice theory guys. But you are leaving out: Alaska, Montana, Idaho, Utah, Wyoming, The Dakotas, Nebraska and Kansas. Nine states, only a couple short of the old Deep South states. They are ALL at LEAST as red as the latter ones.
Oops, left out Arizona. And throw in West Virginia, Kentucky and Oklahoma, which never were a part of the Deep South, but took on it’s ways after the war.
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#14 written by Max 1 year ago
Arizona (despite how it sometimes appears) isn’t as conservative …
Only because of the relatively fast shift in Hispanic demographics.
Similar can be said about the Old South states of Florida, Virginia and, to an increasing extent, North Carolina. Not only about the Hispanic influx, but with significant immigration of other cultural groups.
But look at Upstate South Carolina: The Buckle of the Bible Belt! Bob Jones University! Jim DeMint!
And home to the North American headquarters of that cheese-eating, surrender monkey French company, Michelin. And that “old Europe” stuck in socialism, German company, BMW!
Only a matter of time.
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#18 written by Mainer 1 year ago
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Mainer,
It was both a reference to The Beatles’s “Glass Onion” and a recognition that Ron Paul isn’t really an elephant like the other Republicans. -
#20 written by Max 1 year ago
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Yesterday, Gingrich went on Fox News Sunday and explicitly said that Romney’s the guy.
It makes sense, when you consider that the future Santorum states are all proportional, while the future Romney states are heavily weighted with winner-take-all. If the existing delegate counts were reversed, it would be a close race with that future allocation. As it is, though, there’s no longer a path to success for Santorum, aside from some external catastrophe.
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#22 written by shortchain 1 year ago
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#23 written by mclever 1 year ago
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#25 written by Mainer 1 year ago
Michael thanks, just a little.…slow on the uptake.…..again. The local Paulites are pretty quiet right now. Actually have rejoined the adults in the back corner of the coffee shop. I think we have new reassigned seating when I get back off the road. The teaper/evan bloc will be going out back as it were or walk about I guess. And the rest of us will be going back up front to the windows in sight of the pastry counter and the tv that seems to no longer be locked on Fox. I sense a transformation of sorts locally. Many of us now pushing for an Independent Senator from a rather ad hoc group of every one but those now outcast to the back spaces. Coffee shop politics are great.
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Yup it does appear that Mitt the money man has pulled it off or soon will and that the pace could now accelerate. If one gleans the stuff across the web it is becoming more and more apparant that Newt is now out of it. The money has dried up, the attendance at events have dwindled and as one put it so well the number of guest spots on tv and even radio have seriously diminished. With Paul it is still more of the same but the local Paulites are obviously disheartened. Hard to say if his money and attendance figures will now dry up as well but he couldn’t get the guest spots to start with so who knows where his campaign is.
Rick needed divine intervention and it appears he has now suffered the indignity of having been put on hold by none other than god. It would appear the teavangelicals are just holding on at this point still hoping for that miracle but more realistically trying to string this out and get what they can for power at the convention and more control out of the inevitable Romney campaign. I will be shocked if Mitt is not saddled with the most socially conservative draconian platform in history.
Which does bring us to the VP game does it not? Don’t see a woman in large part because of the last fiasco but also because I have a hard time seeing Mitt run with a woman (I don’t see him as open minded in that regard as I did John McCain and that is saying some thing). Christy nope another Northeaster, It needs to be some one from the South which also would seem to lock out Santorum who one could believe is already off Mitts Christmas card list.
Is Rubio the front runner? Maybe but it will have much to do with polling. Rubio will not join any campaign what does not show a good chance of winning. Rubio is not going to damage his chances down the road to be a team player today unless he can see it as a stepping stone.