This is the website of Abulsme Noibatno Itramne (also known as Sam Minter).
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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.
Another minor update as Green Papers gets final delegate numbers from Tennessee. Back in March the results from the Primary were reported as Santorum 29, Romney 16, Gingrich 10. The final results turned out to be Santorum 29, Romney 17, Gingrich 9.
So for the day: Romney +1, Gingrich -1
In terms of “% of remaining delegates needed to win”:
- Romney: 40.5% -> 40.4%
- Santorum: 78.0% (No Change)
- Gingrich: 87.4% -> 87.5%
- Paul: 94.7% (No Change)
Can we please have some primaries again? This slow dripping of minor delegate changes is killing me. :-)
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. 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. On the map Red is Romney, Blue is Obama, Gold States are too close to call.
Two changes in our poll classifications today based on new additions to our five poll averages.
First, Obama’s lead in Wisconsin (10 electoral votes) drops to less than 10% bringing Wisconsin into the “Weak Obama” category. Since this is still not a swing state, our “Romney Best Case” scenario still doesn’t include Romney winning Wisconsin. But this does mean that Wisconsin is potentially in play. With the right combination of campaigning and events, Obama’s lead in Wisconsin could drop below 5%, putting it into contention as a swing state. It is not there today… Obama’s lead in the five poll average is still 8.8%… but it is close enough now to be worth spending time and money in the state.
Second, New Hampshire (4 electoral votes) moves from being just barely Romney to being just barely Obama. (Obama’s lead in the five point average is 1.7%, which is negligible and can disappear in an instant.) New Hampshire remains too close to call and therefore one of our swing states. But this does change our “everybody wins the states they are ahead in” scenario.
|
Romney |
Obama |
| Romney Best Case |
260 |
278 |
| Current Status |
210 |
328 |
| Obama Best Case |
170 |
368 |
Romney’s best case with current polling results remains a loss. And the “current status” improves for Obama because of New Hampshire.
But Wisconsin does show there is some movement in Romney’s direction at the moment. Over the last eight days we’ve seen Obama’s lead in RCP’s National Poll average drop from 5,4% to 1.7%. That is a very significant drop. We’ll see over the next few weeks as more state polls come in whether this starts to translate into electoral college gains as well. The expectation is that as long as the national poll trend is sustained, the state numbers will move correspondingly as soon as we have enough state polls to show it.
Edit 2012 Apr 19 07:10 UTC – Added number of electoral votes for each state mentioned.
Edit 2012 May 30 15:47 UTC – It turns out New Hampshire’s move from Lean Romney to Lean Obama should actually have happened on Mar 31. Details of correction and revised historical chart posted on May 30.
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.
A couple minor updates today as we continue through the slow period before we have NY/PA/CT/RI/DE next week.
The totals for Alabama get updated from Santorum 23, Gingrich 14, Romney 11, 2 TBD to Santorum 23, Gingrich 13, Romney 12, 2 TBD. This apparently after resolving a dispute on the results in the 7th congressional district. So Romney +1, Gingrich -1.
Also, a superdelegate from Rhode Island endorsed Romney.
So for the day, Romney +2, Gingrich -1.
In terms of “% of remaining needed to win”:
- Romney: 40.59% -> 40.46%
- Santorum: 77.95% -> 78.02%
- Gingrich: 87.23% -> 87.39%
- Paul: 94.58% -> 94.66%
I know. Yawn. But we will track this to the bitter end. Look for much bigger moves next week.
Map and chart 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.
Remember how a few days ago I said things were starting to improve for Romney? Well, that didn’t last long…
Obama’s lead in the five poll average for Florida increases to over 5%. It leaves the swing states and moves to “Weak Obama”. My “best case scenarios” give one candidate or another all of the swing states. Florida makes a big difference. So what do things look like now?
|
Romney |
Obama |
| Romney Best Case |
260 |
278 |
| Current Status |
210 |
328 |
| Obama Best Case |
170 |
368 |
Yes, that is right. With current state polling, if Romney wins ALL of the states that are close…
He still LOSES 260 to 278.
There are major caveats to give:
- November is still far away. Romney hasn’t geared up his campaign machine. Important states are not yet being blanketed by advertisements. We haven’t had the conventions yet. Most people aren’t paying attention yet. News events will change the agenda. The situation in April is not a good predictor of what will happen in November. Obama has a head start. That is all that can be said.
- State polling is still sparse. In Florida, five polls goes back to January. Florida is more frequently polled than many others. Some states actually haven’t been polled at all. Until polling ramps up, this projection will lag events.
Despite this, it is remarkable for Obama to be showing this kind of lead. Romney has a lot of work to do. But wait…. haven’t there been polls in the news lately showing Romney ahead? What is going on?
First, never pay attention to individual polls. Instead look at one of the places that aggregate. Lets look at RCP’s Average. Obama’s lead was usually between 4% and 6% from February until April. It was 5.3% on April 10th. It declined to 2.4% on April 14th. This dip is eight days old. Too short to be picked up in state polls. The projection here is consistent with the lead Obama showed until the last few days. If the new trend is sustained, it will show up in the state results soon.
Second, the president is not elected by popular vote. It doesn’t matter if Obama is ahead in California by a little more or less. Obama will win California. But that will show up in national polls. Popular vote and electoral college will only diverge in close elections, but the election is decided by the electoral college. Look at the popular vote polls as leading indicators, but in the end, look at the electoral college. That is how Presidential elections work.
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.
Over the last week DCW counted four new Romney superdelegates. Two from New York, one from Colorado, and one from Connecticut.
Four delegates is of course minor at this point and everybody knows the nominee is Romney, but we will continue posting updates until Romney actually gets to 1144. By the estimates I am using, he now has 680.
In terms of “% of remaining needed to win” this update gives us:
- Romney: 40.8% -> 40.6%
- Santorum: 77.7% -> 78.0%
- Gingrich: 86.9% -> 87.2%
- Paul: 94.2% -> 94.6%
This also puts us once again above 50% of the total delegates, which means anybody with no delegates at all is now once again eliminated absent the four candidates above losing delegates from their estimated totals (which can of course happen in various ways). So Bachman, Huntsman and Perrry… sorry about that.
The rest of this post is a note for anybody interested in the nitty gritty details of how I come up with my counts. Everybody else can stop reading now. :-)
When I started producing these charts in January I used Green Papers as my only delegate count source (specifically the soft count).
Very soon after that I realized Green Papers wasn’t including super delegate endorsements, so I started adding in the superdelegate counts from DCW.
Then a bit later on Green Papers started folding in the DCW numbers themselves, so I stopped separately adding them, and just used Green Papers count directly again. Sometimes there would be a day or two delay between DCW adding a Superdelegate and Green Papers incorporating that new information, but that wasn’t too bad.
It seems like Green Papers is getting a bit further behind now though. As of this post they hadn’t yet added the superdelegates DCW added on the 11th, 12th and 16th. So I figure until they catch up, I’ll manually add the DCW numbers again. This update catches us up to DCW’s super delegate count and puts the Romney numbers here slightly ahead of what Green Papers is currently showing.
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.
Very shortly after my update yesterday, Green Papers updated their Wyoming soft count numbers again. They had been Romney 22, Santorum 2, Paul 1, and 4 TBD. They are now Romney 23, Santorum 2, Paul 1, and 3 TBD. So one of the uncommitted delegates moved to the Romney column. So Romney +1 delegate for the day. Very minor change.
In terms of “% of remaining needed to win”:
- Romney: 40.85% -> 40.80%
- Santorum: 77.61% -> 77.68%
- Gingrich: 86.85% -> 86.92%
- Paul: 94.16% -> 94.25%
- Other: 99.65% -> 99.74%
I believe there are also two New York superdelegates that have come out for Romney that have been tracked by DCW that Green Papers hasn’t added to their totals yet. Since Green Papers now incorporates the DCW numbers, I don’t add them separately as I did in the early days. If I did I’d have to do a lot of extra tracking to avoid double counting, so I’ll wait for Green Papers to add them to their master soft count, which I expect will happen soon.
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.
Wyoming and Colorado both have caucus type delegate allocation systems, where local caucuses earlier in the year are actually just the start of multi-month multi-stage processes. Both Colorado and Wyoming had their state conventions this weekend finishing off the delegate selection in those states.
Compared to the earlier estimates based on caucus results, the non-Romneys got crushed. Romney gained delegates. Everybody else lost delegates.
This is not surprising. It is common for the “clear winner” to end up taking far more delegates in the end than it looked like they would given the “straw poll” results at the first stage.
Looking more specifically…
- Colorado: The estimates after the caucuses were Santorum 13, Romney 12, Gingrich 4, Paul 4, and 3 uncommitted. This now becomes Romney 13, Santorum 6, and 17 uncommitted. All 36 delegates from Colorado are officially uncommitted, but using the current stated preferences of the delegates we have a net today from Colorado of Romney +1, Gingrich -4, Paul -4, Santorum -7.
- Wyoming: The estimates after the caucuses were Romney 11, Santorum 8, Paul 6, Gingrich 2, and 2 uncommitted. This now becomes Romney 22, Santorum 2, Paul 1, and 4 uncommitted. In Wyoming the delegates are bound. The net for the day in Wyoming is Romney +11, Gingrich -2, Paul -5, Santorum -6
Totaling the day we have Romney +12, Gingrich -6, Paul -9, Santorum -13. This does not look like a good day for the non-Romneys. Especially for Santorum. I guess dropping out of the race doesn’t help one’s ability to compete for delegates.
Notice though that we actually lost 16 delegates from the totals as some delegates that were predicted to go for specific candidates ended up uncommitted to any candidate. This actually increases the pool of potentially available delegates. In theory this improves the situation slightly for Gingrich and Paul, because, hey, they might still convince those uncommitted delegates to vote for them. (And indeed, some reports say many of those uncommitted delegates aren’t ready to support anybody else yet, but are not for Romney at this point either.) Santorum lost enough delegates that his situation actually gets worse anyway.
In terms of “% of remaining delegates needed to win”:
- Romney: 42.49% -> 40.85%
- Santorum: 77.56% -> 77.61%
- Gingrich: 87.54% -> 86.85%
- Paul: 94.70% -> 94.16%
I should also mention, that having these additional 16 delegates not committed brings the total number of delegates allocated by the estimates we use (the Green Papers soft count) back under 50% of the total number of delegates. Which actually means that the candidates with no delegates right now (Bachman, Huntsman, Perry, random others) are now no longer mathematically eliminated, and could catch up and win by capturing 99.65% of the remaining delegates. If they were actually on the ballot on all of the remaining states. Which they are not. :-)
So, uh, anyway… Romney still wins.
Map and chart from the Abulsme.com 2012 Electoral College Prediction page. Both assume Obama vs Romney with no third party strong enough to win states. Both show the polling situation as it currently exists. Things can and 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.
As we have been saying for the last few updates, at some point the trend making things look better and better for Obama would come to an end. Today is that day. Two states change categories.
North Carolina: Only two days ago North Carolina moved from just barely Romney to just barely Obama in our five poll average. Well, a new poll there gets added today, and moves it back to just barely Romney. Easy come, easy go. In either case, it is really too close to call and counts as a swing state in our analysis.
Pennsylvania: The five poll average prior to today had Obama up by 5.6% in Pennsylvania. Today’s update drops Obama’s lead to 4.4% in the five poll average, which takes the state out of “Weak Obama” territory and back into too close to call swing state status. (5% leads can disappear overnight given the right events after all.)
The new summary becomes:
|
Romney |
Obama |
| Romney Best Case |
289 |
249 |
| Current Status |
210 |
328 |
| Obama Best Case |
170 |
368 |
The “best cases” are when a candidate wins ALL the swing states, not just the ones they are ahead in. “Current Status” is if everybody wins the states they are even a tiny bit ahead in.
Romney can once again win outright in his best case, not just tie and win in the House of Representatives.
Trendwise though, these are the first moves in Romney’s direction in almost a month. (The last time was March 16th when Arizona moved from being a swing state to Weak Romney.) So the question of course is: Does that mean we have just passed Obama’s high water mark and Romney will continue gaining ground for awhile?
My expectation is that we’ll have a bit more movement in Romney’s direction over the next few months as the general election is joined in earnest. This is natural as Romney is finally able to start crafting his general election message and, yes, moving toward “the center” to appeal to swing voters and swing states. Prior to a few days ago, he has had to concentrate on trying to get votes from Republicans… which is a very different game.
We shall see soon enough I guess. :-)
Map and chart from the Abulsme.com 2012 Electoral College Prediction page. Both assume Obama vs Romney with no third party strong enough to win states. Both show the polling situation as it currently exists. Things can and 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.
The latest polls move my five poll average in North Carolina from barely Romney to barely Obama. The reality is that the margin is still essentially too close to call (Obama ahead by 0.2%). North Carolina is firmly a swing state at the moment. So this doesn’t change the range of possibilities between Obama getting all swing states and Romney getting all swing states… but it does move our “everybody gets the states they are ahead in” line further toward Obama. In this case, we have Obama now winning 343 to 195.
This is the third change in three days in Obama’s favor.
The summary:
|
Romney |
Obama |
| Romney Best Case |
269 |
269 |
| Current Status |
195 |
343 |
| Obama Best Case |
170 |
368 |
Edited 2012 Apr 12 21:24 UTC to replace an errant “McCain” with the intended “Romney”. Thanks JH for pointing out the error.
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