I'm hearing a lot of hype about how Trump will "sweep Super Tuesday" or how he could become "the unstoppable nominee" after March 1. Cries of how Trump "has no ceiling" after Nevada, as if fulfilling what we have been seeing since Iowa is somehow shocking. True, no one has managed to take him down yet. However, no one has seriously even tried (parting shots of doomed candidates not withstanding).
The reality is that Trump's support continues to hover at a steady 33-35% nationally, where it has been since the middle of December. The race for the other 64% has been VERY dynamic, however, and may be starting to coalesce into two other candidates in time for the real fight over the primaries. As I wrote before, in order to avoid a brokered convention, Trump would need to at least cross that 40% national support line, which remains out of reach. When we break down the Super Tuesday states, using state-wide polls and the proportional allocation rules of each state, we see this prophesy is being fulfilled.
Due to proportional allocation rules, Trump gets about 43% of the delegates, well shy of the 50% he needs to avoid a potentially nasty fight on July 18th in Cleveland.
There is a lot of assumptions put into this delegate assumption (including how congressional districts split and whether pollsters have any business predicting primary elections), but it gives a good estimate of what we might expect March 1st. However, there are a number of edge cases here that are within the sampling errors of these polls (and well within the de facto margins of error). The delegates are awarded proportionally among the candidates who meet the minimum threshold. If you don't meet 20% in Georgia, you get nothing. Some things to keep an eye on:
- If Trump comes in 4% lower in Alabama, that could be a major blow as he would no longer qualify for "winner-takes-all" at 50%. If Rubio gets gets half of that, Trump would lose 22 delegates to be split among Rubio and Cruz.
- Cruz is close to the threshold in Georgia, potentially costing him 20 delegates.
- Rubio is close to the threshold in Alaska, Tennessee, Vermont, and the very important Texas. This could cost him as much as 75 delegates. That's half of his expected winnings on Tuesday. He needs to make a serious play for Bush's supporters, and some of Kasich's. If you live in one of these states, expect to see ads for Rubio popping up everywhere.
Democrats Get To Vote, Too!
For all of you Democrats out there, you may not realize it from the media coverage, but your party votes on March 1st as well. Like every comparison between the Democratic and Republican primaries, it just isn't nearly as exciting as a three-way battle for the heart and soul and future of the party leading to a possible floor fight at the convention. Sadly, adults conducting business in a respectful manner simply isn't as interesting as grown-up kids throwing temper tantrums. C-SPAN could never compete with Toddlers in Tiaras.
For what it's worth, here's the breakdown on the Donkey Race:
Clinton is expected to win, pretty much across the board on Super Tuesday, racking up 2/3 of the available delegates for a net gain of nearly 200. The only cliffhangers are:
- Will Clinton manage to get past the 15% threshold in Vermont?
- Which states will the pollsters get horribly wrong?
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