If someone wins the first three contests, the delegate count is not the most important thing.
The GOP has changed the rules for this primary season. They could shape the outcome in favor of the GOPe.
One reason is that both national parties place some value in what the Republican Growth and Opportunity Project Report — the post-2012 autopsy — referred to as the “on-ramp.” Both the Democratic and Republican National Committees prefer a nomination process that builds slowly and incrementally. Having a group of smaller states positioned first provides a more equal footing for potential candidates as they make their cases to voters.
The alternative — starting the process in a larger state or a large group of states — is perceived as giving advantage to the best-funded candidate(s), who may or may not be the “best” candidate. The parties like the retail politics that smaller states can provide, rather than the ad war that might result in larger states.
The Republican National Committee is taking a similar approach for the states with primaries and caucuses that fall in the so-called “proportionality window,” defined as the first two weeks of March for 2016. The only difference is that the RNC allows the threshold for receiving any delegates to be set as high as 20 percent either statewide or in congressional districts.
The RNC also allows a state party to institute a threshold for a candidate to receive all of the at-large and bonus delegates. In those states that set such thresholds, if a candidate wins a majority of the vote statewide or in a congressional district, that candidate would be eligible to be allocated all of the delegates apportioned to that political unit.
After March 14, state parties in the Republican process have the freedom to set their delegate allocation rules as they see fit. States can institute a proportional rule, a winner-take-all rule, or some hybrid. The differences between proportional and hybrid plans are typically so subtle that they do not affect the delegate count.
If states with contests after March 14 adopt a winner-take-all rule, that could create a de facto nominee sooner. However, in 2012, there was no such rush to winner-take-all rules among states with contests after the proportionality window.