Follow-ups

Texas Voter ID

Wednesday’s post was concerned with the Texas Voter ID law going up against the DOJ, with the suggestion that the approach should include the unconstitutionality of section 5 of the 1964 Voting Rights Act.

J. Christian Adams followed up later Wednesday with the news that Attorney General Greg Abbott had indeed used this approach, by amending the complaint to aim it directly at the unconstitutionality of the law. Good news.

list provided by Townhall.com

Delegate Count

On March 7^th I commented on the actual result of Super Tuesday compared to the negative media about Mitt Romney—even though he increased his lead. I was amused to see that Rick Santorum has been complaining about Fox News being a shill for Romney, and that the media is all in the Romney camp. You can hear the clip here.

Santorum seems to believe that mentioning the delegate count (fact) while also spending a disproportionately large amount of coverage on Santorum’s wins is “shilling” for Romney. It’s not true, and the interviewer called him on it.

One thing this extended campaign has done: show us more of who the candidates really are. Here is my new assessment: Rick Santorum complains about unfair treatment even when he has been treated disproportionately positively. What is he likely to do against the Chicago machine? Plus, he’s aware that there is no way (barring Romney dropping out, which isn’t going to happen) for him to earn enough delegates to get the nomination—but he is staying in the race based on the fantasy that all those Romney voters were wrong, and their delegates will gladly flee to him during a brokered convention just 2 ½ months before the final election.

Then there is Gingrich. We have learned (if we didn’t know it), that he is vindictive and delusional. He has no path to the nomination; his only reason for remaining in the contest is to do whatever it takes to deny Romney the nomination. (Think about the dirty tricks of Huckabee last time around, but expanded to the entire national convention, instead of just a state caucus or two.) Gingrich continues to put out ads that are clearly false and damagingly negative against Romney—because in Iowa Romney PACs put out accurate but negative ads against Gingrich. Does this man have the best interests of the nation in mind? Or is he using followers and their money for his own misplaced passions?

In case you missed it (because, even though it has been covered, the most reported story has been Santorum’s “big wins,” here are the delegate increases since Super Tuesday (during which Romney won 276, Santorum won 90, Gingrich won 81, and Paul won 21):

·         Romney 80[*]

·         Santorum 70

·         Gingrich 24

·         Paul 4

Gingrich and Santorum both claim that Romney isn’t a strong front runner, because he hasn’t sealed the deal. Yet it was a similar situation four years ago. The difference then was that Romney looked at the odds, and at what was best for the country, and stepped out of the race. Then he worked to get the GOP nominee elected—and as many conservative candidates around the country as he could help. It would be better for our country if Santorum and Gingrich were more interested in making sure Obama is defeated than following their personal dreams. 

One More Thing

Santorum has portrayed himself as the social conservative. While Romney has portrayed himself as the fiscal conservative—and economic turnaround expert—it might turn out to be a pleasant surprise to those Santorum devotees once they come to learn about the real Romney. There was an opinion piece in the Deseret News (the more conservative of the two newspapers in Salt Lake City), identifying Romney as much more conservative on all fronts than his opponents and the media have portrayed him. If you want to read something positive today, read this one.

 

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[*] This list comes from the Romney campaign and coincides with Real Clear Politics. There are discrepancies in counts from one news source to another, because each state has its own formula for allotting delegates. One difference is accounted for because Wyoming was separated into two days (primary and caucus, one before Super Tuesday, and one after—both of which Romney won), plus the assignment of unpledged RNC delegates, which went up another 9 for Romney this week.

The End of the Beginning

What happened on Super Tuesday? A good outcome for Romney, moderately respectable for Santorum, a very low threshold of positive for Gingrich. Paulistas hung in there. Before we look at the numbers, take a look at some of today’s headlines from Real Clear Politics:

·         Romney Has No Clear Path to 1144 Delegates

·         Doubts About Romney Aren't Going Away

·         It Ain't Over, and It Won't Be for a While

·         With No Knockout, Bruising Battle Plods On

·         Danger Signs for Mitt Romney

·         Tuesday Sets Up Long Slog to Nomination

·         Mitt Romney: The Candidate of "Eh, I Guess"

·         Inconclusive Tuesday

·         Super Tuesday Ends in Split Decision

·         Romney Racks Up Delegates as Campaign Underscores Weakness

Those are all just from today. But just the negative ones, so here’s a list of the positives:

·         It Will Be Mitt Romney vs. Barack Obama

·         Romney Takes Another Step Toward Nomination

·         Ohio, Romney & November

Yes, that is ten against to three neutral/positive. These are from a wide range of mostly conservative pundits, so if you ever thought conservative media was in Romney’s pocket, you haven’t been keeping score. MSM stories tend to run 70+% negative toward Romney, as you’d expect. So, essentially all of Romney’s success is in spite of overwhelmingly negative media.

If you were to read the headlines without doing any math, you might think Super Tuesday had been an unmitigated disaster for Romney. So maybe we should do the math to find out the truth.

There were ten states voting yesterday. Romney won six (60% of the states). Santorum won three (30% of the states). Gingrich won one, (10% of the states). Paul won zero, but he and all of them did pick up some delegates. And it’s delegates that count toward the nomination, so we want to look at those, but before we do that, let’s look at percentage of voters, and the lead winners held over the second place finisher.

State	Romney	Santorum	Gingrich	Paul
Virginia	59.5 % (+19%)	0%	0%	40%
Vermont	39.8% (+14.3%)	24%	8%	25%
Massachusetts	72.1% (+60%)	12%	5%	10%
Idaho	61.6% (+43.4%)	18%	2%	18%
Ohio	38.0% (+1%)	37%	15%	9%
Alaska	32.6% (+3/6%)	29%	14%	24%
Tennessee	28%	37.3% (+9.3%)	24%	9%
Oklahoma	28%	33.8% (+5.7%)	27%	10%
North Dakota	24%	40.0% (+12.9%)	8%	28%
Georgia	26%	20%	47.2% (+21.3%)	7%

Romney came in second in three of the four states he did not win (3^rd in the final state, North Dakota). In addition to the three he won, Santorum came in second five times (plus 3^rd in Vermont and not on the ballot in Virginia). Paul, who won zero, came in second in Virginia, Vermont, and North Dakota (with a very close 3^rd in Idaho). Gingrich did get that important win in his home state, but he still got less than half the voters there; he came in third or dead last in all the rest. There’s a little more to rub in about Gingrich: he had tried to claim Romney barely won his “home state” of Michigan last month, but Romney hasn’t lived there for forty years (he still won, but it was close). However, Massachusetts, where Romney has been living since his 20s resoundingly supported him. Gingrich’s support in Georgia was much more tepid. And in his other home state,” Virginia, where he has been living for the past decade, he failed to get on the ballot. If Romney had failed to get a vote in Michigan, then Gingrich might have something to say about that, but Romney won the “other home state.”

OK, but since the delegate count matters in the end, that’s the real story. Here’s how that went.

State	Romney	Santorum	Gingrich	Paul
Virginia	43	0	0	3
Vermont	9	4	0	4
Massachusetts	38	0	0	0
Idaho	32	0	0	0
Ohio	38	21	0	0
Alaska	8	7	3	6
Tennessee	11	26	11	0
Oklahoma	11	18	11	0
North Dakota	7	11	2	8
Georgia	19	3	54	0

 Romney was awarded 168 delegates in states he won, plus 48 in states he didn’t win (he got delegates in every state), for a total of 276 for the day.

Santorum was awarded 55 delegates in states he won, plus 35 in states he didn’t win, for a total of 90 for the day.

Gingrich was awarded 54 delegates in the state he won, plus 27 in states he didn’t win, for a total of 81 for the day.

Paul was awarded 21 delegates for the day.

The total for the day was 468 (not all estimates are the same; these are the current estimates from MSNBC.com, which may vary slightly from RealClearPolitics.com). Romney was awarded 59% of the votes. Santorum got 19%. Gingrich got 17%. Paul got a little under 5%. Put another way, if you add up all the non-Romney delegates, that’s 192, or just 41% of the delegates.

Of the 731 delegates assigned so far, Romney has 404, Santorum has 161, Gingrich has 105, and Paul has 61. Romney has 55% of the delegates so far.

Is it a sure thing that Romney will get the nomination? No. But he is a very strong and very clear front runner. Santorum would need to garner over 60% of the remaining delegates (with Utah and California looming ahead) in order to have a chance. Another thing we’ve seen is that, when Romney goes in person to spend time in a state, so that people see him instead of the media-created perceptions of him, the trend surges in his favor. My guess is that more of that surging is likely to happen after healthy Super Tuesday wins.

Delving into Data: Part II

On Friday we looked at some of the data about how states have historically voted since 1960. Today we’re going to dig a little deeper to see if this data can tell us anything about this year. For your review, I'm including the (almost too small to read) charts again.

First let’s take a look at Tier 1 Republican states: Arizona, Oklahoma, Utah, Nebraska, Idaho, Alaska, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Wyoming. Of these, all but Arizona have voted for the Republican presidential candidate every election except 1964. Arizona voted GOP that year, but Democrat in 1996 only. So what was going on in 1964? That was Barry Goldwater against LBJ. Goldwater only took six states. Arizona was his home state; the others were Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, Louisiana, and South Carolina. The first four of those states were also outliers in the 1968 election, voting for the third party segregationist candidate. In other words, it was not likely Goldwater’s conservatism that appealed, but his racism. The Tier 1 Republican states probably didn’t vote in favor of LBJ’s liberal policies so much as they voted against Goldwater’s unsavory policies; none of the Tier 1 states ever had slaves or particular race issues.

George Romney, Mitt’s father, ran (among others, including Nixon) against Goldwater in 1968. People today like to characterize that as the moderate candidate vs. the conservative. While there were a number of conservative positions put forward by Goldwater that have since become basic doctrine, back in the 1960s, the matchup was more likely to be seen as sane vs. insane. Think, for comparison, of Ron Paul’s anti-Israel foreign policy—with vitriol.

All of the Tier 1 states voted against Obama in 2008, so it’s likely we can count on that position again. Of Tier 2 Republican states, Virginia and Indiana are the outliers. They voted Democrat in 1964 (the same year the Tier 1 states voted Democrat) and again in 2008. The “historic” opportunity to vote for the first black president, especially with the alternative being a weak conservative, probably caught them; now that the results of that mistake are clear, they are not at all likely to go Democrat again this time.

There were 22 states that voted against Obama in 2008; it is practically guaranteed that all 22 will vote against him again. So the question is, really, which of the ones suckered in to that “historic” thing now know better?

Colorado has gone Democrat only in 1964 (the outlier Goldwater year), 1992 (Clinton’s first, but not his second race, when 3^rd party Perot was a factor against the GOP), and 2008. Since the Obama error is considerably worse than the Clinton error, logic would say they will go against Obama in 2012. No guarantee, but that is a possible 9 electoral votes.

Then we’re down to Florida and North Carolina. Florida went Democrat in 1964 (Goldwater again), 1976 (against Reagan, but they are adjacent to Carter’s Georgia), 1996 (Clinton’s 2^nd term, another 3^rd party Perot interference), and 2008. Floridians voted for Bush narrowly both times. So they’re questionable. As my son Political Sphere points out, Florida has people who couldn’t read a ballot, and then tried to overturn an election by looking at “pregnant chads.” Having our future depend on them makes us feel vulnerable. But the state, with 29 electoral votes, is definitely worth fighting for. They have been voting regularly for GOP governors for quite a while, so that is a positive.

North Carolina went Democrat only in 1960, 1964, and 1976. Up until 2008, they went GOP seven straight times. Let’s hope it was just the “historic” problem, and they will self-correct, for another 15 electoral votes.

In the top 4 tiers, the only real question is Florida. If we assume the scenario that the GOP gets all of the top 4 tiers, as we showed in the last post, that’s 212 electoral votes.

In lower tiers, the GOP will also get Georgia, Missouri, Louisiana, Arkansas, and West Virginia—all of whom voted against Obama in 2008 when we didn’t know how bad he would be. That is another 45 electoral votes, putting the GOP candidate at 257. Another 13 electoral votes means a win.

Of the remaining states, let’s look at those who voted GOP recently before 2008:

·         Ohio                            GOP in 2000 and 2004             18 electoral votes

·         Nevada                        GOP in 2000 and 2004               6 electoral votes

·         New Hampshire            GOP in 2000                             4 electoral votes

·         Iowa                            GOP in 2004                              6 electoral votes

·         New Mexico                 GOP in 2004                              5 electoral votes

Ohio alone could do the job, or any other three. Plus there is the possibility that any historically blue state might notice the abysmal result of the Obama vote. Almost any loss could mean defeat for Obama.

This assessment is based mainly on history. There is no guarantee that demographics have stayed the same. For example, Texas voted Democrat four of five times from 1960-1976, but has voted GOP in every presidential election since. Some migration has happened with people leaving high unemployment places to places with more opportunity. The better opportunity places tend to be conservative, places that resist big government interference.

National polls show two conflicting things: low and sinking approval ratings for Obama (despite the mainstream media as his propagandists), and slight leads for Obama against specific GOP opponents. But the polls don’t say who was polled. A fair poll would be numbers that relate to registered GOP and Democrat voters, and should be likely voters. Polls tend to be canvass more Democrats than Republicans, and not necessarily those who vote. So polls tend to be skewed against Republicans. Also, the national polls do not show where the voters are. If there is a preponderance in urban areas and blue states, the poll is skewed against Republicans in a way that is particularly inaccurate in relation to the electoral college.

The point is that, ten months out from voting day without a chosen Republican candidate, there is quite a lot of reason for us to hope for change, so we can get our country back.

Delving into Data

My son Political Sphere looks at data in his spare time, for fun. Also, he is fascinated by political strategy. So he has put those together recently, looking at the past presidential elections since 1960, just to see what can be understood.  

There have been thirteen presidential elections in these 5 decades. No state has voted the same in all of them.[i] But there are states that go 1:12, 2:11, 3:10, 4:9, 5:8, and 6:7 in both directions.  Here are the charts followed by some observations:

Tier 1

In the extremes are those that voted the same all but one time. On the Republican side, Arizona, Oklahoma, Utah, Nebraska, Idaho, Alaska, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Wyoming all went Republican twelve out of thirteen times: Arizona in 1996 (Clinton) and the others all in 1964 (Johnson). In today’s delegates, that is 45 electoral delegates. 

There is only one state that went Democrat twelve of thirteen times: Minnesota (1972, Nixon). In addition, Washington, D.C., has gone Democrat ever since it gained voting rights (all twelve since 1964). That is a total of 13 electoral delegates. 

Tier 2

Five states went 11 times GOP and 2 times Democrat: Virginia, Indiana, South Carolina, Kansas, and Montana, for another 42 electoral delegates. 

Three states went 11 times Democrat and 2 times GOP: Rhode Island, Hawaii, and Massachusetts, for another 19 electoral delegates. 

Tier 3

Another three states went GOP 10 times and non-GOP 3 times (some third party votes are scattered in): Alabama, Colorado, and Mississippi, for another 24 electoral delegates. 

Two states went Democrat 10 times and GOP 3 times: Maryland and New York, for another 39 electoral delegates. 

Tier 4

Five states have gone GOP 9 times and non-GOP 4 times: Texas, Florida, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Kentucky, which a combined additional 101 delegates. 

Pennsylvania is the only state to go Democrat 9 times and GOP 4 times, for 20 more delegates.

Let’s pause here to do a tally. If the Republicans were to win all states in these first four tiers (something not necessarily likely, but that has occurred 6 of the last 13 presidential elections), the electoral count would be 212 delegates. If the Democrats won all four tiers (something that has happened 8 out of the past 13 times), they would have 91 delegates. There are 538 total electoral votes. There are only 235 in the remaining two GOP tiers (137 delegates) and two Democrat tiers (98 delegates) combined.  

If the Democrats were to get all six of its tiers (the states voting Democrat more than half the time), they would have only 189 electoral delegates. The next tier (weak-leaning Republican states) would add 62 more for 251, still less than half, so not a winning number. These eight tiers have only gone all Democrat once: 1992 (Clinton, when Perot split votes for Bush).  

In short, it is easier for Republicans to win than for Democrats, because more states lean Republican. And within an even larger majority of states, Republican (or conservative) people dominate at local levels. Democrats dominate almost exclusively in the northeast coast and west coast (plus inexplicably odd Minnesota). 

We might learn a little more predictive information by looking at what happened in particular elections. We’ll save that for the next post.

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[i] Washington, D.C., has voted Democrat in every presidential election since it was granted delegates in 1964, which is the past twelve elections.