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It’s Still Not Clear That Donald Trump Will Get A Majority Of Delegates
fivethirtyeight.com ^ | Mar 16, 2016 | Harry Enten

Posted on 03/16/2016 10:54:21 AM PDT by ConservingFreedom

You ever feel like you don’t know exactly how to interpret an election night? That’s how I feel about the Republican side of the aisle after Tuesday. Donald Trump won at least three of the five states that voted on Tuesday, including Florida. (We’re still waiting on a call in Missouri, but Trump leads.) Marco Rubio ended his campaign. John Kasich stayed alive by winning Ohio. Given that Trump likely won every state except for the home state of another candidate, it has to be considered a good night for him. And yet, the main question — are we going to a contested convention? — remains unanswered.

The good news for Trump is that he won the most delegates on Tuesday, and was able to make up for the 66 delegates he lost in Ohio by winning Illinois and likely Missouri, which could bring as many as 95 delegates, depending on how the district allocation shakes out.

Moreover, Trump performed strongly in all the states that voted Tuesday. He won 36 percent of the vote in Ohio, 39 percent in Illinois, 40 percent in North Carolina, 41 percent in Missouri and 46 percent in Florida. His average performance was 40.3 percent. That’s far above his average 34.6 percent that he had on March 1. Granted, the states that voted tonight were different than the states that voted two weeks ago, but there isn’t any sign that Trump’s support is falling. If anything, these results suggest it may be somewhat rising.

The bad news for Trump is pretty clear: even with a Missouri win, he would still have won only a little more than 47 percent of the delegates allocated so far. Moreover, he’ll need to win a little more than 54 percent of the remaining delegates to win the nomination on the first ballot. That’s certainly possible given there are several winner-take-all states to come, and Trump may do well in big East Coast states such as New York and New Jersey. Trump is also in a good position in Arizona, a winner-take-all state that votes next Tuesday.

Still, there are plenty of ways the delegate math can go haywire for him. My own delegate estimate has Trump falling short of the 1,237 delegates he needs because he has done poorly in the west so far, and many of those states haven’t voted yet. It’s also possible that Kasich plays better than we might think among moderate voters in the remaining states to vote in New England and Mid-Atlantic.

Moreover, there are plenty of signs that Trump would have lost a majority of states that voted on Tuesday had Rubio not been in the race. I’m talking about Missouri and North Carolina, where Ted Cruz beat Trump in a one-on-one race in the exit polls. Trump may be rising, though he is still not getting close to a majority of the vote in most states. If the anti-Trump voters can find a better way to coordinate behind one candidate, they probably can beat Trump in a lot of upcoming contests.

When you put it all together, I think the result on Tuesday can best be defined as messy. Trump is likely to have a plurality of delegates after all the contests have finished up on June 7. But a majority? We still don’t know.


TOPICS: Cheese, Moose, Sister; Miscellaneous; Society
KEYWORDS: trump
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To: ConservingFreedom

Huh? What planet does this come from and could you give us your stock choices so we could get rich betting against them?


21 posted on 03/16/2016 12:20:14 PM PDT by A CA Guy (God Bless America, God Bless and keep safe our fighting men and women.)
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To: JimRed

Without OH Trump’s path got a little harder, instead of only 45% of the outstanding proportional/hybrid delegates, he needs 55% (assuming he gets AZ, NJ and DEL)... but its hardly impossible..

Look at MO, that’s about as razor thin as you can get and Trump still is going to likely have 61.5% of the state delegates when its all said and done... And MO is about the farthest east Cruz will be competitive. He’ll probably get the rest of the western states, but he’s not going to play any better than he did in MO anyplace east... and that’s being generous.

Kasich is a non starter, he may peel some votes from Cruz, heck he might even pull out a surprise somewhere, but there is no way he’s going to stop Trump from winning most of the remaining states and thus gaining the majority of the delegates. Yes 55% is tougher than 45% but this idea that Trump can’t get that on average going into the states that are remaining is hardly impossible.

In a 3 way race, its almost certain Trump will win most of the states left, the only question is the size of the win. And remember, depending on how states allocate delegates, the wins don’t have to be by large margins to equate to large delegate percentage differences... as I pointed out before MO is about as skin of your teeth as you can get, and assuming trump gets at least 1 of the 3 outstanding districts, he winds up with 61.5% of the states delegates.

Time will tell, but the idea that he can’t reach 1237 is a bit premature.


22 posted on 03/16/2016 12:21:37 PM PDT by HamiltonJay
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To: pfflier

Another indication last night was that Cruz’s support in states that should have been his base fell sharply after hiring Neil Bush and condemning Trump for the violent Muslim, Communist, illegal alien, and #Blacklivesmatter thugs attacking his rallies.


23 posted on 03/16/2016 12:23:16 PM PDT by MrEdd (Heck? Geewhiz Cripes, thats the place where people who don't believe in Gosh think they aint going.)
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To: qman

I’m in same the boat - ME. I will write Cruz in as well.


24 posted on 03/16/2016 12:54:47 PM PDT by reviled downesdad (Some of the blind will never believe the Truth.)
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To: HamiltonJay
the idea that he can’t reach 1237

Where has this idea been expressed? Not in the article or on this thread.

25 posted on 03/16/2016 1:05:55 PM PDT by ConservingFreedom (Trump fans:'he's no more conservative than Mitt'-www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/3389209/posts)
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To: A CA Guy

“give us your stock choices so we could get rich betting against them”

You can get rich betting on Trump here: http://www.paddypower.com/bet/politics/other-politics/us-politics?ev_oc_grp_ids=481890 Let us know how much money you put where your mouth is.


26 posted on 03/16/2016 1:21:17 PM PDT by ConservingFreedom (Trump fans:'he's no more conservative than Mitt'-www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/3389209/posts)
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To: TexasFreeper2009

“he had won Missouri which is HUGE since Trump got a TON of delegates from that win.”

37 to Cruz’ 15 if this count holds up: https://www.sos.mo.gov/CMSImages/ElectionResultsStatistics/1230AMCandidateTotalsbyCongressionalDistrict-withnumbers.pdf


27 posted on 03/16/2016 1:34:08 PM PDT by ConservingFreedom (Trump fans:'he's no more conservative than Mitt'-www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/3389209/posts)
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