[Moral Hazard]

“So far only 808 of McCain’s delegates are officially bound to vote for him on the first ballot at the convention. He’d need 383 more to win the nomination. According to a Tuesday night press release from McCain’s campaign, there were 774 delegates available in the remaining contests. That means McCain would still need to win at least 49.5 percent of the remaining delegates to guarantee nomination on the first ballot and prevent an open convention.”

Well. according to RCP McCain has 825 delegates. In addition he has been endorsed by Mitt Romney, who has 291 delegates. I don’t know how many of those are required to go for Romney on the first vote, but presumably most will go for McCain on the second vote. Between the two that’s 1116 of the 1191, leaving him 75 delegates short.

McCain can probably get those 75 delegates from the “super delegates”, i.e. the Republican National Committee members from each state and the state party chairmen that total 3 delegates per state.

In other words he could probably get 1191 without any more primaries or caucuses.

[Kurt Evans]

“Well. according to RCP McCain has 825 delegates. In addition he has been endorsed by Mitt Romney, who has 291 delegates. I don’t know how many of those are required to go for Romney on the first vote, but presumably most will go for McCain on the second vote.”

So far 808 delegates are officially bound to vote for McCain on the first ballot, and 139 are bound to vote for Romney. You can get the hard count from the New York Times:

http://politics.nytimes.com/election-guide/2008/results/delegates/index.html

The votes of unbound delegates and the results of subsequent ballots will probably be largely dependent on what happens between now and the end of August.