Super Tuesday Is Not Enough to End GOP Nomination Contest

This post was largely written before Super Tuesday's results, but is prophetic. The 10 contests on Super Tuesday represented a very good day for Mitt Romney in winning delegates, but were far from decisive -- with particulars of concern for his campaign ranging from losing by more than 20% to Ron Paul among voters under 45 in Virginia to getting barely a quarter of the vote in Tennessee despite a heavy investment in spending there. Let the contest continue!

After primaries in Michigan and Arizona last week, the Washington Post's Chris Cillizza wrote , "In politics, winning isn't everything, it's the only thing. The score sheet only shows 'W's' and 'L's'.... When we look back in the history books, all it will say is that Romney won Michigan and Arizona."

To be sure, Mitt Romney's wins boosted his campaign, but Cillizza overstates their significance -- just as influential pundits have done after every new primary or caucus this year in their unseemly rush to end the nomination contest before most states vote.

But voters keep getting in their way -- and that's okay. The longer the nomination contest goes, the more states and voters get to participate in what amounts to an unfolding national primary. And while insiders may grumble that big money hasn't already gotten its way and prematurely ended the contest, I suspect this summer the conventional wisdom will change -- that having more meaning contests did not hurt the Republicans, but in fact forced its nominee to truly earn the nomination. Certainly that helped Barack Obama in 2008, particular in his surprise November wins in states like Indiana and North Carolina.

Last week provides a good example of what's really going in these state contests that's a lot more than wins and losses. In a nomination battle that may easily end up being all about convention delegates, the results were more divided than just two wins for Romney. Rick Santorum won nearly half of Michigan's voting delegates, and Romney's Arizona delegate sweep face a near-certain challenge at the convention due to the Arizona GOP's flagrant violation of RNC rules.

While Romney won Michigan's popular vote by 3%, that victory doesn't necessarily forecast future outcomes. Republican voters have been checking apparent momentum all year. Consider the post-Iowa momentum shifts. Romney won New Hampshire, followed by Gingrich winning South Carolina, Romney taking Florida, Santorum sweeping three states on February 7th and then Romney's recent wins.

More to the point, for the real contest, Michigan's voting delegates were allocated primarily by outcomes in congressional districts, not by the statewide result. Although the Secretary of State oddly reported primary results according to Michigan's old congressional district map, Michigan's GOP instead used results in the state's 14 new districts. Santorum and Romney each won seven districts.

Because Michigan violated party rules by voting in February, the RNC stripped half of its convention delegates. Each district winner earns two voting delegates in Tampa and one nonvoting delegate. Additional delegates were awarded to Romney and Santorum based on their proportion of the statewide vote, but only two statewide delegates will vote in Tampa. Romney forces in the party voted for Romney to get both delegates, but that will be challenged. Ultimately, Michigan will end up with either a 16-14 edge for Romney in delegates or a 15-15 split. (And, as a notable aside, Santorum would have won an 17-13 edge if he had earned all the votes cast for withdrawn candidates like Bachmann, Cain and Perry in one close congressional district.)

Meanwhile, Arizona joined Florida in violating the crystal clear RNC prohibition against winner-take-all allocation of delegates in contests held before April 1st. The RNC has left penalizing states for this infraction to the convention's credentials committee, and if the race stays close or the delegate leader is seen as a weak nominee, expect fireworks -- and potentially many delegates voting their conscience, as I've argued in POLITICO is permitted under RNC rules.

I see two particularly lessons from recent contests that should both be relevant on Super Tuesday night as well.

First, pundits should calm down about order of finish in particular states. Let this contest unfold, give more voters a chance to participate and have the eventual nominee prove his mettle under fire, as clearly helped Democrats in 2008 despite similar grumbling from Democratic insiders early on.

Second, congressional district outcomes don't necessarily reflect popular vote outcomes --something the nation may discuss much more if Pennsylvania Republicans revive their problematic proposal to allocate electors based on congressional district. Certainly, allocating delegates by district is not "proportional representation" -- a term wrongly applied to a wide array of state rules this year.

Given these states rules, for the media to talk only about popular vote outcomes in states is as savvy as talking about the 2000 presidential election as if it were won by Al Gore. Just as electors in the Electoral College were decisive in 2000 rather than the national popular vote, delegates are what counts in presidential nomination contests.

Every candidate had something they could claim as a positive on Super Tuesday. The contest for the nomination isn't over -- which is good news for voters in remaining states wanting to help pick their party's nominee.

This commentary is adapted from a post written for Rick Hasen's Election Law Blog. Find out more at FairVote's primary resources, including delegate allocation rules for all states, rules about who can vote in states and new twists on how to understand the results to date.

 

Follow Rob Richie on Twitter: www.twitter.com/Rob_Richie

Comments

[userw014]

08:19 AM on 03/08/2012

I fear that the lesson both parties will take from the shambling, lurching zombie horde of the current Republican nomination contest will be to change the rules to make the winner apparent earlier - with such anti-democratic things as winner-take-all elections or caucuses or worse.

That the crime against democracy of the individual States implementing votes in the Electoral College as winner-take-all is no reason to reflect that in the nomination process.

[Rob Richie]

07:24 AM on 03/10/2012

You might be interested in my analysis published yesterday that shows the delegate allocations are much closer to what they would have been with winner-take-all statewide contests than with proportional allocation. I also address the question of whether it's better to allow more states and voters to have meaningful contests or let money shortchange the process.

[Gary Strawley]

01:51 AM on 03/08/2012

are the gop candidates really as dumb as they seem or is it a plan so they don't have to say what they will do to the middle class and the poor! Love it, but they are to dumb believe!!! No info about their
plans for american???? NONE?

[NoPartyCharlie]

09:49 PM on 03/07/2012

Pro Banker Romney is at the top while anti war, anti banker is 3rd (Paul). If it was conservatives of the old, Paul would be number 1, with fakes like Romney last. Also Paul is an educated reactionary fiscal conservative, ( reactionary being dangerous, which is too bad because he is really bright), which you would think the average conservative would love. He is also a constitutionalist, probably even too strict to the bone than what the founders intended, and at least tells the truth. He's not clear what kind of leader he would be, America is not like france where there is a strong social understanding and the relationship between big corp and big government is not as powerful as the US, you cannot destroy federal programs without easing them off while protecting the citizen. Yes federal agencies are corporate and corrupt and out of control with too much power, programs such as No Child Left Behind were massively destructive and its not fair that we don't have any power over these federalized programs. That being said, you cannot wipe them off the earth quickly, because people depend on the chicken feed, and reverting to State Powers will only take time to become corporate-governmentally corrupt. Of course nationalizing the federal reserve would change everything, so I agree with Paul on that, and it would be interesting to see his theory at work - in a virtual reality simulated zone-.

[Uncle Bill]

07:18 PM on 03/07/2012

Since there are a number of states who elect delegates to the national GOP convention who are not bound in any way to respect the choice of the voters in their state or district primaries or caucuses, as well as automatic delegates without any obligation to vote in accordance with primary or caucus results- there is a fundamental flaw in the author's thesis.  The show will go on, but it is questionable whether the voters will decide who gets the GOP party nomination.

[Rob Richie]

07:25 AM on 03/10/2012

I agree about far fewer delegates being bound than the media assumes. That doesn't mean voters aren't playing a key role in determining the outcome, however.

[Uncle Bill]

02:15 PM on 03/10/2012

Shouldn't they play the only role in determining the outcome?

[Virginia Beringer]

04:02 PM on 03/07/2012

Hey, al gore DID win in 2000. The SCOTUS appointed bush president.

[demisfine]

02:56 PM on 03/07/2012

Anyone know what voter turnout was like last night?
I haven't heard it mentioned.

[Rob Richie]

07:26 AM on 03/10/2012

Generally quite low. See my most recent post.

[demisfine]

08:22 AM on 03/10/2012

Thanks. No one is mentioning it because it's low. Not winning.

[ThatsTheTheWayItIs]

01:14 PM on 03/07/2012

The parties run the primary, to pick the candidate with the best chance of winning. They used to do that themselves, but logically thought primaries would do a better job of vetting a winning candidate.

Parties own their primaries, and can set any rules they want, people forget that. If the Repubs or Dems wanted to pick the candidate most-likely to be elected, they would discount results in solid Red or Blue states, and overweight those in swing states. The only states from yesterday that counted were OH and VA, only they are in doubt in Nov.

[Rob Richie]

07:28 AM on 03/10/2012

I agree about parties having the right to choose their rules, but I think they would be making a mistake for their party if they overweighted swing states. Certainly electability should be a factor, but winning a swing state with something like 35% of the vote hardly says that candidate will do the best in that state in November. And parties aren't ONLY about getting elected -- they actually might want their nominees to reflect their views more generally.

[Awake-and-Sing]

12:42 PM on 03/07/2012

Team Romney was talking about the possibility of not winning a first ballot majority at the Convention.

That doesn't mean a "free-for-all" on the second ballot, but how likely is that really?

The parallels to Walter Mondale are striking. Mondale barely limped into the nomination despite having all the establishment support and then went down to a landslide defeat in 1984.

[FrankinSac]

12:05 PM on 03/07/2012

You tell 'em Rob... Keep the Clown Car rolling along towards the cliff.

[68Namvet]

09:13 PM on 03/07/2012

Don't worry - after the clown car sails off the cliff - all of the conservative talking heads will find a way to blame Obama for it - just like true economy, spending, the debt, the wars and every other problem bush (the lesser) left us.

[FrankinSac]

01:26 AM on 03/08/2012

Heck, I'm thinking of blaming Obama for my hangnail... LOL.

[kjames196]

11:57 AM on 03/07/2012

Informative article Rob. Though you should point out that it's not very flattering for the Republican candidates that the longer the primaries go on as legitimate contests, the less the voters like the candidates. So you're right that a longer campaign should strengthen the candidates (as it did Obama and Clinton), in this case, I'm not sure that's true.

[Rob Richie]

07:30 AM on 03/10/2012

You raise a good question, but if a candidate isn't going to become a better candidate and more likeable now, why are they doing to be able to do so in the fall? This allows a deeper vetting of a candidate -- and specifically for Romney, he clearly has room for improvement....

[Nomccain]

10:14 AM on 03/07/2012

I suppose this means that we'll have to listen to these guys continue to attack each other for another few weeks or months. Charming ain't it. However, that means they won't have time to attack the President so that's good.

[Virginia Beringer]

04:03 PM on 03/07/2012

And they will spend lots and lots of money attacking each other, too!

[Hope4us2change]

10:06 AM on 03/07/2012

Newt Gingrich, Ron Paul and Rick Santorum really need to see the bigger picture here They are dividing and splitting up the Republican party for a longer and costly battle against Romney just to stroke their own EGO's. Why don't they bow out and give their support to the man who could actually win against Pres. Obama? They will tear the GOP down month by month with venomous attacks on the only man with a chance to win--they are in fact hurting the whole country here if they continue this course. If one of these three men took the lead and said enough is enough--we will stand together against Obama, he would do a great service to the country and the other two would follow his example for the greater good--then we could show solidarity and strength in this race.

[frank739]

12:31 PM on 03/07/2012

While this B grade Soap Opera plays out for a few more episodes, we can look forward, I suspect, to watch and listen to your complaints grow louder as Willard's rhetoric returns more and more to compromise, middle of the road, Centrist Idealogy. You know those old Washington Insider tricks, that allowed him to succeed in Mass>

[sobe123]

12:43 PM on 03/07/2012

Santorum and Gingrich think that if they can knock the other guy out they have a shot. And if one does exit in the near future the remaining candidate will have no shortage of ultra conserative sugar daddies to fund a super pac on their behalf.