Dangus' Guide to the Republican Primaries

First the rules, then the analysis. (The count shown is the number of elected delegates.)

EARLY STATES
25, Iowa (Likely Feb 1. Non-binding caucus)
33, Colorado (Likely starting Feb. 2. Non-binding caucus)
20, New Hampshire (Likely Feb. 9. 10% threshold)
47, South Carolina (Likely Feb 20. 21 delegates to top 2 in each of 7 CDs; 26 chosen statewide)
27, Nevada (Likely Feb 23. proportional caucus)

"Top 2": The most common way of allocating Republican delegates is to have a certain number (usually 3) of delegates chosen per congressional district. If any candidate wins a majority, or no other candidate reaches a certain threshold (often 15% or 20%), the winner in that CD takes all three delegates. Otherwise, he takes 2 and the 2nd-place winner takes 1. Additional delegates are distributed according to the statewide vote: If any candidate wins a majority or no other candidate wins a minimum threshhold, the winner takes all of these delegates; otherwise, they are distributed proportionally among anyone who meets the threshold.

MARCH 1 SUPER TUESDAY
45, Alabama (20% threshold)
53, Tennessee (20% threshold)
144, Texas (108 to top 2 in each CD, 36 are proportional statewide with 20% threshold)
35, Arkansas (12 to top 2 in CD; 23 are proportional statewide with 15% threshold)
74, Georgia 74 (42 to top 2 in CD; 32 are proportional statewide with 20% threshold)
32, Idaho 32 (proportional caucus)
38, Massachusetts 38 (proportional)
59, North Carolina 69 (proportional)
28, North Dakota 28 (proportional caucus)
38. Oklahoma 38 (15 to top 2 in CD; 23 are proportional statewide with 15% threshild)
46, Virginia 46 (33 are winner-take-all per CD; 13 are top 15)
16, Vermont (20% threshold)

OTHER EARLY MARCH CONTESTS
40, Kansas (proportional caucus)
20, Louisiana (25% threshold)
55, Michigan (Could be winner-take-all, effectively)
15, Hawaii (6 to top 2 in CD; 9 proportional)
20, Puerto Rico (15% threshold)
26, Wyoming (No rules)
25, Alaska (proportional)
35, Mississippi (12 to top 2 in CD; 23 are 15%)

The Republican party discourages early primaries (before March 15) by prohibiting winner-take-all contests before that date. Directly elected delegates usually means that the delegate winning the most votes in a given geographic area wins; therefore contests with directly elected delegates can be winner-take-all.

MARCH 15:
62, Ohio (48 are winner-take-all, 14 are 20%)
54, Illinois (directly elected)
98, Florida (winner-take-all)

LATE MARCH
49, Missouri (no rules)
40, Utah (no rules)
58, Arizona (winner-take-all)

APRIL
41, Wisconsin (24 winner-take-all by CD, 14 winner-take-all by state)
16, Delaware (winner-take-all)
36. Maryland (24 winner-take-all by CD, 11 winner-take-all by state)
16, Rhode Island (proportional)
25, Connecticut (proportional, 20% cutoff)
82, New York (81 are to top 2 in CD)
70, Pennsylvania (each directly elected)

MAY
57, Indiana (27 winner-take-all by CD; 30 winner-take-all by county with 1 chosen per county)
31, West Virginia (each directly elected)
42, Kentucky (proportional, 15% cutoff)
28, Oregon (proportional)

JUNE
169, California (winner-take-all by CD)
51, New Jersey (winner-take-all)
19, New Mexico (proportional, 20% cutoff)
29, South Dakota (proportional, 20% cutoff)

There's a good reason brokered conventions don't happen: You need at least three viable candidates after the primary process, and with 20% cut-offs, you can't possibly have more than four competitive in any state. And if you have three, the abundance of super-delegates, elected office-holders, unbound delegates and released delegates allow for a continual process akin to endless balloting, going on for months before the actual convention.

Add to that the way primary voters clamor to front-runners, even front-runners they once despised, once they find such a front-runner. For instance, Romney barely got 30% of the competitive primaries, but once he was established as clear front-runner, he typically got 70% or more of the vote, against the same three opponents.

If one of three candidates still isn't pushing near 50% of the popular vote by the end of the primary calendar, he'll nonetheless likely have the pull to easily have 50% of the delegates, with the help of super, released, unbound delegates.

Nonetheless, this could be a very long primary season. Bush is certain to win Florida's 99 elected delegates unless somehow Rubio emerges from the second tier in dramatic fashion. And Bush and Trump will have plenty of money to continue to fight for low-information voters, the kind for whom dirty campaigns are so effective. Yet, since Bush's money is oligarchical, it's in the form of a super-PAC, meaning he can only use it for negative campaigning. Which would be fine, if he only had to knock off Trump.

But Bush will also need to defeat Walker, who has a significantly smaller, yet still impressive warchest, and is doing better in polls. More than that, Texas alone will mean that Cruz will emerge from Super Tuesday (now called the SEC primary) with enough delegates to join the top tier. Texas is only about 60% larger than Illinois, but has three times the delegates. If Bush gained a handful of New Hampshire's 20 elected delegates over his nearest opponent, it would be quite a feat, but Cruz could easily gain 70 or 80 or more delegates in Texas. That could easily put Cruz in 2nd place in the delegate count, jumping past Walker and Trump. But Bush's Florida and Walker's Wisconsin will soon follow.

If Bush goes full-throttle on Walker, Cruz becomes the Southern, Christian candidate. If Trump knocks Walker or Cruz out, the one he doesn't knock out gets most of the votes... and the loser can steer his released delegates to that candidate.

So there will almost certainly be at least four major candidates going into mid-March.

I modeled a simulated delegate count with each primary. It's hugely conjecture, but it speaks to the difficulty Bush could have securing a win. Looking at a near-worst-case scenario for conservatives, I supposed Bush won New Hampshire and Colorado, took all of Graham's support from South Carolina to demolish the competition there, won competitive races in Alabama, Tennessee, North Carolina and Massachusetts, and handily took the winner-takes-most state of Virginia, plus Ohio and Illinois, before grabbing the mega-jackpot of Florida. Even with so many wins, Bush depart Florida with only 36% of the projected elected delegates, and not many released delegates available from the Carson, Rubio, Paul, Pataki, Kasich, Jindal and Graham campaigns...even if those delegates were disposed to go to Bush.

To put it away, Bush would also have to win Michigan and Arizona, in addition to more liberal states like Maryland, New York, Rhode Island, Connecticut, etc. Even if Cruz withdrew, Walker could still make a run by winning states like Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Indiana and New Jersey. And he would be certain to take one-third of California and New York.

After all of the primaries are finished, an alliance of Trump and Cruz could control roughly as many delegates as each of Bush and Walker. It's tough to imagine Bush getting 40% of the elected delegates, so it'd be entirely up to the superdelegates to coalesce behind a single candidate. But them said super-delegates would have to align behind the massively unpopular Bush. This could take a long time.

My guide. Its all kabuki to secure the conservatives first, then once they have the nomination do the hardest ank to the left they possibly can to scoop up moderates. Then act surprised when they lose the election and blame conservatives for not coming out for them.

Done.

I don’t know. For the purpose of reconstructing a “worst-case scenario” (i.e., a best-case scenario for Bush fans), I presumed that Bush won Tennessee and Walker failed to qualify for any delegates by hitting below 20%. I don’t claim this is realistic. Tennessee’s proportional, so it’s not really going to affect the race that much, since the difference between a solid victory and say, distant third will only be a few delegates out of thousands.

Well, one thing I can say is that Bush has pretty much already told conservatives, “F___ You. I plan to rape you up the ass and there’s not a damned thing you can do about other than thank me because you aren’t going to vote for Hillary.” I guess he didn’t pay attention to the turnout patterns in Romney’s loss to Obama. But then again, I’m pretty sure those C-PAC speeches he gave weren’t to win fans at C-PAC, but to assert to mega-donors his win was inevitable.

A FReeper pointed out that Eugene McCarthy nearly clinched the 1968 Rat nomination by foregoing the usual baby kissing for the media and focused his campaign on the delegates. He almost won and literally had not been in the media or polls. I suspect Cruz is brilliant enough to have played this chess game a hundred moves ahead and knows just where “the wings of a butterfly” can make the difference.

Cruz or Lose!

MAJOR CORRECTION!

Greenpapers.com, whose data Google even takes as its own, is WRONG about the North Carolina date. NC did NOT join the March 1 Super-Tuesday primary, but looks likely to go to a winner-take-all on March 15.

This is big news two ways:

First, With NC AFTER the SEC primary, Cruz can capitalize on Texas momentum as he moves into NC. Winning North Carolina AND Texas would make him competitive with Bush in delegates, at worst, following the NC-Ohio-Florida-Illinois primary dates.

And any non-Bush candidate will have a winner-take-all primary with which to stay competitive with Bush even after Bush wins winner-take-all Florida.

Another important update. (Not a correction, just new information).

Illinois Republicans are apparently in love with Walker. Losing Illinois on March 15 to Walker could really stick a fork in Bush, despite Bush’s certainty to collect Florida’s winner-take-all mega-state primary.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.