Wednesday, February 6, 2008

It Is Not Over, Republican Delegate Analysis

For the rest of February the states that will be having Republican caucuses and primaries are Washington - 37, Wisconsin - 40, Louisiana - 23, Virginia -63, District of Columbia -16, and Maryland - 37. This means for the rest of the month there are 216 delegates up for the Republican nomination and of them Wisconsin, Virginia, DC, and Maryland are all winner take and Washington is a variation. Louisiana is proportional. This is good and bad for McCain who needs 578 more delegates to lock the nomination. Louisiana being proportional is good because I think Huckabee will take a majority of that state in a walk. Huckabee is also in good position to take Virginia as there are not many moderate Republicans there, but it is open to independents, so who knows? Maryland is closed, but a wee bit more liberal.

But even if he (impossibly) took every delegate he'd still be short. So when does/can he win it? He'll be close in March when Texas -137, Ohio - 85 and Vermont - 17, vote for another 239 votes, total 455. But Texas is only winner take all if he can take a outright majority in the open primary. Can he? Each congressional district then gives its votes winner take all if a winner takes a majority in the district... Or proportionally otherwise. I do not see McCain taking Texas if Romney and Huckabee are both still in it. Maybe if one of them drops out... Otherwise Ron Paul takes his district and everything else is a patchwork. The very first date McCain could lock it up is April 22 in Pennsylvania which is a "Loophole" primary. I'll explain that some other time, but it means that the state could come down to whoever has the best machine supported by local politicians. But conceivable if Texas is especially split it could easy go to May on the Republican side as well. This isn't even close to over despite what the media is bloviating today.

Can Romney or Huckabee win? Not outright. But if one of them isn't secretly angling for Vice President then they could be hoping to go to a brokered convention and get it.

2 comments:

Harriet said...

Very well analyzed. I've never been a big fan of media hype anyway, and political primaries are the worst example of trying to predict the future with a hole in the crystal ball. Bread and circuses, that's what it feels like to me.

Mishalak said...

Thanks. I will add that it is probably over the minute one of the two remaining guys jumps out. But if it stays three way a brokered convention is still a strong possibility.