By now, everyone knows the magic number: 1,237. That’s how many delegates Donald Trump has to amass to body block Ted Cruz from a contested convention. But the GOP’s post-Wisconsin race is now moving from the realm of a massive momentum contest to that of precision vote-by-vote delegate math. In other words, the playing field that Donald Trump excels on—gross generalizations—has been replaced by the very detail work he detests. Dan Balz explains:
The Wisconsin race represents a potentially important turning point in the Republican contest, one that will embolden Trump’s opponents. A contested convention has become more probable. Whether that comes to pass will be determined by what takes place in the trench warfare that will play out over the next three months.
The Republican race is about to become granular. The coming battles will be waged in targeted congressional districts where Trump shows weakness regardless of his statewide appeal, in hand-to-hand competition at state party conventions where the delegates are being selected, and ultimately in a battle for the hearts and minds of the men and women who will go to Cleveland, bound or unbound on the first ballot but free agents after that.
The allocation of Pennsylvania’s 71 delegates offers a good example of what this will mean for the remaining primary contests.
Only 17 of those delegates will be bound to vote for the winner of the primary. The other 54 will be elected individually, three for each of the 18 congressional districts. They are not identified by the candidate they support, if they favor someone, and are not bound to vote for the winner.
Even California, a supposed “winner-take-all” state with 172 delegates, is a puzzle: only the 13 at-large delegates are awarded based on statewide results. Similar to Pennsylvania, the remaining delegates go to whoever prevails in each of the state’s 53 congressional districts, with three delegates allocated per district.
And anyone whose options still include the arrival of Paul Ryan in shining armor to save the day is now living in fairyland. Hopefully, the lolly pops and sugar plums were nice while they lasted.
“I think it is all fantasy island," John Feehery, a GOP strategist, told TPM. “This idea we are going to be able to pluck someone like a Paul Ryan and run him as a presidential candidate is a pretty big reach. I just don’t see it happening.”