- Reading – Media silent when administration targets sources (Edward Wasserman) http://t.co/MyQH9uLO #
- Reading – Why Choose Agnostic? Ctd (Andrew Sullivan) http://t.co/c1AqfRN3 #
- Reading – Could airport scanners detect latest Al Qaeda non-metal bomb? (Adam Goldman) http://t.co/dYz3hC37 #
- Reading – Forget That No-October-Surprise-Iran Attack Business I Was Talking About Before (Jeffrey Goldberg) http://t.co/95RMdmA5 #
- Reading – The White House’s ridiculous dance on gay marriage (Ezra Klein) http://t.co/RXwanhs0 #
- Reading – Dish’s Ergen: Streaming on Netflix “devalues” Mad Men (Daniel Frankel) http://t.co/8HnQLDze #
- MT @natsecHeather: If AQAP's best to throw at US was still failed underwear bomb tech, NOW can we declare that we are winning? @AP @lrozen #
- Reading – Facebook Social Readers Are All Collapsing (John Herrmann) http://t.co/IOtRNXPK #
- Reading – Romney's Path Is Not Necessarily Narrow (Sean Trende) http://t.co/GYbS8VXp #
- Reading – Reality Check: Yes, President Obama Is a Hawk (Conor Friedersdorf) http://t.co/MWu9ttlT #
- Reading – Ron Paul Comes Roaring Back Sort Of (David A. Graham) http://t.co/ungZZ8yW #
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Charts from the Abulsme.com 2012 Republican Delegate Count Graphs page. When a candidate gets down to 0%, they have clinched the nomination. If they get above 100%, they have been mathematically eliminated. The first chart is by date, the second is by “% of Delegates Already Allocated”. These numbers include estimates of the eventual results of multi-stage caucus processes which will be refined as the later stages occur. As I mentioned yesterday, Ron Paul had a big weekend in Maine. Green Papers has now updated their Maine Soft Count to reflect this. The previous estimate for Maine was: Romney 10, Paul 8, Santorum 4, Gingrich 1, TBD 1. Paul completely dominated the process at the District Caucuses and State Convention though. So now we have Paul 21, Romney 2, TBD 1. That gives a net change for the day of Paul +13, Gingrich -1, Santorum -4, Romney -8 Paul is clearly the big winner for the day. Romney is clearly the big loser. Of course, Romney is so far ahead at this point it barely matters. In terms of “% of remaining delegates needed to win”:
And Paul? Well, down from 114.4% to 113.0%. Still way above 100%. Not in contention here. Of course, for Paul this isn’t about winning the nomination. He is getting down in the dirt in the state processes. He is winning a number of delegates, and Maine marks the second state (along with Minnesota) where he now has the plurality of delegates in Green Paper’s soft count (and he is tied in Iowa as well). In addition, he is collecting delegates in other states that while officially bound on the first ballot for Romney, are actually Paul supporters. Even though they can’t vote for Paul on the first ballot, these folks could cause procedural trouble at the convention if Paul wants them too. Completely aside from Convention delegates though, Paul is using the process here to build an organization and to start electing “his people” to positions in the local and state party structure. In states like Maine, Minnesota and Iowa, Paul supporters are in the process of taking over the state Republican Parties. This will not matter in 2012, but it means they will have a bigger role in defining how the process will work in 2016 and 2020. Ron Paul is probably on his last presidential run, but the structure he leaves behind will be ready for Rand Paul (or some other Libertarian leaning candidate) next time around. Winning the nomination was never what Paul was about. Working to put the machine in place to gradually, over many years, bend the Republican Party in his direction… that’s Ron Paul’s game. I don’t know if in the long run it will succeed, but that is what is going on here, not an attempt to keep fighting and win the nomination long after it was clear that would never happen.
Charts from the Abulsme.com 2012 Republican Delegate Count Graphs page. When a candidate gets down to 0%, they have clinched the nomination. If they get above 100%, they have been mathematically eliminated. The first chart is by date, the second is by “% of Delegates Already Allocated”. These numbers include estimates of the eventual results of multi-stage caucus processes which will be refined as the later stages occur. You may have heard reports of a big Ron Paul win in Nevada this weekend. Ron Paul supporters win 22 of the 25 delegate spots in Nevada and all that. Well, yes. True. However, in Nevada the delegates are still bound on the first ballot at the convention to vote proportionately to the caucus results, and the delegates can be removed and replaced if they attempt to do something different. So the slate of delegates elected in Nevada doesn’t actually change the delegate counts. Something else does however. According to Green Papers the delegates will be awarded proportionally between the candidates still actively in the race, so by suspending their campaigns Santorum and Gingrich lose their delegates and those delegates get reallocated. So the previous estimated allocation in Nevada had been: Romney 14, Gingrich 6, Paul 5, Santorum 3. This now becomes: Romney 20, Paul 8. So net from Nevada for today: Romney +6, Paul +3, Santorum -3, Gingrich -6. Meanwhile, Romney picks up two more supers, one from Alabama and one from Arkansas. So for the day: Romney +8, Paul +3, Santorum -3, Gingrich -6. So of course Romney continues to walk toward the nomination, despite some delegate gains for Paul as well. Wait, but what about Maine? Paul won there over the weekend too, right? Yes. It looks that way. But Green Papers hasn’t updated their “soft count” for Maine yet. I’m sure they will soon. When they do, we’ll update here too. In any case, for now, in terms of “% of remaining needed to win”:
Despite winning some delegates, Paul’s “% of remaining needed to win” remains significantly higher than 100% at 114.4%. The delegates he is accumulating right now are not anywhere near enough to catch up and win… or even to block Romney in combination with Santorum and Gingrich delegates. Sorry. They may let him cause the convention not to go quite the way the Romney folks would like due to some unscripted deviations from the plan, but it won’t be anywhere near what would be needed to actually derail Romney.
Finally! Took long enough. (Although I only did a little at a time and sometimes went many weeks without playing.) Alex helped me a lot. He sat with me and excitedly jumped up and down and provided running commentary for at least half of the time I played. There is still the multi-player mode though… Edit 2012 May 6 19:15 UTC: Just checked and saw that Portal 2 was released on 2011 Apr 19 and we got it on the day it was released. So it took me a couple weeks more than a year to finish this. Nice and slow I guess. :-)
Charts from the Abulsme.com 2012 Republican Delegate Count Graphs page. When a candidate gets down to 0%, they have clinched the nomination. If they get above 100%, they have been mathematically eliminated. The first chart is by date, the second is by “% of Delegates Already Allocated”. These numbers include estimates of the eventual results of multi-stage caucus processes which will be refined as the later stages occur. If you remember, in Ohio Santorum did not file all the right paperwork to have actual human delegates designated to fill the slots he might win in some parts of the state. There were four delegate positions that Santorum won, but wasn’t going to be able to claim because of that. Well, it looks like the Romney folks decided to be nice and not challenge Santorum’s ability to retroactively fill those four delegate slots. So Santorum will get those four delegates after all. So Santorum +4 in Ohio. Meanwhile, DCW adjusts their Superdelegate Count. One Alabama super switches from Santorum to Romney. And then Romney gains two more previously undeclared supers, one from Alabama and one from South Dakota. Net for the day, Romney +3, Santorum +3. At 50%, this is of course well over the 29.7% of the delegates Romney needs to be tracking to in order to clinch the nomination. In terms of “% of remaining needed to win”:
Next real contests on Tuesday.
Chart and map from the Abulsme.com 2012 Electoral College Prediction page. Both assume Obama vs Romney with no strong third party candidate. Both show polling as it currently exists. Things will change before election day. On the map red is Romney, blue is Obama, gold states are too close to call. Lines on the chart represent how many more electoral votes a candidate would have than is needed to tie under several different scenarios. Up is good for Obama, Down is good for Romney. Today is an exciting day. THREE states change categories.
First up, Obama’s lead in Pennsylvania moves over 5%, so we pull it out of swing state status again. We’d listed Pennsylvania as a swing state since April 14th. The five poll average now has Obama up by 5.8%. This is still pretty close to the boundary, so a poll or two in Romney’s direction could pull Pennsylvania back, but for now we no longer consider Romney winning PA in our “Romney Best Case” scenario.
Second, Ohio gets tighter. Obama’s lead drops to 4.6%, which means I consider it a swing state again, and Romney’s best case scenario now includes Ohio. Ohio has usually been considered a swing state, and our five poll average only showed a greater than 5% lead for Obama from Apr 20 until today… two weeks. So this is a return to Ohio’s “normal” status. Ohio (18 ev) moving back toward Romney balances the Pennsylvania (20 ev) move, so the overall loss to Romney’s best case is only 2 electoral votes.
Third, Arizona moves back toward Romney. There has been talk of Arizona being a red state that Obama may be able to pick off and win. For the moment though, that looks less likely. According to my definition, I consider states to be swing states if the lead in the five poll average is LESS than 5.0%. At the moment the five poll average in Arizona is EXACTLY a 5.0% Romney lead, so the state moves back into “Lean Romney”. So I take winning Arizona off the table for Obama. At least for the moment. One poll could bring it back. Between all three of these changes, the net affect is to narrow the range of possibilities between our Obama best case and Romney best case scenarios. Obama’s best case is worse by 11 electoral votes, and Romney’s best case is worse by 2 electoral votes.
Romney’s best case remains very narrow. In order to win the presidency, he needs to win all of the states where he is currently ahead, including Tennessee (11 ev) and Missouri (10 ev) where polls currently show his lead is slim, then he MUST win Florida (27 ev), Ohio (18 ev), North Carolina (15 ev) and Virginia (13 ev), all of which are states where Obama is currently ahead by a narrow margin. Then he needs to win either Iowa (6 ev) or New Hampshire (4 ev) both of which are also leaning Obama at the moment. Edit 2012 May 4 18:07 UTC – Corrected map, I had forgotten to color Ohio gold. |
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