This is the website of Abulsme Noibatno Itramne (also known as Sam Minter).
Posts here are rare these days. For current stuff, follow me on Mastodon
|
I couldn’t stop thinking about it, so another thought comparing the Republican race now versus 2008. This was also first posted as a comment on the Primary Season Amnesia post on Chris Weigant’s blog.
One more follow up thought… it really is very important that the calendars are so different between this year and 2008… so let me explicitly do the conversion. As of today, 2012 Feb 14, we have 10.98% of the available delegates allocated or estimated. The closest comparison we would have had in 2008 was February 4th and 5th, at which point 9.41% of the available delegates had been allocated.
On that day… McCain was ahead of Romney, but just barely. McCain had 43.3% of the delegates so far (and needed 50.7% of the remaining delegates to win). Meanwhile Romney was his closest competition and right behind… 41.1% of the delegates so far (and 51.0% of the remaining delegates needed to win.) This was still a race. These guys were very close to each other at that point. (Unlike this year, where Romney has a very substantial lead on Gingrich at this point.)
So if anything, at a comparable point in the delegate race (as opposed to the time of year) Romney is actually MUCH better off than McCain was at the same point. Gingrich is much further behind Romney than Romney was behind McCain. Romney and McCain were neck and neck. Gingrich is nowhere close to Romney in delegates, and everybody else is even further behind.
But February 5th was Super Tuesday. It took several days for all the delegate estimates from Super Tuesday to be complete… but most of them were in by February 8th, and no other primaries or caucuses had happened yet. At that point 50.29% of the delegates had been allocated. McCain now had 59.6% of the delegates so far, and only needed 40.3% of the remaining delegates to get to the magic number and win the nomination. Romney by contrast, now had only 23.9% of the delegates and needed a full 76.5% of the remaining delegates to catch up and win.
So post-Super Tuesday, McCain could do worse than he had done so far by a 20% margin and still win. But Romney needed to more than triple how he had been doing in the delegate count to catch up and win. These are again the kind of numbers where the press will still call it a race because it is fun, but the reality is that in order to close that kind of gap the front runner essentially has to totally collapse AND things have to go very very right for their challenger too…
As for this year, things are MUCH more spread out. After Super Tuesday we’ll still only have some 35% of the total delegates allocated, as opposed to over 50% in 2008. So even if after super Tuesday, Romney is finally starting to get his “% of remaining needed to win” to come down instead of staying flat, he’ll have a decent slog to actually collect the 1144 delegates. If he still is hovering around 50% of the delegates (or less!) at that point instead of routinely winning more than half of the delegates, then we’ll have quite a nice bit of fun before we get to the end of this, and the possibilities of brokered conventions start becoming more real.
But in terms of the delegate race, in comparison to 2008, it is really very early. On February 14th 2008, 56.55% of the delegates were already allocated. We won’t get to that point in 2012 until the end of March or beginning of April (depending on how fast super delegates announce their positions). It was very front loaded last time. This time it is very stretched out….
This morning I saw a post referring back to 2008 race. The part that caught my attention was this:
Primary Season Amnesia
(Chris Weigant, 2012 Feb 13)
Even accounting for such differences, the 2008 race was still a very close three-way contest in early February. Romney and McCain were almost even in states won, with Huckabee not all that far behind. This year, Mitt Romney has won four states, Rick Santorum four, and Newt Gingrich one.
You’d think the media would remember these facts, but (once again) we are being subjected to endless stories about how downright unique the 2008 Republican primary season is, along with the exact same storylines that ran in 2008 about the frontrunner not being able to close the deal, especially with conservative voters. McCain, back then, raised just as many suspicions among the conservative Republican base that he “wasn’t one of us” that Romney now hears.
I had to respond, as while I have no doubts that the media narrative was all about McCain still having trouble closing, the delegate numbers just didn’t support that story. (The media would do the same thing months later while they continued to talk breathlessly about the Obama vs Clinton race long after it was mathematically clear that it would take an absolute unprecedented miracle for Clinton to actually catch up and win.) Anyway, I posted the following as a comment at Chris Weigant’s site. (Awaiting moderation as I post this on my site.)
Sorry for the really long comment… probably should just post on my blog. :-)
The media narrative in 2008 at this point in time may well have been that McCain was having problems closing the deal, but looking at delegate counts, there was a very different story. There was NOT a close three way race in mid-February. Take a look at my page showing how the delegate race played out in both parties last time around:
http://wiki.abulsme.com/2008_Presidential_Delegate_Graphs#Republicans
By this time in February (indeed, essentially immediately following Super Tuesday, but he continued to consolidate after) McCain had essentially already put this away.
The key thing I use to measure this is the percent of the remaining delegates available that the candidate would need to cinch the nomination. This takes into account both what the candidates already have gotten, and the dwindling number of remaining delegates available to catch up. At this point in February 2008, McCain had amassed a big enough lead that he had over 60% of the delegates allocated thus far, and only needed about 35% of the remaining delegates to clinch the nomination. In other words, he could do much worse than his record up to that point and still win. By comparison, at this point his closest competition was Romney, who had collected about 22% of the delegates so far, and would have needed to get about 87% of the remaining delegates to catch up and win. 87%!!!! Compared to the 22% he had managed so far! This was not a realistic outcome absent a major McCain collapse or scandal… and probably the other candidates dropping out too.
Starting with Super Tuesday last cycle, you can see the clear pattern of McCain completely dominating the race and all other opponents just falling further and further behind while McCain races toward clinching the nomination. Any narrative about him not closing the deal was just not borne out by the numbers.
As you pointed out, the HUGE difference is that we have had less states and a smaller percentage of the delegates allocated so far. Even super Tuesday will be smaller than last time, everything is just more spread out that last time, which means in terms of TIME (as opposed to states) one would of course expect it to take longer for things to settle.
(And indeed perhaps, really, the better time to compare to would have been mid to late January in 2008, when things really were still more unsettled and less states had voted… McCain only even took the delegate lead from Romney on January 30th or so…)
But sticking with February and comparing this year:
http://wiki.abulsme.com/2012_Republican_Delegate_Count_Graphs
Looking at the “% of remaining needed to win” you see all the non-Romney’s rapidly heading upward. With each contest (with the exception of Newt’s win in South Carolina) even if they win, they aren’t winning by big enough margins to be on a pace to actually win the nomination outright. Meanwhile though, there is a big difference from 2008. Rather than Romney’s numbers indicating that he is getting an easier and easier path to the nomination after each state as he gains more and more delegates, we see him hovering around 50%. Right now he is slightly under. (I should say at this point that I use the delegate estimates from the primaries and caucuses by The Green Papers, and the Super Delegate estimates from Democratic Convention Watch.) Romney is staying flat, but to “close the deal” in terms of winning outright before the convention, he has to actually start collecting delegates at a slightly faster pace than he has been so far.
Right now Romney’s closest competition is still Gingrich (although Santorum is closing fast). Right now Gingrich has 17.9% of the delegates so far, and would need to get 54.0% of the remaining delegates remaining to catch up and win. (Santorum and Paul would have to do even better than that.) Now, 54.0% is not an outrageous number, but it is more than three times better than he has been doing so far!!! If that were to start to happen (or the equivalent with the other candidates) it would be a HUGE change compared to what has happened so far in the race. And it would have to happen soon, because if not, that 54% is just going to rise and it will get harder and harder to catch up. One of the other candidates catching up and winning is not impossible, but it would take a major seismic shift changing the dynamics of the race. Perhaps Gingrich continuing to drop rapidly with Santorum picking up most of his support, winning Michigan and getting momentum out of that going into Super Tuesday would do that… but it still needs to be a big change for one of these guys to catch up.
Meanwhile, so far Romney has 49.8% of the delegates so far, but would need 50.1% of the remaining delegates to close the deal. So he has to improve his performance, but just by a LITTLE bit in order to be on pace to actually win the nomination… a few nice big winner take all states would most likely be enough to do the trick. But he is NOT putting it away or closing the deal yet. If all the not-Romney’s combined keep operating at about the level they have been, Romney would get to the convention just short of the 1144 delegates he needs.
Now, there is a long time between now and then, and if he wins the winner take all states and doesn’t completely collapse in the proportional states, he should be able to do that “little bit better” that he needs and wrap this up. At the moment though, none of his competition are in a position to actually WIN unless there are dramatic changes in the dynamics of the race (for instance one of them drops out), but they ARE in a position to block Romney from getting 1144 if they continue to do as well or better (collectively) as they have so far…
(In 2008 at this point, all of McCain’s competition combined were not in a realistic position to even keep him from getting the magic number, let alone catching up to win.)
None of this means I’m predicting a brokered convention… yet. But if Romney is still above 50% of remaining delegates needed after we pass Super Tuesday… then I’ll start to look at that as a realistic possibility. Until then, he is still actually the front runner, although he has clearly lost some momentum.
But Arizona is winner take all, and he is still way ahead there. Michigan is proportional, so chances are even if Santorum wins, it won’t be by enough to actually be on a pace to catch up. A win there would clearly put Romney in danger on Super Tuesday though. But more immediately Arizona is the one to watch because it is winner take all. If Romney wins that, then he consolidates his lead, regardless of what happens in Michigan. If Romney LOSES there… then he is in real trouble.
I’ll note that we also talked a bit about this topic on the episode of the podcast that Ivan and I recorded on Sunday and that I haven’t posted yet (sorry!) but will probably (hopefully!) post tomorrow.
Chart from the Abulsme.com 2012 Republican Delegate Count Graphs page. When a candidate gets down to 0%, they have cinched the nomination. If they get up past 100%, they have been mathematically eliminated.
So. Maine. A few things to say before looking at any numbers here. Maine is another of those states where no actual delegates were designated by the initial caucuses there. Instead, two things happened. First, there was a straw poll. Second, there was the elections to the delegates of the next round. The second thing is actually related to who eventually gets delegates when all is said and done months from now. The first does not. At all. But it is what is reported because it is an easy to understand result. Also, it should be said that some precincts in Maine haven’t even had their caucuses yet. They don’t get to participate in the straw poll (because it is over) but they will get to vote on delegates and such. The “real” result tonight, as in many of the caucus states, is that no delegates at all have been allocated yet.
For this site, we use estimates from The Green Papers for delegates. These assume that the eventual delegate allocation will be proportional to the straw poll results, at least at first approximation. When later rounds of the delegate selection process happen, the numbers will get revised and may be quite different. As an example, the Ron Paul campaign is saying that they think in the end they will actually get the most delegates from Iowa, Minnesota and Colorado because they had their people stay around after the straw polls and actually run to be delegates to the later stages while the other campaigns for the most part ignored this. We shall see how that plays out. In the mean time, while one can look at only completely determined delegates like DCW does in their primary count, but we’ll use the projected eventual delegates from caucus states until better numbers are available later in the process…
Anyway, now on to the main event. Since the last update, we had the preliminary Maine results (estimated as described above), and Ron Paul gained one superdelegate. So for the day, Paul gains 9 delegates, Romney 8, Santorum 4 and Gingrich 1. So Paul wins the day, right? Or maybe like most people saying, it is a win for Romney since he got the most actual votes in the straw poll?
Wrong. The right answer is that after today EVERYBODY is further away from the nomination than they were yesterday. (Paul just lost the least ground.) Nobody got a high enough percentage of the delegates from today to be on track for getting to 1144 delegates before the convention. The delegate take is continuing to be split in such a way that nobody is taking a majority of the delegates.
In fact, with these results, Romney slips below 50% of the delegates allocated so far for the first time since his big delegate win from the winner take all contest in Florida. Prior to today, if he just continued getting delegates at the same percentage he had been so far, he would win the nomination. Since he is now below 50% again, that means he has to actually improve his performance above his historical levels (slightly) to get to 1144.
Of course we have another winner take all state (Arizona) coming up soon, and that may help Romney’s situation considerably if he wins there (as the current polls indicate is likely).
It is also worth pointing out though that even though Romney’s real position in the race (in terms of % of remaining delegates needed to win) was hurt today like everybody’s else’s… the gap between him and his closest competition (still Gingrich, despite Santorum closing rapidly) continues to grow. Romney now needs 50.1% of the remaining delegates to get to 1144. This is just slightly better than the 49.8% he has gotten so far. By comparison, Gingrich now needs 54.0% to catch up and actually get to 1144. This would be a huge change from the 17.9% he has managed so far.
As long as Romney is hovering around 50% of the delegates rather than consolidating and heading rapidly north of that number, we’re going to be hearing the talk about him not managing to get to 1144 and thus potentially ushering in the first brokered convention in decades. While this is an exciting possibility, the road there is still narrow, and Romney is still very much in shooting distance of an outright win.
If however as we hit the next few contents, we see his “% of remaining delegates needed to win” number staying above 50% and actually start to trend consistently UPWARD rather than flat or down… then that talk starts to be more of a real possibility.
Chart from the Abulsme.com 2012 Republican Delegate Count Graphs page. When a candidate gets down to 0%, they have cinched the nomination. If they get up past 100%, they have been mathematically eliminated.
Romney picks up another superdelegate. This of course slightly improves his sitaution and slightly degrades everybody else’s.
Currently Romney needs 49.9% of the remaining delegates to win. His closest competition, Gingrich, needs 53.5% of the remaining delegates to be able to catch up and win. Santorum needs 53.7%. And finally Paul is furthest behind of the candidates still in the race, needing 54.3% of the remaining delegates to catch up and win.
|
|
