According to my calculations and the 97% of vote has come in so far, Mitt Romney has only won 6 out of California’s 173 delegates. How is this possible if Romney has come within 8% of beating McCain? Many commenters have assumed that California allocates delegates by simple proportionally. Since John McCain has won 42% and Romney 34% of the statewide vote, shouldn’t they get 42% and 34% of the delegates, respectively? Well, in a word, no. Let me explain.
California has 173 total delegates. Here’s how that number is broken down.
Here’s the shocker: So far, Mitt Romney has only won 2 out of the 53 Congressional districts. According to the CA Secretary of State, he leads McCain in Districts 49 and 52. That means that there is a 167-6 delegate split in favor of McCain.
What does that mean for race nationally? Basically, it’s game over for Romney and Huckabee.
Speaking with reporters today, McCain adviser Charlie Black said, “To date, we have 775 delegates, Romney has 284, Huckabee has 205. It takes 1,191 to clinch the nomination. There are 963 left to be chosen, so Romney or Huckabee would have to have all of them — all of them — to get to 1,191. Now you can’t do that because a majority of those 963 are chosen in proportional primaries, which means you’d have to get 100% if the vote to get them all.
February 6th, 2008 at 1:52 pm
Getting the message about your electability, Mr. Romney? You can be right on all the issues and still can’t win a single primary (as opposed to caucus) out of your 3 homestates. PEOPLE DON’T LIKE YOU.
February 6th, 2008 at 1:57 pm
#1
Yes, we get the point.
You are obnoxious.
Do you have to put it on every thread?
February 6th, 2008 at 1:59 pm
Well then I guess it is game over. If this is true – more investigation to come, but thanks for this post.
February 6th, 2008 at 2:00 pm
fran, for the time being.
Look, I told you people this for MONTHS. Anyone with any perceptivity about human behavior would know Mitt Romney was unelectable.
Rudy would’ve beaten McCain one on one.
I blame everyone who supported Romney for us getting McCain.
February 6th, 2008 at 2:09 pm
But CNN has McCain with only about 580 Delegates and Fox News has McCain with 610? So where are you getting those 775 Delegate numbers from? Even though i like them alot! Are they not including Cali yet?
Thanks for the post LJ!
February 6th, 2008 at 2:10 pm
#4
And everyone is calling that Rombots are whiners.
February 6th, 2008 at 2:10 pm
Metro,
We blame your ilk for getting us McCain.
If Guiliani had thrown his weight behind Romney in FL it would be all over by now.
PS What Metro are you from? NYC?
February 6th, 2008 at 2:11 pm
fred rudy and huck are to blame for us getting mccain. not mitt.
February 6th, 2008 at 2:11 pm
Metro,
Your hate is choking out your rationality.
Maybe you should blame the guy who refused to take off the kid gloves regarding McCain’s anti-capitalist record. You know, the same guy who got zero delegates, finished no higher than third in any state, and ENDORSED McCain?
February 6th, 2008 at 2:13 pm
Had Rudy gone after McCain in FL with the same intensity that Romney did, had Rudy actually DONE anything to make that state his firewall, McCain would not have squeaked out a win.
February 6th, 2008 at 2:19 pm
I just looked through the county-by-county results. It looks like Romney won something like three counties in the states…. Three counties. Those were narrow, too.
February 6th, 2008 at 2:21 pm
I am not afraid to say that I like Mitt, better than them all. But then I am one of those wacky Mormons.
February 6th, 2008 at 2:21 pm
Romney has himself to blame. Had he backed out of SC early enough, Huckabee, not McCain would’ve won there. McCain, entering FL with successive losses in MI and SC, would not have received the Martinez or Crist endorsements. Romney could have played possum, letting Giuliani take out McCain in FL, setting up a two-man race last night between Rudy and Romney…but Mitt’s ego got in the way and he never bothered to look at the 3-dimensional chess board he persistently alludes to.
And now it’s over for everyone but McCain.
February 6th, 2008 at 2:27 pm
#13, what ARE you smoking?
February 6th, 2008 at 2:27 pm
There is a viable STOP McCAIN scenario–Huckabee forms a new tag team with Romney, with the objective of preventing McCain from winning the 43% of remaining delegates necessary to secure the nomination.
This would drag out the race and provide an opportunity for McCain to implode under the pressure of being the front runner.
In the meantime, the conservative faction of the party mobilizes to take control of the convention. Downside: current party rules (could they be changed during the convention) would limit consideration of Pres & VP nominations to individuals who had won at least five states (McCain, Romney, and Huckabee).
February 6th, 2008 at 2:28 pm
Aron, you’re blaming Mitt for not giving up soon enough. I’m blaming Rudy for never trying.
One of these is a lot more legitimate a thing than the other to ask from a politician.
February 6th, 2008 at 2:30 pm
Grant,
Romney chose the wrong candidate to oppose. Most supporters of Mitt came to recognize that the evening of January 29th.
February 6th, 2008 at 2:31 pm
MSNBC now has McCain with 720 delegates, Romney with 256 and Huckabee with 194.
February 6th, 2008 at 2:31 pm
Buh bye Romney, you fake !
The people of our great country have spoken.
I agree with #1.
NOBODY wants you or your empty promises.
Tell your “boys” now to get jobs lol they will
not be getting cabinet positions now!
February 6th, 2008 at 2:31 pm
You don’t have to win 51% to get the nomination before the convention because there are more than 2 people running right now. So I don’t buy that Huckabee has no chance. If Mccain ends up getting 950, Huckabee 750, and Romney 400 then there is a good chance Huckabee will gain the anti-mccain crowd during the 2nd and 3rd round of voting at the convention putting him over the top.
February 6th, 2008 at 2:32 pm
#3 see post #20
February 6th, 2008 at 2:33 pm
Mitt was poised to lose Florida either way. However, by ceding the state to Rudy, McCain would have been taken out for good, and Romney would have lived to fight another day as the alternative to the socially moderate/liberal Giuliani.
February 6th, 2008 at 2:34 pm
Mike you’re dreaming Romney is poison to everyone.
Why don’t you get it yet?
He is totally unelectable and unwanted.
February 6th, 2008 at 2:39 pm
“Gosh”! Aron Goldman all these bad decisions you are
citing for Romney.
Seems he is not too bright now is he??
His judgement, decision-making, his course was totally off!
What a great “fixer” he would be for America (not!!)
Maybe at the olympics but has he lost it now or what, man !!
February 6th, 2008 at 2:39 pm
Aron #22,
I see no evidence that Rudy would have even bother to try and win FL had Romney ceded it to him.
Never in this race had Rudy ever done anything except let opportunities pass him by. Had Romney gotten on a microphone on Jan 28 and said “vote for Rudy”, Rudy probably would have continued to point everyone towards his mancrush McCain.
Instead of relying on Rudy, who continually proved himself not up to any electoral challenge, Romney actually did what we would need the nominee to do. Fight to win.
February 6th, 2008 at 2:41 pm
Metro,
It’s nice to see you have returned despite all your bold, over the top predicitions that Rudy would run the table on Super Tuesday. I always suspected you were more of a Romney-hater than a Rudy supporter. You have zero credibility.
February 6th, 2008 at 3:01 pm
McCain is totally unelectable and unwanted. Were that not true, there would be no room for Romney. Even running as the anti-McCain, Romney could do well. Just say no to McCain.
February 6th, 2008 at 3:41 pm
Republicans don’t deserve Romney this year, they deserve to look bad in the general instead. They don’t deserve Thompson because most of them didn’t listen to his last 2 debates because obviously most Republicans don’t follow the election. They don’t deserve Rudy because they don’t care about their candidates having a plan. They don’t deserve Tom Tancredo because they really don’t care about illegal immigration. They don’t deserve to win in 2008 because they do not care about America changing at all except for to the left. Any idiot can figure out that if we want a change to the left for America, we go with the democrats.
I hope McCain falls flat on his face against Obama or Clinton, so that Republicans can learn that if they try and act like democrats, they lose every time.
I hope that conservatism on the three fronts has not been destroyed forever.
February 6th, 2008 at 3:49 pm
Metro,
Rudy lost because he was a mayor from New York City that was a social liberal. Republicans were smart, and instead got a social and fiscal liberal. Rudy lost because his strategy was pathetic – he put more money into Florida than he did into NH and IA, he tagged himself as a loser by not even trying in the early states.
Romney’s mistake was pointing out the liberal stances of his other candidates and people wouldn’t trust old flip flop Mitt when he pointed out other people’s flip flops, instead they trusted McCain’s lines of being a consistant conservative that never played in the mud with Romney, because he was above that. They trusted McCain because he called Mitt a liar.
McCain hated Romney because Romney critisized his record.
February 6th, 2008 at 4:02 pm
Romney did run as the anti-McCain, at least later in the race. One problem is being an anti-something is not as strong a position as running on your own strengths. His business acumen was a compelling argument, but aside from that, I’m not convinced voters ever really felt they knew him. One poll showed a third of voters couldn’t say anything about him at all.
That CA number is amazing. Using that number (167), my own count is that McCain has 784 delegates. Pretty dominant. I think Romney made a mistake focusing so much on CA, where the delegates would be split best case scenario and the electorate is more moderate. Too bad for him that the polling was so misleading.
I didn’t get a sense that Romney put in a particularly intense effort in MO, where he was only a few points behind, whereas McCain did. Romney didn’t buy advertising. He stopped by, but the location was kind of strange. He used his endorsers to insult the other candidates. Not the most effective use. He should have done something more positive and maybe used them in advertising. Claire Mccaskill’s endorsement, in contrast, was very effective and may have pushed Obama over the top in a state that Clinton was leading heavily in just a few weeks ago. McCaskill had credibility with the electorate, she introduced his advertisements, the ads were witty and inspiring.
In light of the results, when you consider that McCain got only a several fewer delegates than Romney in MA, his time spent there doesn’t seem like too bad of an idea. I think McCain chose the states he focused on better. He split the states he could split and focused on winner-take-all states he could win. He probably didn’t do as well in the south as he would have liked, but he got darn close. Mitt Romney, though, to be fair, just may not have had too many options available to him. The split of the winner-take-all and PR states didn’t work well for him.
February 6th, 2008 at 4:22 pm
I went through the results in California district by district, and it was almost unbelievable how many super-close district races he lost. The two that he won were close as well, but he lost almost every close contest. Mitt’s had to go through the travails of Job this election….trial by fire. It would be incredibly difficult for him to win now. Everything would have to start going right, after a long campaign in which almost everything has gone wrong. If you combine Huckabee’s delegates with McCain’s, they’re almost there….and if they were needed to put McCain over the top, Huck would give him as many delegates as he needed without thinking twice.
February 6th, 2008 at 4:32 pm
I think the only way Romney, in retrospect, could have pulled this off would have been to get Thompson to sign on as his VP right after SC.
February 6th, 2008 at 4:55 pm
#30 Diane-
Great report from the ground in Missouri. That was the state to which I was paying the most attention, given its bellwether status, Huck’s natural constituency, and the fact that it was winner-take-all.
I agree that the decision by McCain to go behind enemy lines in Massachusetts is something that did not backfire on him. Had he failed to win the statewide vote in California (which given the poll numbers, looked very possible), he would have been criticized for trying to stick it to Mitt and ignoring the far more important prize in winning CA (even though it was proportional), or for that matter, winning Missouri (which turned out to be razor-thin). And as it turned out, he did well enough in Massachusetts to make the trip worthwhile…
Why do you think Huck didn’t pull it out in Missouri?
February 6th, 2008 at 5:27 pm
The GOP will get what they deserve. The gang of 14 will now run our party going forward. What a shame.
February 6th, 2008 at 5:31 pm
[...] Mathematically, it’s almost impossible for either Huckabee or Romney to win now [HT: Racefor2008]. Huckabee’s best chance is for the party to rally around him instead of Romney as the [...]