Delegate Update: Post Iowa

So… Iowa… that was exciting, wasn’t it? Romney wins by 8 votes over Santorum who surged ahead of Paul at the last minute. Romney’s total was also exactly 6 votes less than he did in the state in 2008. Fun. Anyway, that voting is just a non-binding preference poll. The real action was not covered at all basically, which was the election of delegates to the county conventions, which will in turn elect delegates to the state convention, which will in turn elect the actual delegates to the Republican National Convention. I have seen no reporting on the actual people elected as county delegates or what their presidential preferences are. Of course, even if there was such reporting, it is non-binding. But educated estimates can be made. I’m going by the estimates at thegreenpapers.com. They explain their methodology on their site. In any case, based on the Iowa results tonight, they estimate that the following delegates will eventually be won once the full process completes in June.

• 6 delegates – Romney
• 6 delegates – Santorum
• 6 delegates – Paul
• 4 delegates – Gingrich
• 3 delegates – Perry

This is of course subject to change, as generally by the time we get to June, the delegates will be chosen based on the state of the race in June (most likely fully decided) rather than the results of the balloting that happened way back in January. But it is the best estimate at the moment.

Based on this, we generate the first meaningful update to this season’s graph. Remember, this is the percentage of remaining delegates each candidate needs to win, so LOWER is better on this chart. Since nobody actually took a majority, everybody actually goes UP today, so winning has actually gotten HARDER for everybody… but the people who did the best go up the least and are the best off. The Brown line represents the three leaders, Romney/Santorum/Paul who at this point each need 50.33% of the remaining delegates to win. Then Gingrich in red needing 50.42%, Perry in purple needing 50.46%. Bringing up the rear on the yellow line we have Bachmann and Huntsman needing 50.60% of the remaining vote to catch up and win.

We have guestimated 1.09% of the delegates available tonight. 25 delegates out of 2286 total. And of course we haven’t ACTUALLY awarded ANY delegates yet. So this is all really just about starting to build momentum. The numbers are still tiny compared with what is to come. But the process has begun!

Next up… New Hampshire with another 12 delegates next week. Woo! Romney is currently way ahead of the pack in the polls there, but still at less than a majority, but he’ll most likely pull away from Paul and Santorum there. And then there is South Carolina… then Florida… and then… and then… hopefully this will stay interesting for a decent bit of time, but you’ll be able to quickly tell as the race narrows.

Once a candidate’s % Needed number starts dropping significantly below the % of the delegates they actually have so far you know they are building the kind of lead would take a major collapse to stop. (At the moment Romney/Santorum/Paul have 24.00% of the delegates each, but need 50.33% to win, so the three leads are nowhere near that point yet.)