After March 5âs âTitantic Tuesdayâ of proportional primaries, former President Trump can secure the GOP nod in âwinner-take-allâ races from March 19 to April 2
Regardless how many delegates, if any, Nikki Haley earns in Feb. 24âs South Carolina Republican primary, the former United Nations ambassadorâs presidential campaignâs days are numbered.
That is, unless Ms. Haley can outright win some contests, including several of the 15 âSuper Tuesdayâ GOP presidential preference preliminaries on March 5.
If she does not do so, Mr. Putnam said, her campaign will crash into a cold, hard iceberg of âdelegate math,â making âSuper Tuesdayâ her âTitanic Tuesday.â
âReady or not,â he told The Epoch Times, âhere it comes.â
To win the Republican presidential nomination, a candidate must secure 1,215 of the 2,429 delegates at the Republican National Committeeâs (RNC) July 15-18 nominating convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
Thus far, 92 delegates have been awarded across four primaries/caucuses. Former President Donald Trump has 63 of those delegates, more than two-thirds. Ms. Haley has 17.
South Carolinaâs Feb. 24 GOP primary with 50 delegates is the first of six state presidential preference polls that will collectively award 239 delegatesâincluding Michiganâs 55 and Missouriâs 54âbefore âSuper Tuesday.â
By March 5, 10 primaries/caucuses, including the District of Columbia and Virgin Islands, will have awarded 331 GOP convention delegates.
On March 5, 15 primaries/caucuses, including in Texas and California, will award 1,215 GOP delegatesâthe exact number needed to win the nod.
This is why, of course, it is referred to as âSuper Tuesdayâ and why, of course, Mr. Putnam says it could be âTitanic Tuesdayâ for Ms. Haleyâs campaign unless she wins several and is competitive in all.
If polls, projections, and trends pan out, President Trump will likely have an insurmountable delegate lead after âSuper Tuesday,â Mr. Putnam said, but because the RNC prohibits âwinner-take-allâ primaries before March 15, the former president may not formally seal the deal for several weeks.
âI donât have an exact estimate here, but mid-March, late-Marchâ is when Ms. Haley is likely to acknowledge her campaign is moot, he said.
âHaley seems to suggest that sheâs going to hang around at least through âSuper Tuesday,â so if she dropped out after that, then itâs going to probably happen just before Trump passes the 50-percent mark and unofficially clinches the nomination,â Mr. Putnam said.
âWinner-Take-Allâ
Fortunately for the Haley campaign, the first 23 GOP primaries/caucuses, including the 15 on March 5, are all proportional to varied extents, meaning delegates are allocated by the percentage of the statewide and/or the congressional district vote a candidate garners.
The RNCâs prohibition on âwinner-take-allâ primaries and on state parties imposing thresholds greater than 20 percent to quality for delegates before March 15 is why Mr. Trumpâs four first-place finishes only earned him 63 instead of all 92 delegates and how Ms. Haley has 17 delegates despite not winning a race.
All that comes to an end beginning March 19 when âwinner-take-allâ primaries dominate the state preliminaries that unfold between then and June 4. That is when New Jerseyâs Republicans will vote in the only GOP presidential preference poll after Memorial Day, and the last one before the Republican National Convention five weeks later.
âAfter that point,â Mr. Putnam said, âa candidate can win 30 percent of the vote and win by one vote and still win all the delegates.â
On March 19, another 350 delegates are on the line across five primaries, including 125 in Floridaâs âwinner-take-allâ contest, with another 161 up for grabs in five April 2 preliminaries that all feature âwinner-take-allâ triggers.
Mr. Putnam said âif things continue on the current trajectory,â it is âvery likely that [Mr. Trump] is going to wrap things upâ in that March 19âApril 2 window.
That RNC ban on âwinner-take-allâ primaries through March 15 is why Ms. Haleyâs campaign could still limp along after March 5, he said, noting that in previous election cycles, it would all be over that day if not sooner because there were more âfront-loadedâ âwinner-take-allâ primaries.
âThere was no prohibition on âwinner-take-allâ rules early in the calendar as there is in 2024,â Mr. Putnam said, although theyâve been discouraged since 2012.
He said most analysts arenât paying as much attention to delegate counts as they are to actual vote counts because that is what drives donors to sustain a flagging campaign because once doubt sets in, the money stops, and the end comes quickly.
The delegate count âwould be important if we were talking about a competitive nomination race here,â Mr. Putnam said. âWeâre not.â
âDelegate Mathâ
Article II, Section 1 of the United States Constitution outlines the presidential election process but does not offer guidance on how states should select delegates for national nominating conventions. It is up to each state party to develop its own rules in coordination with their national parties.
The Democratic National Committee (DNC) has maintained a âtop-downâ approach in orchestrating a relatively uniform, streamlined system for awarding delegates among state parties for decades.
Among standard proportional rules all state Democrat parties follow is a 15-percent qualifying threshold for candidates to secure delegates and the automatic selection of party leaders and elected officials (PLEOs) as âsuperdelegatesâ to the national convention. PLEO âsuperdelegatesâ cannot exceed 15 percent of a stateâs contingent or vote in the conventionâs first ballot.
Thus far, President Joe Biden has all 91 of the delegates awarded in Democrat primaries. On March 5, Democrat voters in 16 states will cast ballots in preliminaries that will produce 1,420 delegates, which will likely lift him near or beyond the 1,968 needed to win the nomination when the partyâs 3,934 delegates convene Aug. 19â22 in Chicago for the Democratic National Convention.
Republicans, on the other hand, do business from the âbottom upâ with state committees and lawmakers employing variable methodologies to compile delegates from primaries and caucus results.
This creates âa patchworkâ of complex fine print âdelegate mathâ rules, Mr. Putnam said, which often have little to do with math or evenâwhen inconvenientârules.
Republicansâ âdelegate mathâ is a variable, state-by-state science and art of the politically expedient and is to math what âinside baseballâ is to hockey.
Never mind the myriad state-to-state meanders in defining bound and unbound delegates spelled out in the Republican National Committeeâs âRules of the Republican Partyâ and âCall to the Convention.
But while it may be obtuse, itâs important, Mr. Putnam said.
âI think itâs easy to slip into the trap of thinking that you vote in a primary or caucus and somebody wins, but the underlying delegate selection process has a lot to do with who emerges as the nominee,â he said.
Five Ways to Dish Up Delegates
There are essentially five ways Republican state parties allocate delegates, according to Frontloading HQ and The Green Papers.
Six states have strict proportional primaries where delegates are allocated based either on statewide primary/caucus votes or on a combination of statewide/congressional district votes.
The election cycleâs first three presidential preference pollsâIowa, New Hampshire, and Nevadaâwere all âproportional,â with President Trumpâs 51 percent tally earning 20 of Iowaâs 40 delegates, 13 of New Hampshireâs 22, and all 26 in Nevadaâs uncontested caucus.
Twenty-two states stage âproportional with a triggerâ primaries, meaning they become âwinner-take-allâ if a candidate wins a majority (or more) of the vote statewide and/or at the congressional district level. The threshold in most states is 50.1 percent of the overall tally, with 66.7 percentâtwo-thirdsâneeded in Tennessee.
The first GOP âproportional with a triggerâ primary of the 2024 election cycle is on March 2 in Idaho, with most between then and Missouriâs May 4 primary allocating delegates using this method.
Twelve states stage âwinner-take-allâ primaries/caucuses that award all delegates to the plurality winner. Unlike a proportional state with a âwinner-take-all trigger,â true âwinner-take-allâ rules do not require a majority of the vote for a full allocation of delegates.
The first GOP âwinner-take-allâ primaries of the 2024 election cycle will kick off on March 19 in Arizona, Florida, Kansas, and Ohio.
Republican parties in New Mexico, Montana, and South Dakota allocate their national convention delegates at their state conventions in May.
South Carolina is among eight states that have âhybrid,â âproportional,â and âwinner-take-allâ primaries. In the Palmetto Stateâs case, statewide delegates are awarded âwinner take allâ while district delegates are doled out proportionally.
Of the 50 delegates at stake in the Feb. 24 primary, 21 are accordedâthree eachâto the stateâs seven congressional districts. Ten are âat-large,â three for the state party, and 16 are âbonusâ delegates, often elected officials in GOP-led congressional districts.
Under the state Republican partyâs delegate rules, whoever wins the statewide tally, whether by a margin above 50 percent or not, wins all 29 of the non-district bound delegates. President Trump is expected to easily bank these 29 delegates.
Meanwhile, the remaining 21 delegates are divvied up proportionally by how they fared district-by-district, which is how Ms. Haley could win as many as six delegates.
âShe might be able to win a district or twoâthe first district down in the Charleston area, maybe,â Mr. Putnam said.
âAt most, weâre talking about Haley winning six delegates and, very likely, none in South Carolina come Saturday.â
Original News Source Link – Epoch Times
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