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[RedKing]

And if Santorum and Gingrich join forces (and delegates), they'll overtake him.

That would require them to like each other.  Sometimes the enemy of my enemy is an asshole too.

Even if Romney is slightly behind an absolute majority, people will see the writing on the wall.  If there is a clear second place candidate who stands a chance in a brokered convention, it makes sense to try taking it all the way.  But Santorum and Gingrich are both falling pretty far behind.  Romney has more then 50% of the delegates to date.  If Romney wins a majority tomorrow then he'll probably have 3 times as many as either Gingrich or Santorum.  What's the point of fighting on at that point?

Suppose that Romney only has 45% of the delegates come convention time.  It would be ugly to give him the nomination and lead to some bad optics.  But to deny him the nomination and give it to someone who had 30%?  That would be a shitstorm.  And to nominate a dark horse in this day and age is basically to concede the election to Obama.

It's possible that Romney can lose this thing.  But he'd need to start losing states and having the other guys catch up in the delegate counts.  If it doesn't happen tomorrow, when is it going to happen?

Well, let's go through the remainder of this month. I think he has a tough fight in Kansas on Saturday. I think he loses Alabama and Mississippi next Tuesday (wins Hawaii though). I think he has a very tough fight in Missouri after that. By the time the next debate rolls around on the 19th, he may well have lost 4 of the 5 state contests between Super Tuesday and that debate. Of course, those are all proportional so he'll still be ahead in delegates, just with a narrowing lead. After that, Illiinois favors Romney but Louisiana favors either Gingrich or Santorum. Still proportional, so they probably cancel each other out.

April will be a very interesting month. Three winner-take-all contests to start off (Wisconsin, Maryland, D.C.), followed by another huge 3-week gap, and then 5 races on Apr 24th: New York, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Delaware. I think if Romney puts the dagger in, that's the day he does it. Those races all favor him with the exception of Pennsylvania (but they're also all proportional) He still likely won't have enough delegates to clinch, but it might be enough to convince the other to concede.

BUT....here's the thing: after 4/24, the races swing back towards favoring the God-guns-and-gays camp.
5/8: NC, IN, WV
5/15: NE, OR
5/22: KY, AR
5/29: TX

Of those eight races, only Oregon naturally favors Romney. And Texas is a Proportional++ state: if the anti-Romney vote has dropped to one candidate, they could very potentially pull 50%+ and get all 155 delegates. Knowing those states are coming up on the slate could convince Santorum and/or Gingrich to stay in through May.

That sets up Armageddon: the winner-take-all closed primary for 172 delegates in California on June 5. Should favor Romney, but if the anti-Romney forces are anywhere within striking distance, they're going to pour every dollar and dirty trick into that race.

The real potential stumbling block is if Gingrich *and* Santorum hang on that long, they're going to wind up cannibalizing votes from each other, and you potentially see Romney winning states with 33-35%. With only a single anti-Romney candidate, they possibly get 50% in a few of those Proportional++ states and take big chunks out of the lead. Even without that, those low of a win percentages, he's simply not going to net enough candidates to avoid a brokered convention. If Romney's going to win this thing before the convention, he's got to do so convincingly. He's got to start winning states with 45-50% (and doing it only in states that will never ever go Republican in a general election doesn't help his case that he's a "true conservative".)

[mainiac]

You are making some assumptions.  For one thing, proportional states aren't necessarily going to be close contests.  For instance Romney will probably build up more in Illinois then he loses in Louisiana.

And what makes you sure that Gingrich voters will coalesce behind Santorum or vice versa?  I think there's an element of that but we already saw it.  When Santorum looked weak Gingrich gained some but not enough to pass Romney.  When Gingrich looked weak, Santorum gained some but not enough to pass Romney.  Plenty of voters have told pollsters that Romney was their second choice.

I'm not saying that Romney can't lose.  But he is the only guy who can win by running out the clock.  Time is on his side.  If he wins an outright majority on Super Tuesday, his opponents are going to have a hard time looking viable.

April might be a tough month for Romney but that's a long way into the future.  Will his opponents be able to keep a campaign going for that long?

[nenjin]

If you're a company, are you going to waste your money with a candidate who you don't think has any real shot at winning? Corps will dump their bribes campaign donations into the Congressional races instead. They'll max out the single contribution to the candidate fund ($10K) because that's chump change. They'll likely give the same amount to Obama, because big companies are smart enough to hedge their bets. But the unlimited donations to the SuperPAC...that'll be sorely lacking.

So what does that make Gingrich, then? I think you're underestimating the value of their investment, even if the candidate loses. Running these campaigns is as much a business as it is a process. It's funding ad agencies, pollsters, political operatives, networks...not to mention control over the issues. In terms of crafting the narrative for all Republicans, pouring money into the candidate that is willing to represent your views, even if they won't win, gives you control over the party and the conversation. Even if it's a stupid, destructive conversation that is terrible for the country.

So I don't see Romney's war chest drying up if he wins the nomination. For better or worse, Candidate Romney will speak for the Republican party, and those who have a vested interest in the Republican Party's view point will make sure Romney stays on their line of thought.

[RedKing]

You are making some assumptions.  For one thing, proportional states aren't necessarily going to be close contests.  For instance Romney will probably build up more in Illinois then he loses in Louisiana.

And what makes you sure that Gingrich voters will coalesce behind Santorum or vice versa?  I think there's an element of that but we already saw it.  When Santorum looked weak Gingrich gained some but not enough to pass Romney.  When Gingrich looked weak, Santorum gained some but not enough to pass Romney.  Plenty of voters have told pollsters that Romney was their second choice.

I'm not saying that Romney can't lose.  But he is the only guy who can win by running out the clock.  Time is on his side.  If he wins an outright majority on Super Tuesday, his opponents are going to have a hard time looking viable.

April might be a tough month for Romney but that's a long way into the future.  Will his opponents be able to keep a campaign going for that long?

I guess it's the "outright majority" bit that I object to. Seems too arbitrary. If he gets 60-70% of the available delegates? Yeah, I'll concede the point. 51%? Not over by a long shot. I feel like the media are clamoring to inject drama into their analysis, to keep ratings high. If they all said, "Yeah, today could be interesting but likely nothing will be decided today" then people aren't going to tune in to watch the results as much. If they say, "Today is the Ultimate Showdown Steel Cage Death Match Faceoff!!" then people will tune in. Last week, everyone kept saying "Michigan is Romney's Gettysburg". Turned out to not be that big of a deal. Honestly, I think some of the "analysis" I've read didn't even realize that these races are proportional. They were written as though Romney could sweep in, claim 400 delegates and walk away with the thing. My own estimates have him increasing his lead by a mere 50-60 delegates, and almost all of that from the certain-to-be-challenged Virginia primary.


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Now then.....you know what's coming next.
Can you say "new polls"? I knew you could.

National:
Stunning new tracking poll from Gallup shows Romney up +16 nationally. This might be the biggest argument in favor of the "Romney's going to win the whole thing" side, moreso than the arcane math. Romney's polling at 38%, which is the highest he's been (or that ANY single candidate has been at) since the whole race began. An NBC News poll shows Romney at a much more modest +6.

Two new "Obama vs. X" polls out and as usual, Obama just says "COME AT ME BROS" and beats everybody.

Ohio:
No less than five new polls out, and the results run from Romney +5 to Santorum +4, with the average being Romney by around 1%, which is well within margin of error for most polls. End result: Nobody's likely to know this one till it hits 100% reported tonight.

Tenneessee:
To quote Gomer Pyle, "Surprise! Surprise, Surprise!" This is now a 3-way race. Two new polls out:
WeAskAmerica: Romney 30, Santorum 29, Gingrich 29, Paul 12
PPP: Santorum 34, Romney 29, Gingrich 27

Don't ask me how Gingrich is making a third comeback in the Southern states. I'd say dude sold his soul, but after everything he's done I'm not sure he could get a Diet Coke and a smile for it, much less a never-ending series of campaign resurrections.

Georgia:
Five new polls out. Four show Gingrich with a 20+ point lead in the state. Rasmussen shows him at +10, once again implying that Rasmussen's preferred polling method involves monkeys, dartboards and a prodigious amount of alcohol.


So....my personal predictions for tonight:
Georgia: Gingrich, Romney, Santorum, Paul -- Gingrich by a big margin
Ohio: Romney, Santorum, Gingrich, Paul -- very tight outcome
Tennessee: Santorum, Romney, Gingrich, Paul -- also very tight 3-way outcome, but I think the rural folks get out the vote for Santorum
Massachusetts: Romney, Santorum, Gingrich, Paul -- Romney may break 50% here, but it's not a Proportional++ contest
Oklahoma: Santorum, Gingrich, Romney, Paul -- don't think Santorum breaks the 50% barrier
Vermont: Romney, Santorum, Gingrich, Paul -- Romney wins by about 6%
Virginia*: Romney, Paul -- Romney breaks 50% easily, takes all the delegates, and the court challenges are filed before the vote count is even over with.

No place/win/show predictions for the caucus states (Alaska, North Dakota, Idaho) because they're just so volatile. But I think Ron Paul does well in all three, and I think Romney does well in Idaho.

[mainiac]

I don't tune into the mainstream media at all on primary contests.  So they aren't poisoning my brain here.

I'm confused by what you say with him pulling ahead by only 50-60 delegates.  Your state predictions look a lot like Nate Silvers projections.  But Silver's math has him pulling ahead of each of his opponents by about 130-150 delegates.  Do you mean that he is going to only gain 50-60 on his opponents combined?  Because that's a fantastic night compared to only gaining 50-60 on the second place guy (which is still a strong night).

[palsch]

Looks similar to Nate's Romney downside projection.

It's pretty much a perfect storm, but even without everything going wrong it's possible that he could end up with a two figure advantage rather than three.

I'd note that Nate see's the upside for Santorum being if Gingrich does badly enough to drop out of the race. I actually think that Gingrich doing decently is more of a gain. The more delegates Gingrich takes from Romney (likely ones Santorum couldn't win himself) the more likely the race is extended and some sort of deal between the not-Romney candidates can take place. Or a violent mess occurs at the convention where absolutely anyone could win. The best case for Santorum is that a delegate-rich Gingrich drops out and endorses Santorum either fairly close to the convention or one of the remaining big rounds of voting.

[mainiac]

Looks similar to Nate's Romney downside projection.

The downside projection calls for Romney to lose Ohio by a decent margin and have the sort of weakness across the board that would correlate with that performance.  If RedKing expects Romney to win Ohio, even narrowly, then he is projecting something more in line with the base projection.

[RedKing]

I don't tune into the mainstream media at all on primary contests.  So they aren't poisoning my brain here.

I'm confused by what you say with him pulling ahead by only 50-60 delegates.  Your state predictions look a lot like Nate Silvers projections.  But Silver's math has him pulling ahead of each of his opponents by about 130-150 delegates.  Do you mean that he is going to only gain 50-60 on his opponents combined?  Because that's a fantastic night compared to only gaining 50-60 on the second place guy (which is still a strong night).

No, I meant 50-60 on Santorum. Look back at the numbers I posted:

Hmmm....just crunched some numbers regarding current polling percentages and likely delegate totals, and Virginia is going to be a big topic of discussion after tonight. Here's my hypothetical breakdown of the delegate counts in each non-caucus state, based on most recent poll data:

MA:
Romney - 26
Santorum - 7
Gingrich - 4
Paul - 4

OK:
Santorum - 20
Gingrich - 10
Romney - 9
Paul - 4

VT:
Romney - 6
Santorum - 5
Gingrich - 3
Paul - 3

Virginia*:
Romney - 49
Paul - 0

OH:
Romney - 23
Santorum - 22
Gingrich - 11
Paul - 10

TN:
Santorum - 20
Romney - 18
Gingrich - 15
Paul - 5

GA:
Gingrich - 35
Romney - 20
Santorum - 16
Paul - 5

Totals:
Romney - 151
Santorum - 90
Gingrich - 78
Paul -31

Take away that Virginia "win", and Romney and Santorum have almost equal nights (102 vs. 90). The other story is that if you combine Santorum and Gingrich, they'll still outdo Romney even with Virginia left in play. That observation will lead perhaps to an intensification of the rivalry between the two camps as each calls on the other to drop out in the name of "supporting true conservatism".

If Oklahoma goes >50% for Santorum, the final count should be around:
Romney - 142
Santorum - 113
Gingrich - 68
Paul - 27

So even with my "expected" count, Romney only gains 61 delegates over Santorum. Granted, that does still leave him with about a 150 delegate lead. But 150 isn't that much measured against the grand total.

Comparing my numbers to Nate's, it's pretty clear he expects Romney to have a better night all around than I do. For instance, he's predicting a virtual sweep of Massachusetts, which unless I missed a memo, isn't Proportional++. He's also projecting all of Idaho to go to Romney, and I didn't include the caucus states in my projection. He's also projecting Gingrich to get a bigger share of delegates in Georgia than I do. I also have Vermont more competitive, although that's a minor effect.

We'll have to see how it pans out. Nate Silver does this shit for a living, I'm just the equivalent of a fantasy footballer. But I'm sticking by my numbers for now. 
Admittedly, Nate probably knows the intricacies of the various state breakpoints and delegate share breakdowns better than I do, which could make a big difference...I was just calculating straight proportional shares for the most part, rather than trying to estimate based on district wins.

[mainiac]

Must have missed your tallies before.  Silly me.

Your analysis strikes me as being more in tune with a few days back, before all the bad polls came in for Santorum.

There are a couple impossibilities in your predictions, Massachusetts for instance cannot return 4 delegates each to Gingrich and Paul, there is a viability threshold of 15%.  A more likely result is Romney getting 75% of those delegates or getting 100% if Santorum doesn't pull 15% either.  Ohio is another place where Gingrich and Paul will probably get shut out like this.

I also have a hard time seeing some of these predictions you are implying.  Vermont returns a close decision?  Romney only pulls 3rd place in Oklahoma?  These results would indicate that Romney is much weaker then his polling has indicated to date.

And finally you are ignoring Idaho.  Romney could very well pull 51% in Idaho and get all 32 of it's delegates.  Those 32 delegates would be a bigger haul then any of his opponents are likely to pull in any state but Georgia.

[RedKing]

See, I didn't know about the "viability threshold" for MA. That's the kind of minutiae that probably renders my projection invalid.

And as I said, I explicitly left out all the caucus states, because:
1. Distinct lack of poll data.
2. Non-binding results. Romney could win 90% of the vote in Idaho, and Ron Paul supporters could work the caucus system to wind up with the majority of the delegates (which has been his stated strategy)

I honestly do think Romney narrowly finishes 3rd in Oklahoma. Santorum has the state in hand, and I think Gingrich's "Southern Surge" spills over enough to bump him ahead of Romney. Oklahoma is VERY rural and VERY conservative. I don't see Romney getting more than 10-15% outside of OKC and possibly Tulsa. And even there, I don't think he wins a single district.

Most recent poll data I could find for Vermont showed Santorum doing surprisingly well up there, so my breakdown reflects that.

[mainiac]

I haven't seen any recent polling data out of Vermont.  All the old polling data I saw showed him comfortably ahead though and given the states political character I would imagine Romney would be a shoe-in.

Romney was polling about even with Gingrich in Oklahoma before his numbers took an uptick in the past few days.  If he underperforms there, I would expect him to underperform across the board and to lose in Ohio for instance, i.e. to be doing worse then expectations.

Non-binding or no, a Romney win in Idaho still makes him look strong.  Do you think that Santorum is going to campaign on the slogan "It's okay, Romney isn't really ahead because Ron Paul is going to usurp Romney's delegates through an undemocratic process!"  The question isn't whether a candidate can use these delegates to strongarm people at the RNC.  The question is whether they can stay in the race for another month.  Ron Pauls questionable delegate shenanigans do nothing to make Santorum look more viable.

[Bauglir]

Well, no, they make Romney look less viable to a cursory examiner, and when the front-runner's main draw is that he's the most viable candidate (which is an absurd thing to be campaigning on, but that's where we are I guess), that's going to make everyone else look better by comparison. I still expect Romney to come out ahead, I just think it's a question of how much longer the circus goes on, and I'm beginning to think it's "Until the convention".

[mainiac]

Well, no, they make Romney look less viable to a cursory examiner,

A cursory examiner isn't going to be aware of Ron Paul's backroom antics.  A cursory examiner is going to see "Romney won the vote" and maybe "delegate totals say he's got more then half."

[RedKing]

I haven't seen any recent polling data out of Vermont.  All the old polling data I saw showed him comfortably ahead though and given the states political character I would imagine Romney would be a shoe-in.

Castleton State College ran a poll in late February. Final tally was:

Romney - 34
Santorum - 27
Paul - 14
Gingrich -10

Granted it was a relatively small sample size (236), but it was likely voters as opposed to registered voters. And among the self-identified Republicans, Romney and Santorum were running dead even at 35% each. It's only the slight Independent support and the Dem support that nudges him ahead of Santorum in the full primary. It *is* an open primary, but it's hard to tell how many Dems will bother drawing an (R) ballot just to screw with things. And if they do, would they be more likely to vote for Romney or vote someone else to try and throw a wrench into the works? Might be a more interesting race than people are expecting...

[mainiac]

That's not what I'd call up to date.  Romney has gained like 10 points on Santorum in national trend polling since that poll was taken (Feb 11-22).  Add 10 points to that 7 point margin and you get... a 17 point Romney blowout.  I'm not saying that I expect 17 points, but I would definitely expect Romney to be better then 7 points ahead in Vermont if we see a dead heat in Ohio.

Polling data is good, but don't assume that you should be slavishly obedient to it's predictions.  Using what you already know about the state and the fact that you know the race momentum has changed in the intervening time is an important filter for it when you have less then rigorous polling.  If it was a 1000 person survey done in the past week then I'd be much more inclined to believe that it was a close race.