2012 Republican Delegate Allocation: Kansas

This is the twentieth 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.


KANSAS

With caucuses set to begin across Kansas later today, a quick look at how those 40 delegates will be allocated is probably a useful exercise. Republicans in the Sunflower state -- like those in Nevada, Idaho and Alaska before them -- will actually bind delegates based on the results of the closed precinct caucuses.² But let's have a closer look:³

Kansas delegation breakdown:

• 40 total delegates
• 25 at-large delegates
• 12 congressional district delegates
• 3 automatic delegates

First of all, since the Kansas precinct caucuses are binding, the allocation has to qualify as "proportional" in the eyes of the RNC. The bare minimum action to achieve that distinction is to allocate at-large delegate proportionate to a candidate's share of the vote. That is what Kansas Republicans have done. Candidates are eligible for a proportionate share of the 25 at-large delegates if they receive at least 20% of the vote statewide. [FHQ went into some detail about this yesterday when Kansas was used as an example in our post-Super Tuesday examination of the delegate math.] Everyone should be eyeing Ron Paul today and whether the Texas congressman is able to surpass the 20% barrier. Santorum looks to be poised for victory and Romney will likely cross 20%, but whether Paul gets there will determine how these at-large delegates are allocated. If only one candidate breaks the 20% barrier or no candidates get there, the allocation reverts to a straight proportional method for everyone.

For the congressional district delegates the formula is simple: Win the district, win the delegates. Each of the four Kansas congressional districts has three delegates. A clean sweep of all four means 12 delegates for the winner in addition to the three automatic delegates -- who are bound according to the results of the statewide vote (to the winner).

In other words, if one candidate has a consensus victory across the state -- both statewide and in the four congressional districts -- that candidate will start out with a base 15 delegates before the at-large delegates are proportionally allocated.

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

² Caucusgoers have to be registered Republicans to participate. Independents and Democrats can participate if they switched their registration on or before February 17.

³ Below is the Kansas Republican Party delegate selection plan:
2012 Kansas Caucus Rules


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Romney Sweeps Northern Mariana Islands 9 Delegates

Guam Goes for Romney

The Revenge of Santorum Can't Get to 1144

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Romney Sweeps Northern Mariana Islands 9 Delegates

FHQ will not belabor the point here. After all, the story is much the same as the one out of Guam in the early hours of Saturday morning. But Mitt Romney won the caucuses/convention in the Northern Mariana Islands today and with it the nine delegates apportioned it by the Republican National Committee.

One thing that should be noted in all of this -- before the inevitable uproar over why these places have delegates -- is that neither Guam nor the Northern Mariana Islands are winner-take-all contests. It just looks that way now that Romney has claimed the entire 18 delegate cache from both. No, as FHQ mention earlier in the Guam post, the RNC considers these unbound delegates and will likely continue to do so in its delegate count. However, in both cases the newly chosen delegations have opted to endorse the former Massachusetts governor.

I know, I know. But Romney won all of the delegates; that's winner-take-all. He did and it is, but according to the rules these contests (and the caucuses in the Virgin Islands later today and in American Samoa on Tuesday) are producing unbound delegates. From the perspective of the rules, then, these contests are not winner-take-all, but procedurally they have been.

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The delegation in the Northern Marianas breaks down in a similar fashion to Guam. There are three automatic delegates (party chair, national committeeman and national committeewoman) and six additional delegates. The automatic delegates were already in place, but the the caucuses in Saipan on Saturday selected the remaining six delegates in the delegation from a pool of 16 candidates.


Recent Posts:
Guam Goes for Romney

The Revenge of Santorum Can't Get to 1144

2012 Republican Delegate Allocation: North Dakota

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Guam Goes for Romney

...unanimously.

...and by a show of hands.

Not unimportantly, Mitt Romney won the Guam caucuses/convention in Saturday voting in the Pacific territory of the US. With the victory came all nine of the delegates in Guam -- both the 3 automatic delegates and the six other delegates apportioned to the territory. All nine are technically unbound and will likely continue to be consider as such by the RNC in its ongoing delegate count. However, all nine delegates have opted to recognize the will of the caucus and support the winner, Romney.

FHQ says "not unimportantly" because those nine delegates -- in the midst of any delegate fight -- are quite potentially much larger than one would assume a tiny territory to be in a nationwide battle for the Republican nomination. It isn't the nine delegates so much as the nine delegate margin. That margin is larger for Romney than the one delegate margin Santorum enjoyed in Oklahoma on Tuesday. But this also sheds light on the role the three other territories -- also with nine delegates each -- might play in this process. In the context of the coming week, the caucuses in Guam, the Northern Marianas, the Virgin Islands and American Samoa could all (if) with one collective voice offset any/most of the gains that Santorum or Gingrich could make in Alabama, Kansas and Mississippi. All three of have an element of proportionality. The 25 of Kansas' 40 delegates are proportional. Alabama's allocation method resembles Georgia's and could provide a nice margin for any candidate if they have a Gingrich-in-Georgia type win. In Mississippi, all 37 bound delegates are proportionally allocated. Each candidate - if they clear the delegate threshold -- will receive delegates in these three states.

But those gains may be neutralized by the territories coming up. After all, Guam ain't just Guam. It and the other territories count, too.

...especially if they deliver all of their delegates to one candidate. And the Northern Marianas look to be leaning toward Romney too.


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The Revenge of Santorum Can't Get to 1144

2012 Republican Delegate Allocation: North Dakota

2012 Republican Delegate Allocation: Massachusetts

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The Revenge of Santorum Can't Get to 1144

There were a couple of fairly consistent complaints about the model FHQ put together for ABC News to project candidate delegate totals through the end of primary season:

1. What if Gingrich/Santorum drops out and helps Santorum/Gingrich consolidate the conservative vote against Romney?
2. Sure, Gingrich/Santorum can't get to 1144, but FHQ still hasn't really shown how Romney can get there. 

First of all, I think these are fair assessments/concerns of/about the model, and as is the case with anything like this, it always [always] helps to add extra eyes to process. But let me try to flesh out the explanation of the model a bit as a means of addressing the above issues and then have a look at what the terrain is like now that Super Tuesday is out of the way.

Issue #1: A Gingrich/Santorum Drop Out

FHQ will have to admit right off the bat that I thought the folks who responded to the numbers in the Santorum Can't Get to 1144 post by calling the model a fantasy were right on. It is a fantasy. It is a complete fantasy that one candidate will receive exactly one half of the vote across all the remaining states and by virtue of having that same level of support applied to each and every congressional district (where states allocate based on that subunit vote), win all the delegates from those districts. Again, that is not going to happen. But what I tried to do with the second model was to account for the number of candidates who got over the various thresholds in the states to get any delegates at all. That number was set to its lowest possible number: three in states with 15% thresholds and two in states with 20% thresholds. It seems reasonable that if one candidate -- as the model already assumes -- has 50% support that one additional candidate will break that 20% barrier and that two candidates would break the 15% mark in states with such a threshold. 

The model built in the reallocation of delegates not allocated to candidates because they did not meet the threshold. And because that was set to the lowest reasonable number, the model already -- in an indirect way -- assumes that Gingrich or Santorum is getting votes but not a proportionate share of at-large/all delegates. Those are reallocated to the candidates above the threshold. 

Let me illustrate this with an example. We'll call it Kansas. First of all, we'll assume that Rick Santorum receives 50% of the vote in Saturday's caucuses. Furthermore, we'll assume that Mitt Romney only just clears the 20% mark to get any delegates. Ron Paul and Newt Gingrich both split the remaining 30% with neither clearing the 20% mark (We'll assume an even 15%/15% split). The way the model treats this, Santorum would get a majority in each of the four Kansas congressional districts and wins all 12 delegates (3 delegates in each of the four congressional districts). By winning the statewide vote Santorum would also win the three automatic delegates. 

But where the fun comes in is with the 25 at-large delegates. Since only Santorum and Romney cleared 20%, the allocation will not be truly proportional. If it was, Santorum would receive 12 delegates, Romney 5, Gingrich 4 and Paul 4. That is not how it works though. The eight Gingrich/Paul delegates have to be reallocated to the candidate who cleared the 20% threshold. Reallocating those delegates pushes Santorum's total to 18 and Romney's to 7. The final allocation of the Kansas delegates, then is Santorum 33, Romney 7. 

What happens if Newt Gingrich drops out?¹  

I think we can all agree that no matter what, Ron Paul is not going anywhere. He will continue on and likely get anywhere from 10-15% of the vote. That means that Santorum and Romney are splitting roughly 85-90% of the vote (not accounting for uncommitted votes/voters). What happens if, as the model's initial detractors so adamantly claimed, Santorum receives all of the Gingrich support and Romney stays right at that 20% level? Again, we assume that Santorum is already starting out with a base of 15 delegates (12 congressional district delegates and 3 automatic delegates). What we are concerned with are the 25 at-large delegates. Ron Paul performs fairly well in caucuses so let's say he gets 15% of the vote, meaning that Santorum and Romney split the other 85% (Santorum 65%, Romney 20%). In that instance, Santorum claims 19 of the 25 at-large delegates and Romney, the other 6.² 

All that -- a 15% gain in the vote share -- and Santorum just gained one delegate. So the model already kinda sorta assumed a two person race, but even with Gingrich out of the way AND capturing all of his votes does not translate into all that many delegates. That won't make up the difference to get Santorum to 1144. 

In fact, if we plug the new post-Super Tuesday delegate count (97 delegates: 95 from the RNC and 2 additional automatic delegate endorsement) into the model it only gets Santorum to 959. And that's 959 with all the advantages described above. If we, in turn, grant Santorum all of the unbound delegates to this point in the race (198 delegates), he just barely cracks 1144.³

I think we can all concede that that is beyond generous and approaching the "act of God" that the Romney teams was discussing in the context of Santorum's delegate math.

Issue #2: How does Romney get there?

Speaking of Romney, what does his number look like in the same, again, fantasy model? Once we plug in his current RNC delegate count (339) plus his automatic delegate endorsements (19), Romney reaches 1236 delegates. And that's winning half of the vote and claiming winner-take-all delegates in states that allocate winner-take-all based on reaching that plateau either statewide and/or in the congressional districts. But not counting any additional automatic delegate endorsements or any endorsements from caucus states actually allocating unbound delegates somewhere down the line, Romney still has a cushion of about 100 delegates to work with to get to 1144. In other words, we could assume that Romney likely won't get 50% of the vote in Alabama this next week, but expect that if things continue on as is -- with the former Massachusetts governor as a "weak" frontrunner -- that he would/could make up for "losing" those delegates (relative to the model) by gaining automatic delegates and/or delegates from unbound caucus states. Of course, the time in between the former and the latter happening means that it would be later in the process before Romney actually got to 1144. 

Is that a shoo-in? No, but Romney has some cushion with which to work that his counterparts in the race do not.

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¹ No, Gingrich will not drop out prior to Kansas but bear with me here for the purposes of this exercise.

² Bumping Paul down to the 10% level does not change the allocation. Santorum still receives 19 of the at-large delegates to Romney's 6.

³ With the number of caucus states waning, we quickly are approaching the point at which the unbound total is not going to grow anymore than the three automatic delegates per state (for those that don't bound them). That 198 is and will be a sizable majority of those unbound delegates.


Recent Posts:
2012 Republican Delegate Allocation: North Dakota

2012 Republican Delegate Allocation: Massachusetts

2012 Republican Delegate Allocation: Idaho

Are you following FHQ on Twitter, Google+ and Facebook? Click on the links to join in.

2012 Republican Delegate Allocation: North Dakota

This is the nineteenth 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.


NORTH DAKOTA

It is likely sufficient to say that to get a sense of how the North Dakota Republican delegate selection/allocation process operates, one can simply look at Iowa, Colorado, Maine, Minnesota and Washington as broad guides. Republicans in the Peace Garden state will similarly hold a non-binding straw poll vote in the precinct caucuses across 47 legislative districts in the state. Again, the straw poll results are non-binding and give us a snapshot of how well each candidate has done among the caucusgoers in attendance. Ultimately, the 28 delegates North Dakota Republicans were apportioned will head to the Tampa convention unbound (but free to endorse). That means that the process is just starting tonight and will not be complete until those delegates are selected at the state convention on March 30-April 1.

There is no party registration in North Dakota, so any registered voter can participate in the caucuses.

North Dakota delegate breakdown:

• 28 total delegates
• 22 at-large delegates
• 3 congressional district delegates
• 3 automatic delegates

Both the congressional district and at-large delegates will be selected at the state convention. With only one congressional district, the state convention in North Dakota -- unlike Alaska for instance -- doubles as a district convention gathering as well. The Republican national committeeman and Republican national committeewoman -- both automatic delegates -- are also elected at the state convention in presidential election years.

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UPDATE: As our anonymous commenter has pointed out, district conventions have been going on since January 17 and will continue into March. That, however, is a completely separate vote from the straw poll that is being conducted across the 47 districts across the state today. This does say something about the likely link between the two events though. If FHQ has talk about anything consistently, it is that the snapshot in the straw poll vote does not necessarily reflect the vote in the delegate allocation portion of the meeting. And that is within one meeting. If the two votes are separately the link between the straw poll vote and the delegate selection (through the initial district-level conventions) is even more tenuous.

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UPDATE (3/30/12): The delegate selection process will be complete with the selection of congressional district and at-large delegates at the March 30-April 1 convention in the Peace Garden state. Those delegates are technically unbound, but it will be up to the state party, old-fashioned press reporting or the selected delegates themselves revealing who they prefer. Rick Santorum won the March 6 straw poll and this weekend may be a better indicator of where the former Pennsylvania senator stands in this race than the Wisconsin primary on Tuesday. If he performs up to or overperforms his straw poll performance in the final delegate count in North Dakota, then nothing really changes. If, however, Santorum underperforms in the delegate count compared to his straw poll showing, then it will be revealing about his organization and perhaps the emerging inevitability argument in this Republican nomination race.

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

Recent Posts:
2012 Republican Delegate Allocation: Massachusetts

2012 Republican Delegate Allocation: Idaho

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Are you following FHQ on Twitter, Google+ and Facebook? Click on the links to join in.

2012 Republican Delegate Allocation: Massachusetts

This is the eighteenth 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.


MASSACHUSETTS

Ho-hum.

Following Idaho, the Massachusetts Republican Party method of delegate appears quite pedestrian. In fact, the Massachusetts Republican Party method of delegate allocation is more the Massachusetts commonwealth method of allocation as the formula is broadly defined in the Massachusetts General Laws.

Now, this is not to suggest that the state party has no say in the matter. As FHQ argued in the New Hampshire discussion, the state party always has the final say on these matters. If there is a conflict between state law and what the state party wants in terms of delegate allocation, the courts typically square the issue; yielding to the desires of the party. In this instance, Bay state Republicans allocate their apportioned delegates in proportion to the vote share each candidate receives in the statewide election. The Massachusetts Republican Party has added the caveat that only candidates over the 15% mark in that statewide vote are eligible for a portion of the delegates.

What that means is that Massachusetts is essentially New Hampshire, but with a slightly higher minimum threshold for receiving delegates (15% as opposed to 10% in New Hampshire). This is applied across the entire delegation regardless of the at-large or congressional district distinction.

Massachusetts delegate breakdown:

• 41 total delegates
• 11 at-large delegates
• 27 congressional district delegates
• 3 automatic delegates 

The 38 at-large and congressional district delegates are allocated to candidates over 15% of the vote proportionate to their share of the statewide election. The remaining three automatic delegates are unbound and can endorse when and if they choose to do so.


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

Recent Posts:
2012 Republican Delegate Allocation: Idaho

Goodbye Idaho Presidential Primary

Santorum Can't Get to 1144

Are you following FHQ on Twitter, Google+ and Facebook? Click on the links to join in.

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.


Recent Posts:
Santorum Can't Get to 1144

The (Delegate) Keys to Super Tuesday

Race to 1144: Washington Caucuses

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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. 

Recent Posts:
The (Delegate) Keys to Super Tuesday

Race to 1144: Washington Caucuses

Fantasy Delegates

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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.

Recent Posts:
Race to 1144: Washington Caucuses

Fantasy Delegates

Texas Primary Set for May 29

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