Not necessarily.
After Tuesday, we may be in a position where Newt-torum has more delegates than Romney.
Getting 1144 delegates between Newt and Rick, and then forcing an alliance at the Convention, is our best hope. it is no longer a far-fetched idea, either.
Take a minute and actually think about this. If all primaries were proportional ones, your theory would work.
But they ain’t.
When the winner-take-all primaries heat up, Gingrich and Santorum splitting the conservative vote means that Romney wins the state and all the delegates and has the nomination locked up before the convention.
You must want Romney to win. Keep it up. You’ll get what you hoped for. Romney.
TitansAFC, you are not looking at all the rules in all the states. Both conservatives staying in is going to help Romney enough to probably allow him to win, due to vote-splitting on our side.
After Tuesday, 14 out of 27 have some form of winner-take-all. Either the candidate who gets 50% can shut out the other candidates from any delegates, or the candidate who gets a plurality (could be as low as 26% with 4 guys in the race) is winner-take-all. This is either by state or by district.
For instance, IL, PA and WV are direct delegate elections, which function as plurality winner-take-all by district (whichever delegates get the most votes in each district win the entire district).
TX and NY appear to become winner-take-all if a candidate gets over 50%. So if we were down to one conservative, he might be able to hit 50% and shut Romney out.
PR, UT, DE and DC are pure winner-take-all states and it’s true Romney will probably win those.
WI, MD, CT, CA, NJ are all partial WTA, some by district. That means each district is its own contest. And Newt and Rick can split the vote in any district and give Romney a win with a plurality. It is a mathematical certainty that Romney will do better in those states if Newt and Rick stay in.