CHEERFUL outlook!
Thank you, Georgia!
Tennessee called it for Rick Santorum. Newt Gingrich will be talking in one second.
Not to be overlooked:
Not only will OK, TN, and GA alone bring Newt 100+ additional delegates tonight, but Romney is underperforming expectations in three states already.
We are a third of the way through the process now, and have had many Mitt Romney-heavy states vote already (CO, MA, NH, VT, ND, ID, WY, WA, NV, AZ, VA, And ME). Romney might not even have 400 delegates as of tomorrow, which is a VERY IMPORTANT THING. Why? The majority of the states remaining are not Mitt-friendly states, beginning with Alabama, Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Nebraska, and Indiana. California allocates by district, and a majority of the districts will go for someone other than Romney. NY/NJ will be Mitt’s sweetest plums, but they won’t be enough.
1144 delegates just got MUCH harder after tonight.
I now openly predict that, based on my calculations, Mitt Romney will fall more than 100 delegates short of the 1144 necessary to be the nominee. I fully predict a brokered convention now, here and on record! I have read the rules for the remaining states this past week with several other folks helping out on the campaign. It would take a tidal wave of momentum in Mitt’s favor to get over the 1144 threshold now.
Hopefully, Mitt gets denied more and more states tonight (ND, ID, AK, among others), but either way we have dealt a deep blow to the GOP-E. Talk of a brokered convention will now get louder, because folks in the “know” are going to be doing the math.
You heard it here first. They will do the math starting tomorrow, and a brokered convention will become very real in everyone’s minds.