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Tuesday, December 22, 2015

REVISED DELEGATE ESTIMATE

Prodded by my  son, Patrick, I completely re-did the state by state estimate of the delegates Trump would win if certain assumptions held true.  He then converted it all into a spreadsheet.  Here, first, are my assumptions and abbreviations:

I.  General Explanation

These estimates are keyed to the Green Papers, a detailed specification of the rules governing the several state primaries.  I omit caucuses, which take place in fifteen of the states and territories, because I do not understand the rules governing them well enough to make any  estimates.

The numbers in the Green Papers have changed since I began this effort.  Originally, they stated that 2484 delegates would be sent to the Convention in July.  Now they say there will be 2472.  I have no idea what  happened to the other twelve.  As of now, it will require 1237 votes at the Convention to choose a nominee.  The Green Papers still list 1865 as the delegates to be chosen by primaries and caucuses, which leaves 607 so-called "super-delegates."

            What is more, the rules in some states have changed since I last read them!  Sheeesh!!!  Therefore, this exercise will yield different results.

II.   Assumptions

            This exercise is not intended to produce a prediction of the outcome.  It is a calculation of the likely result given certain assumptions.  Here are the assumptions on which the calculation is based:

(a)  Fairly quickly, the race reduces to a three way contest among Trump, Cruz, and Rubio, with several other candidates remaining in the race but garnering, among them, no more than 20% of the total vote.

(b)  Trump gets a steady 35-40% of the vote.

(c)   Cruz and Rubio between them get 40-50% of the vote, with neither getting as high as 30% save in one or two states.

(d)  Few if any of the super-delegates will vote for Trump at the Convention, so if he is to get the nomination, he must win the 1237 delegates in the primaries and caucuses, which is to say 66.4% of them.

III.  Important facts

(a)  The Republican National Committee allocates 3 delegates to a state for each Congressional District [CD], plus some number of delegates-at-large.

(b)  The elected delegates are pledged to a candidate and must vote for him or her on the first ballot at the Convention.  The super-delegates are unpledged [at least in some cases!!!  But see South Carolina.]  and may vote for anyone [I think this is true, but the Green Papers are unclear.]

IV.   Abbreviations

(a)   WTA  =  Winner takes all.  The highest vote getter wins all of the delegates selected in a primary.

(b)   WTM  =  Winner takes most.   A delegate allocation system that gives some delegates to the second and even third place finishers in a primary but allocates an out-sized proportion to the candidate getting the most votes.  For example, in each CD, a state may award 2 of the delegates to the top vote getter in that CD and 1 to the second-place vote getter.  The at-large delegates may be allocated proportionally to the vote getters in the state who get 20% or more of the total vote.  [This is quite common.  Note that if Trump gets 40%, Cruz gets 25%, and Rubio gets 20%, then Trump gets 47% of the at-large delegates, because 40% is 47% of 85%.]

(c)  PROP  =  genuine proportional allocation of delegates according to the popular vote.  Very few states use this system, but New Hampshire, the first primary, does.

With all that said, here is the spreadsheet information:

StatePledged DelegatesLikely Trump% of TotalSystem
New Hampshire20735.0%PROP
South Carolina504182.0%WTM
Alabama473268.1%WTM
Arkansas371437.8%PROP
Georgia764052.6%WTM
Massachusetts391435.9%PROP
Okalahoma402050.0%WTM
Tennessee552850.9%WTM
Texas1528656.6%WTM
Vermont16637.5%PROP
Virginia461737.0%PROP
Louisiana441636.4%PROP
Idaho291034.5%PROP
Mississippi371437.8%PROP
Michigan562137.5%PROP
Puero Rico20735.0%PROP
Ohio6363100.0%WTA
Florida9999100.0%WTA
Illinois662537.9%
Missouri493469.4%WTM
North Carolina722534.7%PROP
Arizona5858100.0%WTA
Wisconsin423071.4%WTM
New York925256.5%WTM
Connecticut251456.0%WTM
Delaware1616100.0%WTA
Maryland382976.3%WTM
Pennsylvania681420.6%
Rhode Island16637.5%PROP
Indiana544583.3%WTM
West Virginia311858.1%
Oregon25936.0%PROP
California16914585.8%WTM
Montana2424100.0%WTA
New Jersey4848100.0%WTA
New Mexico21838.1%PROP
South Dakota2626100.0%WTA
Nebraska3333100.0%WTA
Washington411434.1%PROP
1940120862.3%

5 comments:

chrismealy said...

Thanks for doing this! I started to do it myself a month ago but ran out of steam.

Charles Pigden said...

What if Trump gets about 62% of the non-super delegates and does not get the nomination? Surely the Republican Party will go into meltdown?

Robert Paul Wolff said...

Charles Pigden, I think that is a very real possibility, and you are correct, that will send the Republican Party into chaos. This is going to be a very strange year.

Proemed said...

@Wolff Pretty good job! You do better work than media consultants who are paid too much and dont do anything near this scientific. But why did you leave so many states out? You really have something here. You should finish it. It might be more important than you think...

Robert Paul Wolff said...

I left out the caucus states because I cannot figure them out.