Newt, Just Give It Up Already!

             It was a slow week in the Republican Primary schedule, with only one primary in Louisiana on the 24^th. It was a proportional primary, with Rick Santorum winning and gaining 10 delegates and Mitt Romney coming in second and gaining 5 delegates. Romney continues to lead with 565 delegates and Santorum remains in second with 256 delegates. However, the real story this week doesn’t lie with either of the two frontrunners, but with the third place candidate Newt Gingrich.

Why don’t he just quit? That is the question everyone is asking, from TV pundits to serious political operatives. At this point, in order for Gingrich to win the nomination, both Romney and Santorum would have to be rendered completely incapable of governing. Given that it would take a serious scandal for Gingrich to win, pretty much everyone, even supporters within his own party, is wondering why he is still running. Ron Paul, at the very least, has basically done everything but say that he running to make an ideological point. He has yet to rule out running as a third party candidate  should he (and he will) fail to win the Republican nomination. Newt Gingrich on the other hand, has showed no signs of even considering dropping out of the campaign despite the fact that his financial resources are all but tapped out. 

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Gingrich has started firing campaign staffers due to lack of finances, a sure sign of a losing campaign, but has not yet indicated that he will drop out. Instead, he says that he will focus all of his efforts on the Republican convention in June. He has basically said that he knows he will not win the nomination outright, and so is cutting back on his staff and campaign schedule to try and pull of an upset nomination at the Republican convention.

The next primaries are in D.C., Maryland, and Wisconsin on April 3^rd.

All Romney All The Time

            Only two primaries were held this week, in Puerto Rico and Illinois. Both elections were wins for Romney. They provided him with gains of 20 and 42 delegates respectively. Neither race was particularly close, with Romney winning by at least 10% in both cases. These results are not particularly surprising given the previous trend. Romney wins consistently in states that are traditionally less conservative. This makes sense since Santorum is the more polarizingly conservative of the two candidates. With the wins, Romney’s delegate count moves up to 560, while Santorum’s delegate remains 246. As it has for much of this primary season, Mitt Romney remains the frontrunner. Realistically, in order for Santorum to have a shot at winning the nomination, he would have to win a significant number of delegates from states that are generally found to be more moderate. The only way this could happen is if some damaging information became available about Romney, and even then it would be unlikely. Still, it is physically possible, so I will not call it officially for a few more weeks.

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        One of the primaries this week was in Puerto Rico. Many people are unclear about the voting rights of Puerto Ricans given their status in relation to the United States. Puerto Rico is a commonwealth of the U.S., meaning that citizens of Puerto Rico are also citizens of the United States. They have social security numbers and do not need to go through any special process to move from the island to mainland America. Based on this, people who live in Puerto Rico are able to vote in the primaries. However, people who live in Puerto Rico cannot vote in the general elections in November, unless they move to mainland America and register to vote where they live.

            The last primary in March is Saturday the 24^th in Louisianna. Following that, the next primaries are on April 3^rd. 

Super Tuesday

             A lot has happened since my last post. Super Tuesday has come and gone, along with eight more elections afterword.  As the delegate count stands right now, Romney has 496, Santorum has 236, Gingrich has 141, and Paul has 66. So while Romney still maintains a significant lead after Super Tuesday, the race is far from over. Out of the 18 contests since my last blog post, 10 of them were actual primaries. This means that they are more binding than the caucuses. Mitt Romney won 11 of the 18 elections in Ohio, Massachusetts, Virginia, Idaho, Alaska, Vermont, Guam, Northern Marianas, Virgin Islands, Hawaii, and American Samoa. He was awarded a proportion of delegates in all of the other elections that he did not win outright. Rick Santorum won 6 elections: Tennessee, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Kansas, Alabama, and Mississippi. Newt Gingrich won one state, his home state of Georgia. Ron Paul failed to win in any of the previously mentioned contests, although he did manage to pick up a few delegates due to the proportional system.

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If Super Tuesday showed anything, it’s that the race for Republican Presidential Nominee has become a two-man field. While both Gingrich and Paul are still running their campaigns, neither of them has a real chance of winning. The two candidates it really comes down to are Romney and Santorum. While Santorum won fewer states than Romney, he has been carrying momentum for quite some time, and it doesn’t look like that will be changing any time soon. However, in terms of delegate count, Romney is by far closer to the winning delegate count than Santorum. In order to win the nomination, a candidate needs 1,144 delegates. Romney has nearly 500 delegates, while Santorum has less than 250. Only time will tell, but unless Santorum starts coming in first in a few more states, Romney looks to be the nominee, reaffirming the early assumption.

The next contests are in Missouri, Puerto Rico, and Illinois, on the 17^th, 18^th, and 20^th respectively. None of these are big-ticket states, but they will help either narrow or widen the existing delegate count gap.  

4 Days and Counting

            This past week there were three Republican primaries, in Michigan, Arizona and Wyoming. All of these were won by the same candidate; Mitt Romney. Last week, I wrote about how both Romney and Santorum were going to have a tough time convincing Michigan voters to vote for them given that both of them opposed the bailout of the auto industry back in 2008. Although Romney was particularly vehement about his opposition, he emerged from the race victorious. It was a close race, with just a few percentage points separating Romney from Santorum. Michigan has 30 delegates, so one would expect Romney to come out of the contest with all 30. However, due to the fact that Michigan has a hybrid primary system in place, they were penalized. Thus, Romney came away with 16 delegates, while Santorum got a consolation prize of 14.

            In Arizona, the race was much less contested, with Romney winning by a definitive margin. Though predictable, this win is actually much more helpful to Romney than his victory in Michigan because of the fact that he got all of Arizona’s 29 delegates. This is the only state out of the three that he won where he gets all of the delegates outright. In Wyoming, as I have mentioned, Romney also won. However, Wyoming’s system is that of a non-binding caucus. So while currently Romney holds 10, Santorum holds 8, Paul holds 6, and Gingrich holds 1, that could all change later on this spring when the actual binding election is held.

            The last election before Super Tuesday, which is this Tuesday March 6^th is in Washington on Saturday March 3^rd. This again, is a non-binding caucus, so the results will be subject to change. Coming into Tuesday, it will be important for the candidates to maintain a positive media presence and some semblance of momentum. There is still no clear nominee in sight, though the field may become clearer after Super Tuesday.