2012 Republican Delegate Allocation: Idaho

This is the seventeenth in a multipart series of posts that will examine the Republican delegate allocation by state.¹ The main goal of this exercise is to assess the rules for 2012 -- especially relative to 2008 -- in order to gauge the impact the changes to the rules along the winner-take-all/proportionality spectrum may have on the race for the Republican nomination. As FHQ has argued in the past, this has often been cast as a black and white change. That the RNC has winner-take-all rules and the Democrats have proportional rules. Beyond that, the changes have been wrongly interpreted in a great many cases as having made a 180º change from straight winner-take-all to straight proportional rules in all pre-April 1 primary and caucus states. That is not the case. 

The new requirement has been adopted in a number of different ways across the states. Some have moved to a conditional system where winner-take-all allocation is dependent upon one candidate receiving 50% or more of the vote and others have responded by making just the usually small sliver of a state's delegate apportionment from the national party -- at-large delegates -- proportional as mandated by the party. Those are just two examples. There are other variations in between that also allow state parties to comply with the rules. FHQ has long argued that the effect of this change would be to lengthen the process. However, the extent of the changes from four years ago is not as great as has been interpreted and points to the spacing of the 2012 primary calendar -- and how that interacts with the ongoing campaign -- being a much larger factor in the accumulation of delegates (Again, especially relative to the 2008 calendar).

For links to the other states' plans see the Republican Delegate Selection Plans by State section in the left sidebar under the calendar.


IDAHO

New to the caucus format in 2012, Idaho Republicans have devised perhaps the strangest -- or at least a first glance the one with the highest learning curve -- delegate selection process of the cycle.² [That's saying something.] But let's have a quick glance at how the rules for allocating the 32 delegates in the Gem state work.

First of all, the caucus meetings across Idaho today are binding in the same way that Nevada was back at the beginning of February; a departure from the series of non-binding contests we have witnessed in most caucus states thus far. But the allocation of the delegates is slightly more involved than the process in Nevada. [Yes, I hope the vote tabulation will at least go quicker, too. It should and here's why...] The process is more involved because the Idaho Republican Party appears to be utilizing a multi-round vote within each county. Each time I review the rules FHQ flashes back to Super Tuesday 2008's first contest -- the West Virginia Republican state convention -- where similar rules were in place. But that was a statewide meeting. What Idaho is attempting to pull off this evening is a series of multi-round votes on the county level.

Basically, this is a series of runoff votes. If a fictitious precinct #1 has a vote that places Romney first then, Santorum, Paul and Gingrich, then Gingrich would be eliminated (along with any other candidate below the 15% threshold). A second vote would then be held  -- among the same group of original voters (The Gingrich voters would not have to sit the vote out.) -- unless the first place finisher had received a majority on the initial vote. For this exercise, let's assume that Romney did not receive a majority and will face Santorum and Paul in the second round of voting. Well, suddenly, those Gingrich voters -- if there are reasonably sizable number of them -- are potentially significant in the second and any subsequent vote.

[ASIDE: Recall that Romney led after the initial vote in the West Virginia convention in 2008, but because third place finisher McCain threw his voters toward second place finisher Huckabee, the former Arkansas governor emerged victorious from the Mountain state.]

Assuming Gingrich voters line up with Santorum voters in that second vote, one could foresee a Santorum, Romney, Paul finish or even a Santorum, Paul, Romney finish depending on the number of Gingrich and Paul supporters. If Santorum doesn't win with a majority in that second vote -- again, in this scenario -- then Romney could potentially be eliminated on then at this make-believe precinct. How does that procede to the next subsequent and decisive vote between Santorum and Paul? Where do those Romney voters go?

That is a great question and one that will likely depend on turnout this evening. If the LDS population in Idaho really turns out for Romney, it may be enough to get him through to the final vote depending on the area of the state.

But think about this for a minute. Imagine this taking place in precincts across Idaho. It is just like how Iowa Democrats caucus but with that added dimension that if a candidate can emerge from all of these meetings with a majority of the vote, then he can claim all 32 of Idaho's delegates.³ Now, FHQ does not purport to know what will happen or if a winner-take-all allocation is even possible, but this will be a fun one to watch. If no candidate breaks the 50% barrier statewide, then the allocation is proportional based on those candidates who made it to the final vote on the precinct level (aggregated across the state).

If that winner-take-all allocation is triggered, then Idaho quickly becomes a much more important delegate prize -- likely the largest behind only Virginia and maybe Oklahoma or Georgia depending on the margin of victory for the winner in each.

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Idaho delegate breakdown:

• 32 total delegates
• 23 at-large delegates
• 6 congressional district delegates
• 3 automatic delegates 

The Idaho Republican Party makes this slightly more complicated by adding another distinction. If the winner-take-all provision⁴ is not triggered by one candidate receiving a majority of the vote, then there is an 80/20 split in how the delegates are allocated. The candidates essentially file with the Idaho Republican party a slate of delegates. If the winner-take-all provision is not triggered then 80% of the delegates will be selected from these candidate lists of delegates in proportion to the results at the county level (weighted and aggregated). The remaining 20% of delegates are selected by the Nominations Committee of the Idaho Republican Party Convention. This is also done in proportion to the county results, weighted at the county level and aggregated. This 20% is pledged to a particular candidate. Since the 80% is from slates provided by the candidates, it is safe to assume that they are also pledged to the candidate who selected them.

All of this is made a lot easier if one candidate clears the 50% barrier statewide and claims all 32 delegates.

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¹ FHQ would say 50 part, but that doesn't count the territories and Washington, DC.

² The IDGOP's rules for delegate selection:

ID Rules Pertaining to Caucus Delegate Selection by frontloading_hq

³ Iowa Democrats also eliminate candidates who don't meet the 15% viability threshold instead of just eliminating the lowest vote-getter.

⁴ See the final paragraph of the IDGOP's FAQ on the caucuses for this rule.

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Goodbye Idaho Presidential Primary

On Thursday of last week (March 1), Idaho Governor Butch Otter (R) signed into law H391. The measure after sailing comfortably through the chamber of origin and meeting some resistance in the Senate, strikes from the regular May primary ballot the line devoted to the presidential preference vote. Given that the Idaho Republican Party abandoned the primary last year in order to hold an earlier caucus -- something Democrats in the Gem state have traditionally done -- the presence on the May ballot of the presidential preference line was superfluous.

Idaho joins Washington and Kansas as states to have eliminated their presidential primaries for the 2012 cycle. However, Idaho is the only one of the three to have entirely ended the primary as an option. The Washington move to cancel the primary in the Evergreen state was one with the intent of only temporarily removing the option. That portion of the law will expire at the end of 2012 and Washington will revert to the previous law -- with the presidential primary -- for 2016 unless the legislature takes future action. In Kansas, the primary has and likely will continue to be on the books, but that contest has not been funded since 1992. The action in the Sunflower state is more of a recurring cancelation.

But Idaho is the only state to abandon the primary in favor of state party caucuses permanently -- or at least until any future action on that front. And that is a move contrary to the trajectory of the caucus/primary balance in the post-reform era. Since 1972 states have increasingly moved toward primaries and away from caucuses. Once that state-funded option is codified, state parties often have a difficult time of giving it up. In the case of Idaho Republicans, after witnessing the state legislature once again leave the primary in May -- outside of the typical window of decisiveness in any presidential campaign -- decided to not only shift to a caucus but to hold it early to allow Idaho caucusgoers an opportunity to have an impact on the race.

Thanks to Richard Winger at Ballot Access News for passing along the news.


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Santorum Can't Get to 1144

[NOTE: Please see FHQ's post-Super Tuesday discussion of the delegate math here.]

...and neither can Gingrich.

FHQ has been saying since our Very Rough Estimate of the delegate counts a couple of weeks ago that Romney is the only candidate who has a chance to get there. But, of course, I have not yet shown my work. No, it isn't mathematically impossible, but it would take either Gingrich or Santorum over-performing their established level of support in the contests already in the history books to such an extent that it is all but mathematically impossible. Santorum, for instance, has averaged 24.2% of the vote in all the contests. Since (and including) his February 7 sweep, he is averaging 34.7% of the vote. That is an improvement, but it is not nearly enough to get the former Pennsylvania senator within range of the 1144 delegates necessary to win the Republican nomination.

FHQ has modified that original model and put together a spreadsheet that not only better captures the rules in each state, but also allows for a constant level of support across all upcoming contests to be to be plugged in. Let's begin by assuming that Santorum enters with 19 delegates and project a 50% level of support across all the remaining contests with bound delegates. This 50% would apply to not only the statewide vote but the congressional district votes as well. In other words, this would trigger a winner-take-all allocation of delegates in most states that have the conditional winner-take-all/proportional rules hinging on a candidate receiving a majority of the vote.

This is extremely generous. It assumes that candidate X would win nearly all the delegates in states that were not already directly proportional. Less generously, this does not count, like the previous version of this exercise, caucus states with unbound delegates (see Iowa, Colorado, Maine, Minnesota, etc.) nor automatic delegates who have yet to endorse.

Where does that leave Santorum? 1075 delegates.

But hold on. What if we add another layer to this by accounting for the thresholds for receiving delegates in the various states (typically 15% or 20%)? This would have the impact of reallocating delegates of those under the threshold in proportional environments to those candidates over the threshold. That would mean more delegates. If we set the number of candidates over the threshold to its lowest value -- 2 candidates in 20% threshold states and 3 in 15% threshold states¹ -- that maximizes the number of reallocated delegates.

Where does that leave Santorum? Again, this is assuming winner-take-all rules have been triggered in all the conditional states. It assumes that the likely bare minimum of candidates has crossed the thresholds to receive reallocated delegates. This is very generous.

1162 delegates. That's cutting it awfully close.

Surely the automatic delegates or the unbound caucus delegates would keep Santorum over 1144. Yeah, they could potentially serve as kingmaker until you remember that we just very unrealistically gave Santorum winner-take-all allocation where is was conditionally possible. We gave him a consistent 50% of the vote -- over 15% better than he has performed during his best stretch. Also, Santorum -- given the polls we have access to for today's races -- is very unlikely to reach that level of support across all of the Super Tuesday primaries and caucuses. That means that after today -- a day with over 400 delegates at stake -- Santorum will not be able to get to 1144.

...and neither will Newt Gingrich.

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Well just a darn minute there, FHQ. You're cooking the books, right? What if you put Mitt Romney in the same model(s) under the same circumstances? Ah, I'm glad you asked.

• In the first model where Romney would be at 50% support statewide and in each congressional district, the former Massachusetts governor would net 1254 delegates. 
• In the second model that accounts for a likely bare minimum of candidates over the threshold, Romney would surpass 1300 delegates at 1341. 

Even if we simulate a scenario where Romney continues to only win half of the congressional districts, he still gets to 1152 delegates in the second more realistic model and .²

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The bottom line here is that Romney has enough of a delegate advantage right now and especially coming out of today's contests that it is very unlikely that anyone will catch him, much less catch him and get to 1144. The latter seems particularly far-fetched given the above scenarios. And that is a problem in this race. Well, a problem for Gingrich and Santorum anyway. If all either of them can take to voters is an argument that all they can do is prevent Romney from getting to 1144, then neither has a winning strategy. That sort of strategy has a half life; one that will grow less effective as, in this case, Romney approaches 1144. Complicating this scenario even further for Gingrich and Santorum is the fact that if neither can get to 1144 or even close to it, neither is all that likely to be the candidate to emerge as the nominee at any -- unlikely though it may be -- contested convention.

These contests today may not be decisive in terms of settling the nomination, but they very much represent a mental hurdle in this race. That Santorum and Gingrich cannot get to 1144 without vastly over-performing in the remaining contests (relative to how well they have done in the contests thus far) ushers in a new phase in the race.

But how long will the "keep Romney from 1144 plan" last? With southern contests scattered throughout the rest of March, Gingrich and Santorum will have legitimate chances at wins. However, that means Illinois on March 20 and the bulk of April end up being rather tough terrain. Wins on Romney's turf become imperative to stay alive at that point for Gingrich and Santorum. By that point, though, Romney will still hold the delegate advantage and favorable contests in front of him. That is not a good combination for anyone hoping to catch him in the delegate count.

...or even keep him under 1144.

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¹ Remember that one candidate is already at the 50% level and it has been rare to see more than two candidates over 20% or 3 over 15% with the top candidate approaching 50%.

² In states with an odd number of congressional districts, the delegate total was rounded down to the nearest whole district. A five district state would have Romney winning only two districts. This does not apply in states where there is an attempt to allocate congressional district delegates proportionally. In those states, Romney is given the partial total across all congressional districts. Look, if we are going to be generous to Santorum/Gingrich then it is equally as helpful in this exercise to be stingy with Romney. We want to poke holes in his ability to get to 1144. If we poke enough, Romney can be pulled under 1144, but it becomes more and more complicated and less and less realistic.

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NOTE: The delegate scenarios above were constructed as part of a request from ABC News. 

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The (Delegate) Keys to Super Tuesday

FHQ had the honor of giving a brief talk on the 2012 presidential primary process at the Microsoft campus in Charlotte this afternoon. Even though I didn't really follow my notes -- yielding to the more fun Q&A session -- I thought I would share.¹

Here are the things FHQ will be looking for tomorrow night:

1. Ohio, meh. After talking up the importance of the Ohio primary in the wake of Michigan last week, it has become apparent to me that Ohio is no longer the "new hotness". FHQ can't get all that jazzed up about a non-fight. Look, Romney can't lose. If he wins the statewide race, Romney wins the most delegates. Unless Romney gets blown out there -- something the polls are not showing -- he will likely win or fairly evenly split the delegates. Again, meh. I know, I know. If he loses the statewide vote it looks bad. Eh, big deal. The Romney campaign will point toward the fact that it is a delegate race and that they have more delegates. As they said in their Saturday conference call chiding -- fairly or not -- the Santorum campaign for not being organized enough to fully get on the ballot, they -- the Romney campaign -- are more organized.  
2. Delegate margins. I know Ohio is a unique contest tomorrow; the only state without regional company or contest-type camaraderie, but it just will not offer much in the way of a delegate margin for any of the candidates. You know which states will? Virginia and maybe Idaho. Virginia is a no-brainer. That Gingrich and Santorum on the ballot there means that Romney will be able to emerge from the Old Dominion with, as I've said previously, a delegate margin that likely offsets the likely losses in the South. And if -- big IF -- Romney is able to get over 50% in the madhouse that is the new Idaho caucuses (more on that later today), then Idaho is likely going to provide the former Massachusetts governor with even more relief. So the next time Newt Gingrich says that Georgia is the biggest delegate prize on Super Tuesday, shout back that delegate margins are more important and Virginia and again, maybe, Idaho are much bigger on that score than a diluted Georgia primary that will likely allocate delegates to three candidates tomorrow. 
3. Tennessee, now there's the new hotness. Way back after the South Carolina primary (I know. Doesn't that seem like a hundred years ago?), I said that the fundamental question that had emerged was "Can Romney win in the South?" FHQ said then that Romney's ability to answer the "Southern question"would go a long way toward determining how long this fight for the Republican nomination would be. More importantly, I emphasized that it would determine how able Gingrich was to stay in the race. Well, Romney has not had another chance to revisit his loss in South Carolina -- or at least return to similar ground to quell any doubts. Tomorrow is the first chance and Tennessee looks to be Romney's best bet of answering the "Southern question". Romney will get delegates out of Tennessee but a symbolic win in the South would be a backbreaker in a lot of respects for the Gingrich and Santorum causes.
4. Thresholds, thresholds, thresholds. These 15% and 20% thresholds for receiving delegates in many of the states tomorrow is a big deal. Let me repeat that: It is a big deal. No, I don't think it affects anything other than at the margins, but if we are moving into the delegate counting terrain -- even if for a short period of time -- then the ways in which the delegate leader can use those rules to his advantage are noteworthy. The greater the number of candidates over that threshold, the smaller the delegate margins/piece of the delegate pie will be. If, for example, Romney is first or second but no worse, but it is only him and another candidate over 15% or 20% then Romney is only padding his delegate total. And while the margins may not increase greatly, it pushes the former Massachusetts governor closer to 1144.
5. Will it end tomorrow? No. But we are likely to surpass a significant hurdle tomorrow night and into Wednesday. FHQ will have more on that later. 

Ooh, cliffhanger.

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¹ Yeah, I know. These primers are a dime a dozen the day before any primary day.

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Race to 1144: Washington Caucuses

Source:
Contest Delegates (via contest results and rules, and RNC)
Automatic Delegates (Democratic Convention Watch)

Delegate breakdown (post-Washington caucuses):
Romney: 136 delegates (New Hampshire: 7, South Carolina: 2, Florida: 50, Nevada: 14, Arizona: 29, Michigan: 16, Automatic: 18)
Gingrich: 32 delegates (South Carolina: 23, Nevada: 6, Automatic: 3)
Santorum: 19 delegates (Nevada: 3, Michigan: 14, Automatic: 2)
Paul: 8 delegates (New Hampshire: 3, Nevada: 5)¹
Unbound: 198 delegates (Iowa: 25, Colorado: 33, Minnesota: 37, Maine: 21, Washington: 40 Automatic: 11, Huntsman: 2)

Added since Arizona: Romney (Michigan: 16 delegates), Santorum (Michigan: 14 delegates, 1 automatic delegate), Unbound (Washington: 40 contest delegates, 3 automatic delegates, Wyoming: 26 contest delegates, 3 automatic delegates)

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How much do the Washington caucuses change or affect the current race for the Republican nomination? It is another win for Romney in a western, non-binding caucus; his second such win -- with Wyoming -- in a row and an in area (non-binding caucuses) in which Romney had been shut out through nearly the first two months of 2012. The win is important in the overall race (or the perception of the state of things within it), but it does nothing to alter the delegate count as neither Washington nor Wyoming allocated any delegates during the first steps of their respective caucus/convention processes.

Ultimately, the bulk of the Washington delegates (40 of 43) will be bound, but not based on the precinct-level straw poll. Instead the delegates will be bound on the preferences of those in attendance at the district and state conventions. In Wyoming, all 29 delegates will head to the August Republican convention in Tampa unbound. Twelve of those delegates will be chosen during county conventions this coming week and while they will be unbound, they are free to choose whomever they prefer and may make that preference publicly known coming out of the conventions this week.

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¹ Iowa Republican Party Chairman Spiker was a part of the Paul campaign in Iowa and resigned his position upon taking up the post of party chair. While he has expressed his intent to side with whomever the Republican nominee will be, Spiker has not also directly signaled any neutrality in the race. The door is open for his support of Paul at a potential contested convention. While FHQ does not include Spiker in Paul's delegate total, it is however necessary to make note of the possible addition of one delegate that would bring the Texas congressman's total to nine.

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Fantasy Delegates

Look, FHQ has been stubbornly adamant that the bulk of the delegate counts for the 2012 Republican nomination race out there are artificially inflated.¹ This is due in part to either a misguided application of the Democratic Party's proportional delegate allocation rules (see Iowa, Colorado, Maine and now Wyoming) or an equally skewed application of winner-take-all rules (see Minnesota) in all the caucus states but Nevada which have held caucuses thus far. But this is a misleading practice and is obviously based on a flawed logic. I realize that we all want to get a grasp of what the true delegate count is, but over-inflating the count serves no purpose.² [I'll spare you having to read once again that delegates from these states attend the convention technically unbound anyway. Oops.]

Again, it is the caucus states that are driving the discrepancies in the various delegate counts.³ First of all, there are no rules at the state party level in any of these states (Iowa, Colorado, Maine, Minnesota and now Wyoming) that indicates either a winner-take-all or proportional allocation of the delegates. In fact, there are no guidelines in any of these states to determine how many of any given candidate's supporters in attendance at the precinct caucuses get selected to move on to the next step of the process; either the county, district or state convention level. All we know is what a non-binding straw poll of precinct caucus attendees tells us. But as I have pointed out repeatedly, there are plenty of opportunities for people to vote in the straw poll and opt out of the lengthy caucus meeting process before the county, district or state convention delegates are chosen from among the caucusgoers at the precinct caucuses.

Up until now, FHQ has made the point that this would advantage the Ron Paul campaign -- the campaign with the seemingly most committed supporters in the race.⁴ But let me flesh that point out a bit and offer a hypothesis. First, a question: Who are Rick Santorum voters at these caucuses? There are a few different ways of thinking about this:

1. They are sincere Santorum voters.
2. They are sincere not Romney voters, but not necessarily committed to Santorum.
3. They are Democrats attempting to prolong the Republican nomination process.

I'll dismiss the third option for now, as it is only going to affect things -- at the most -- at the margins. Plus the only clear evidence -- or actually push from the Santorum campaign -- of Democratic support has been in Michigan. But the other two types of Santorum voters are worth looking at in more detail. Are Santorum voters, then, true Santorum supporters or just committed to casting a protest vote against Romney?

The hypothesis: True Santorum supporters are more likely to stick it out through the whole delegate selection process at the precinct-level meeting, but "not Romney" Santorum voters are more likely to be satisfied with simply casting a not Romney vote in the non-binding straw poll.

The truth of the matter is that we don't know the answer to this question. And yes, I know, the Santorum folks are going to come after me on this one. But I don't think this is something that we can dismiss as a factor. The fact is that we simply don't know and that complicates even further our ability to project much of anything about the nature of the eventual allocation of delegates in these caucus states.

Until such time that someone/some outlet with the resources -- FHQ does not have them. -- can talk to all of the county, district or state convention delegates in these states and get an accurate feel for their candidate preferences, these delegates that the AP, New York Times and others are allocating to Paul, Romney or Santorum are fantasy delegates.⁵

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Post script: Now, to head off the likely Santorum backlash from this, FHQ will wholeheartedly admit that none of this is static; that either these Santorum voters are sincere Santorum voters or not Romney voters or that the line between those two groups is well-defined and consistent across states. It isn't. Again, it is an unknown. For one thing, raising $9 million in a short month is indicative of some level of enthusiasm for the Santorum candidacy. So before my good Santorum friends return the volley with stories of enthusiasm and committed support (and with claims that those levels can grow over time), please note that FHQ is in no way dismissing the possibility that that level of support exists or can grow over time. I am only attempting to point out that there is a discrepancy here driven by the fact that we don't have a firm answer to the above question. Nothing more, nothing less.

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¹ Yeah, I know. That description is redundantly redundant. ...but allow me to emphasize my point.

² It gets supporters' hopes up and forces them to counterintuitively throw, of all delegate counts, the New York Times' delegate count at FHQ as evidence of the "true" count.

³ FHQ has among the most conservative delegate counts out there, but the RNC's is by far the most conservative. They are not, as of yet, counting any automatic delegates who have endorsed a candidate already. For states that have held contests and in which the automatic delegates are not bound by the results of the primary or caucus, the RNC is considering those automatic delegates as unbound. That is consistent with the RNC delegate selection rules which call for those delegates to be unbound unless otherwise bound according to state party rules.

⁴ Even David Frum is starting to look into the Paul delegate strategy.

⁵ Newt Gingrich has as of yet been unable to cross the threshold (voter percentage necessary) to receive any delegates in most of these states. The former speaker's delegate total is fairly consistent across counts. That is because his delegates are all primary delegates from states with clearly defined rules on binding delegates.

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Texas Primary Set for May 29

And the court said let there be a May 29 primary in Texas.

And there was a May 29 primary scheduled, and all was right with the world. Well, calendar world, anyway. So here we are two months into 2012 and we finally, just maybe, have a completed presidential primary calendar. No, not for 2016; for 2012.

Feeble attempts at humor aside, both Texas state parties have set their delegate selection rules in place -- Texas Republicans will still have a proportional allocation system. -- and the courts have given the go-ahead for a May 29 primary. That places Texas all by itself on the third to last occupied week of the primary calendar; just ahead of the California and New Jersey primaries on June 5 and four weeks ahead of the Utah primary on June 26.

This moves the Texas Republican primary and its 155 delegates -- over 10% of the 1144 needed to win the nomination -- back from the March 6 date the contest started on and back even further from the April 3 date the courts were forced to move the primary from due to the continued redistricting dispute in the state. With a tentative map and delegate selection rules set, the primary got the green light.

Follow the Texas calendar movement throughout the last few months by clicking on the Texas label.

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On the Shifting/Not Shifting of Michigan Delegate Allocation Rules

Allow FHQ a to make a few comments on the news today that the Michigan Republican Party would allocate its two at-large delegates to Mitt Romney -- winner-take-all -- instead of splitting them proportionally between the former Massachusetts governor and Rick Santorum.

Look, the optics of this are bad. Rightly or wrongly, the decision by the Michigan Republican Party to allocate its two at-large delegates winner-take-all will get lumped in with the "one winner, then another" Iowa caucuses, the "let's count this precinct, but not this one" Maine caucuses and the painfully slow Nevada vote tabulation. They are all matters that make the state parties look incompetent and/or as if the process is or was being "pushed" toward a specific outcome. At its best, this is just a series of bad coincidences, but at its worst it gives the perception that the process is rigged. And that's dangerous territory. It is that very type of thing that can very quickly push this from a competitive race to a divisive one, pitting factions of the party against each other. Again, can. When the argument is one candidate or another, that's one thing. But if the argument is one candidate or another and there's an element of unfairness, it has a way a elevating the tension within a political party at all levels.

And it isn't like this is a foreign concept. The Democratic nomination race in 2008 was rife with this vein of discussion. There was a reason the Democratic Change Commission reexamined the caucus rules in 2009-10 and attempted to develop a uniform "best practices" for how to conduct caucuses. It was because the Clinton campaign cried foul that the Obama campaign was exploiting -- well within the rules -- the rules structure in caucus states to win more delegates. That the Obama campaign could turnout enough supporters in ruby red Idaho, for instance, and run up the score -- both in votes and how those votes translated to and rounded up to delegates -- while Clinton focused on big delegate prizes like California which yielded little in the way of anything resembling a big delegate margin was eye-opening.

...but it was within the rules.

And to be clear, what happened in Iowa was within the rules. The Republican Party of Iowa just messed up in calling it for Mitt Romney. What happened in Nevada was within the rules. Sure, it took Nevada Republicans an eternity to count a relatively small number of votes, but as FHQ argued at the time, after Iowa, wouldn't you -- as a party -- rather be safe than sorry. What happened in Maine was within the rules. The party defined when caucuses should be held and that if you were late and outside of that window, the votes would not be counted in the non-binding straw poll. The Maine Republican Party stuck to that.

But this Michigan situation is different. Since the party and its delegation to the Tampa convention were penalized for holding the primary too early, the party had to revise its method of allocation to meet the reduced number of total delegates. That meant, as FHQ has explained, that each of the fourteen congressional districts were apportioned two delegates and that the remaining two delegates out of the 30 total delegates (after the penalty) were at-large. The regular rules -- unpenalized -- called for the congressional district delegates to be allocated winner-take-all based on the vote in each of the congressional districts. The plan the MIGOP adopted initially -- again, pre-penalty -- was to allocate at-large delegates proportionally to candidates who received over 15% of the statewide vote. But when the  Michigan Republican Party State Committee met on February 4, they proposed, voted on and adopted a set of delegate allocation rules with language implying a winner-take-all allocation of those two at-large delegates.

Well, there you go. It is winner-take-all.

It is winner-take-all according to the language of the rule.¹ But that is not apparently what the party was telling news organizations, informing the campaigns about in memorandum form or what the communications director told me. I can only relate to you what Mr. Frendewey told me when I called to clarify the allocation method for these two delegates. I approached the party with a simple question: Given that the RNC rules require and that the plan crafted by the Michigan Republican Party (and signed off on by the RNC) a proportional allocation of those at-large delegates, are those two delegates actually winner-take-all? Can they be proportional? Again, the February 4 rule is pretty clear. It more than implies the allocation method is winner-take-all. There is no mention of proportionality anywhere in the small list of five rules, but the response I got was that a proportional allocation of those two delegates was possible if the vote was close enough.

The vote on February 28 was close enough. For Mitt Romney to have gotten both delegates he would have had to have won over 75% of the statewide vote for the delegate allocation to round up to two delegates and have Santorum's allocation -- assuming his vote was over 25% -- round down to zero delegates. That was not how the statewide vote looked Tuesday night, though.

There is more than enough evidence to suggest that the party voted on and passed a winner-take-all plan for the at-large delegates but told enough outside parties that it was proportional -- or in my conversation with them, could be proportional -- that it appears at the very least misleading if not intentionally so. FHQ is not suggesting that there was any intent to mislead, but the Michigan Republican Party has some explaining to do beyond just saying it messed up in a memo.

Again, this is different than what has happened elsewhere, but at least in Iowa, Nevada and Maine, the parties laid out the rules and stuck to them. The Michigan Republican Party may have too, but they will have to find a way to reconcile the fact that the rule was written one way and several people told enough folks outside of the party that the actual allocation was different from that rule.

And all of this over one delegate.

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¹ The rule in question: "The statewide winner will receive two delegates (three, if you’re counting all the seated delegates)."


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Race to 1144: Arizona Primary

Source:
Contest Delegates (via contest results and rules, and RNC)
Automatic Delegates (Democratic Convention Watch)

Delegate breakdown (post-Arizona primary):
Romney: 120 delegates (New Hampshire: 7, South Carolina: 2, Florida: 50, Nevada: 14, Arizona: 29, Automatic: 18)
Gingrich: 32 delegates (South Carolina: 23, Nevada: 6, Automatic: 3)
Paul: 8 delegates (New Hampshire: 3, Nevada: 5)¹
Santorum: 4 delegates (Nevada: 3, Automatic: 1)
Unbound: 126 delegates (Iowa: 25, Colorado: 33, Minnesota: 37, Maine: 21 Automatic: 8, Huntsman: 2)

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In the same way that Rick Santorum was able to win every county in the beauty contest primary in Missouri on February 7, Mitt Romney accomplished the same feat with 29 delegates on the line Tuesday night in Arizona. Romney scored a decisive victory on the same scale as his victory in similarly winner-take-all Florida at the end of January. The additional delegate boost from the Grand Canyon state pushes the former Massachusetts governor's delegate margin to level approaching one hundred delegates.² In that sense -- counting Michigan or not -- Mitt Romney ever so slightly padded his delegate lead on February 28.

A few other notes:

• The unbound delegate total did not -- and will not when Michigan is added into the mix -- change because of what happened on Tuesday. Due to the penalties both Michigan and Arizona incurred for holding delegate selection events at odds with the RNC rules on primary/caucus timing, both states not only lost half of their delegations but were stripped of their automatic delegates in the process. 
• When will we hear about a challenge to the winner-take-all allocation of the Arizona delegates? It has been all quiet on the western front to this point. A strictly proportional allocation of Arizona's delegates would have netted Romney 15 delegates, Santorum 9 delegates and Gingrich  the remaining 5 delegates, assuming a 15% threshold for winning delegates. 
• Of course, if the delegate total would have been split into a proportional allocation of at-large delegates and a winner-take-all allocation of congressional district delegates (by congressional district vote), Romney likely would have taken 24 delegates, Santorum 3 and Gingrich 2. That's based on Romney winning all nine congressional districts and taking approximately half of the at-large, statewide delegates (assuming a 15% threshold for winning any delegates). The most likely plan would have largely resembled the Michigan plan. With two delegates allocated to each of the nine congressional districts there would have been 18 congressional district delegates and 11 at-large delegates. Again, this is a hypothetical plan that could be used in the event of a successful challenge to the Arizona delegate allocation plan.
• This is great illustration of how different the two parties conceptions on proportional can be when implemented. The former scenario with a 15% threshold yields a fairly mathematically proportional allocation. But the latter, congressional district plan is not nearly so proportional. In the case of a sweeping victory like what Romney enjoyed in Arizona or Gingrich in South Carolina, such a method of allocation will advantage the winner in the zero-sum game of delegate allocation. 

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¹ Iowa Republican Party Chairman Spiker was a part of the Paul campaign in Iowa and resigned his position upon taking up the post of party chair. While he has expressed his intent to side with whomever the Republican nominee will be, Spiker has not also directly signaled any neutrality in the race. The door is open for his support of Paul at a potential contested convention. While FHQ does not include Spiker in Paul's delegate total, it is however necessary to make note of the possible addition of one delegate that would bring the Texas congressman's total to nine.

² Though the Michigan vote and thus delegate count is not official, a 15-15 delegate split in the Great Lakes state between Romney and Santorum would stretch Romney's lead to over one hundred delegates. FHQ will not add Michigan to the total until the vote tabulation is complete there. That is, assuming there is no controversy over the Michigan delegate allocation, it will be split 15-15.


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