This was an amazing day for delegate math chills and spills. For starters, so much attention has been directed by the media at the popular vote in Ohio and the close results, yet the delegate count tells a different story.
Voter turnout in Virginia was so poor that Ron Paul managed to grab 3 delegates by winning a congressional district vote total.
Newt took many delegates off the table in Georgia. Also in Georgia, Ron Paul's presence on the ballot may have helped edge Santorum under the 20% threshold needed for earning at-large delegates.
Santorum had a nice popular vote lead in Oklahoma, but the delegates awarded were nearly a 3 way tie between Santorum (14) - Romney (13) - Gingrich (13).
I'll pull more of that together after the table of summarized results just beyond the squiggle...
State |
Total Delegates |
Delegates to be Bound Today |
Pending Results |
Rom |
Sant |
Ging |
Paul |
Georgia* |
76 |
76 |
|
15 |
4 |
57 |
0 |
Ohio |
66 |
63 |
7 |
35 |
21 |
0 |
0 |
Tennessee |
58 |
55 |
12 |
10 |
25 |
8 |
0 |
Virginia |
49 |
46 |
|
43 |
0 |
0 |
3 |
Oklahoma |
43 |
40 |
|
13 |
14 |
13 |
0 |
Massachusetts |
41 |
38 |
|
38 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
Vermont |
17 |
14 |
|
8 |
3 |
0 |
3 |
Idaho |
32 |
32 |
|
32 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
North Dakota |
28 |
28 |
|
7 |
11 |
2 |
8 |
Alaska* |
27 |
24 |
|
8 |
7 |
3 |
6 |
TOTAL |
437 |
416 |
19 |
209 |
85 |
83 |
20 |
This looks like a great day for Romney in my opinion. After remaining tallies are done and delegates awarded, he will have walked away with a majority of delegates for the day. He did it by hanging close in some states like Oklahoma where he was expected to do much more poorly just a week ago. He also shellacked the other candidates in MA, VA and ID by earning 113 delegates out of the possible 116. But this is a pattern that seems to fit a lot of these states. He seems to have done much better (delegate-wise) in most of these states than predicted just one week ago.
SOME NOTES:
The results with bolded state names are confirmed with The Green Papers, my favorite source for this kind of data. States with an asterisk show numbers that are my best guess.
Ohio and Tennessee have yet to complete the process and we may know more by morning. I realize the AP has some projections for delegates, but I'm not ready to trust those yet. In any case, Santorum is likely to gain a few mostly in Tennessee, while Romney gathers most of the remaining ones in Ohio. It still seems to me that Romney will end up with over 210 delegates for the day.
The main story about Ohio is that while the popular vote is a near tie, Santorum decisively lost the delegate count. He won the popular vote of only 6 CDs to Romney's 10 CDs. Since 3 delegates are awarded to the winner of each CD in Ohio, this means Santorum slips 12 delegates behind Romney just in this part of the tally.
But it's worse than that, because Santorum's Ohio organization didn't deliver. They provided incomplete delegate slates. By my calculations for all 63 delegates to be bound today, Santorum can only win at most 25 delegates to Romney's 38. It's bad enough to slip 13 behind Romney in a perceived near-tie. But worse, after the matter of the incomplete delegate slates is resolved, Santorum may end up slipping farther behind Romney. He appears to have a firm grip on at least 17 delegates though.
VA - Ron Paul captured 3 delegates in CD-3. It was the congressional district with the worst turnout among the 11 CDs in Virginia. Turnout statewide was 5.1% but in CD-3 it was 3%. I believe this could in part be due to a bluish tinge to the district. It includes Richmond and Norfolk.
Romney surprised me by doing better than I expected him to both in Oklahoma (a weak Romney state) and Massachusetts (a strong Romney state).
I hope this illuminates the delegate count some. I'll update this by midday Wednesday (today).