- Absolutely awesome. => Reading – The Personal Analytics of My Life (Stephen Wolfram) http://t.co/WPZAAA8r #
- Reading – One super PAC takes aim at incumbents of any party (Paul Kane) http://t.co/Jjmymxcj #
- Reading – The President Should Finally Fight For Civil Liberties (Jeffrey Rosen) http://t.co/n2pjgr20 #
- Reading – Democrats Pretend Not To Be Mad About Maine (Kyle Leighton) http://t.co/wM3QpHbg #
- Reading – Mitt: Pay for Your Own Damn College! (Jonathan Chait) http://t.co/V1G6oZal #
- RT @cpreksta: Prayers for the victims of the shootings at Western Psych, Pittsburgh and the doctors & nurses helping them this moment :( #
- Reading – Rick Santorum’s delegate woes (Felicia Sonmez) http://t.co/FEgydrAk #
- RT @ppppolls: Romney leading on first night of our NC GOP poll…that seems to me like a real sign this thing might be ready to wrap up #
- RT @ppppolls: Looks like about a 10 point shift from Santorum to Romney in NC even just in the last week #
- RT @ppppolls: Romney has historically done very poorly in our North Carolina polling…if he's winning here now he's winning most everywhere #
- MT @daveweigel: If 3 of 'em crack 20, major delegate split RT @justin_hart: Ras Reports: Alabama: Gingrich 20%, Santorum 29%, Romney 28% #
- MT @LarrySabato: If a few extra delegates for Romney are needed, party elites will find a way to get them. #
- Oh, I'm @ doc waiting for strep throat test results. Also headache, earache, fever, etc. Woo! Haven't felt "good" in weeks. Bleh. #sickday #
- RT @OreoDCW: @MittRomney: Way down yonder on the Chatahoochee it gets hotter than a hoochee coochie #itsmittyall #
- Reading – Romney official: Winning Alabama would 'end this process' (Alexander Burns) http://t.co/xvo61Dta #
- Reading – The Ridiculous Trick AT&T; And Apple Are Playing On iPhone 4S Owners (Steve Kovach) http://t.co/yL2WzTLz #
- RT @BrendanNyhan: RT @kinggary: daylight saving time causes more traffic accidents and a 5% increase in heart attacks http://t.co/j6sAAmjy #
- RT @FHQ: AL/MS are perception contests in this 2012 GOP nomination race. Delegate counts will not differ much no matter who wins. 1/2 #
- RT @fivethirtyeight: 3 Alabama polls, 3 different leaders. 2 Mississippi polls, 2 different leaders. Polling the Deep South is a mess. #
- Reading – Because it will give me an excuse to buy and own and wear an ascot. (Wil Wheaton) http://t.co/RhFd7MBv #
- @ppppolls On Maine poll, no breakdown by CD? (Relevant since ME & NE can split electoral vote by CD… not that it is likely in ME.) #
- @RasmussenPoll Any breakdown by CD on NE Obama/Romney poll? Relevant due to ability to split electoral college by CD in November. #
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Map from the Abulsme.com 2012 Electoral College Prediction page. This map reflects Obama vs Romney. If any other candidate takes the lead in the Republican delegate race we’ll switch to making maps for them. So the latest poll in Maine (the first since October) puts our “last five poll average” up an Obama lead of 12.1%, so the state moves from our light blue color (indicating a 5% to 10% lead) to dark blue (indicating a lead over 10%). Obama won Maine in 2008 by over 17%, so this isn’t a huge surprise. This is for the whole state though. Maine is one of two states (the other is Nebraska) that allocate some of their electoral votes based on the state wide vote, but some of them by the winners in each congressional district. We have no polling yet for the individual congressional districts in Maine, so they are colored in by the average of the results in 2004 and 2008. So we classify ME-1 as Strong Obama (lead over 10%) and ME-2 as Weak Obama (lead between 5% and 10%). In practice these states have almost never split their vote, but it does happen sometimes… Nebraska split its vote in 2008… so we have to allow for the possibility in our model. Since this change does not effect a swing state, our summary remains the same:
And our chart over time…
Chart from the Abulsme.com 2012 Electoral College Prediction page. In the last month there have been 8 state category changes. 6 of them have gone in Obama’s direction. It will be awhile until the state by state polls are frequent enough and in enough states to be quickly responsive to the state of the race, but from the polling we do have, it is apparent that the continuing Republican primary battle seems to be slowly but surely weakening Romney’s hand against Obama. The expectation is that once Romney can pivot to the general election, he’ll be able to start trying to reverse that tide. But until then, he seems to just continue to lose ground.
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. Rather than the date on the x-axis, we show the “% of Delegates Already Allocated” as this better represents the progress through the race. Note that these numbers include estimates of the eventual results of multi-stage caucus processes which will be refined as the later stages occur. So it appears that the last 34 delegates from Super Tuesday, a handful each from Georgia, Ohio and Tennessee, have been determined. 17 more to Romney, 8 more to Gingrich and 5 more to Santorum. But wait, that is only 30! Well, according to Green Papers, 4 of the 63 delegates that were up for grabs in Ohio end up officially “Uncommitted”, which (I think) means we won’t actually know which way they may go until we know which actual human beings end up being those delegates and those people say publicly who they plan on supporting (which they may or may not actually do before the convention). All in all, today’s results are once again a win for Romney. He got 56.7% of today’s delegates, which was way more than the 48.5% he needed to continue to move closer to the nomination rather than further way. His “% of remaining needed to win” drops now to 48.4%. For the other candidates, the effect on the other side is more dramatic. Santorum is still in 2nd place, but his “% of remaining needed to win” moves up from 64.5% to 65.5%. Romney may not yet be rapidly moving toward cinching the nomination, but the non-Romneys are rapidly moving toward being mathematically eliminated. Looking at the non-Romney’s for a minute, the next few states are expected to favor them. Perhaps Santorum will win some. Perhaps Gingrich will win some. But to actually be on a pace to win, Santorum has to not just win a state, but win by a huge margin, getting more than 65.5% of the delegates. For Gingrich it is even worse, he would need to win getting 67.8% of the delegates. (For completeness, Paul would need to get more than 71.7%.) Even with Romney expected to not be strong in these states, with four candidates in the race, you don’t expect anybody to be able to pull that kind of level except in winner take all (or winner take almost-all) states. Of the next few coming up… in Kansas, Guam, Northern Marianas, Virgin Islands, Alabama, Mississippi, Hawaii and American Samoa there are as usual complicated delegate rules (and the territories might only select uncommitted delegates), but none of them are straight up winner takes all. (Some allow for certain situations that could lead there though.) Bottom line, 65.5% (or more) is a pretty big ask and seems unlikely. Which means that even if Santorum or Gingrich win some states (as expected) in terms of delegates they will almost certainly still both be heading closer to mathematical elimination rather than closer to the nomination. The big thing to look at will once again be looking at how well the non-Romney’s collectively block Romney from getting the 48.4% of the delegates he needs to be closing in on the nomination himself. With strong performance by the non-Romney’s in the next few contests, they may well be able to achieve this, even if they don’t actually help themselves individually. |
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