EVEN THOUGH NOBODY ASKED

On the one hand, judging from the paucity of comments, I may be the only person regularly visiting this blog who is really interested in the details of Donald Trump's chances of securing the Republican nomination for President in 2016.  On the other hand, this is my blog, so I figure I get to go on about that subject regardless of the excitement my comments generate in the blogosphere.  So, here I go again.  Those of you who consider this obsession of mine infra dignitate are invited to turn your attention elsewhere momentarily.  You might, for example, wish to re-read some of your favorite passages from the Critique of Pure Reason.  A golden oldie that I particularly like is A 106, "But a concept is always, as regards its form, something universal which serves as a rule."  That little gem, as I demonstrated more than half a century ago, is the key to understanding the entire Critique.  But I digress.

Yesterday was a slow day, as are all the days leading up to Christmas and New Year 's, so I returned to my state-by-state analysis of Trump's prospects, repeatedly consulting the Green Papers, where, as I have noted before, one can find precise details on the rules governing the allocation and selection of delegates to the nominating conventions, state by state.

Let us be clear:  what follows is not a prediction.  Who, in this bizarre year , would be so rash as to make a prediction?  Rather, it is a calculation based on certain assumptions.  Thus, my conclusion is in the form of a hypothetical:  If these assumptions are correct, then this is a likely outcome.  What are my assumptions?

First:  Trump pulls between 35% and 40% of the vote in each primary contest, probably closer to 40% as time goes on and minor candidates disappear [I have completely omitted consideration of caucuses -- they mystify me and I have no idea how to estimate how many delegates Trump can gain from them.]

Second:  Fairly quickly, every other candidate fades or drops out save Cruz and Rubio, each of whom draws somewhere between 20% and 30% of the vote, sometimes more, sometimes less.  Thus, Trump, Cruz, and Rubio together win 80-90% of the vote, the remainder going in dribs and drabs to dead-enders like Carson, Fiorina, and perhaps a terminally stubborn Bush.

Third:  Few if any super-delegates announce for Trump, meaning that he must win all 1243 of the delegates needed for nomination from the 1865 chosen by the primaries and caucuses.

Quite obviously, should any of these assumptions prove false, all my calculations are useless.  If Trump nose-dives, we are back to the same-old same-old.  If Cruz falters and Rubio becomes the alternative, everything changes.  If Rubio falters and Cruz becomes the alternative, everything changes in a quite different way.

With all of that stipulated, here is the chart I have made up of my estimates of Trump's likely delegate count in each of the forty states or other entities holding primaries.  The more deeply I delved into the details, the clearer it became that there is an extraordinary range of variation in the rules adopted by the several states.  This is one of the wonders and curiosities of the American political system, not matched, to the best of my knowledge, in any other country on earth.  America is indeed a Republic and not a Democracy, as the old textbooks explain.  It is a union of originally sovereign states, each of which cherishes the right to do things its own way.

Here is my chart.  You will see question marks.  Some of the state rules simply stumped me.  When I got to Montana, I threw up my hands and did not even make an estimate.  The result of this exercise is startling.  Keep in mind that I have added in no delegates from the fifteen or so caucuses.  If my calculation is at all on the money, Trump is, on the basis of my assumptions, going to win the nomination!  I confess that I was startled by this.   I am not sure the talking heads on television have gone through this process of estimation, even though it could have been carried out by a low-level staffer in several hours or less.

 

Analysis of Republican Primaries

state	total	Likely Trump	Total Trump to date
New Hampshire	20	7	7
South Carolina	45	36	43
Alabama	47	25	68
Arkansas	37	18	86
Georgia	76	39	125
Massachusetts	39	15	140
Oklahoma	40	21	161
Tennessee	55	28	189
Texas	155	72	261
Vermont	16	8	269
Virginia	46	16	285
Louisiana	43	21??	306
Idaho	32	16	322
Mississippi	37	16	338
Michigan	56	21	359
Puerto Rico	20	10	369
Ohio	63	63 [?]	432
Florida	99	99	531
Illinois	66	40 [??]	571
Missouri	52	39	610
North Carolina	69	23	633
totals	1113		633
Arizona	58	58	691
Wisconsin	42	36	727
New York	95	47	771
Connecticut	25	17	788
Delaware	16	16	804
Maryland	38	29	833
Pennsylvania	54	18+	851+
Rhode Island	16	7	858+
Indiana	54	48	906+
West Virginia	31	18(?)	924+
Kentucky	46	16	940+
Oregon	25	9	949+
Puerto Rico	20	10	959+
California	169	130	1099+
Montana	?	?
New Jersey	51	51	1150+
New Mexico	21	10	1160+
South Dakota	26	26	1186+
District of Columbia	19	10	1196+

[CORRECTION: It seems I managed to list Puerto Rico twice in the table above!!! There is a reason why I went into Philosophy rather than one of the exact sciences. It is too complicated to reconfigure the chart. Just drop those delegates votes out in your mind. Sorry about that.]

One caution:  I think the numbers do not quite add up properly.  I am terrible at that sort of detail work, but they are close enough.