Super Tuesday preview: The 20 percent solution

posted at 9:42 am on March 5, 2012 by Karl

Yesterday, Mitt Romney hosted a pancake breakfast in Georgia (a state Newt Gingrich is comfortably ahead in the polls), while Rick Santorum spoke at the capitol in Oklahoma (a state where Santorum is comfortably ahead in the polls). If you ever wondered what drives these sorts of scheduling decisions, as Cox Radio’s Jamie Dupree reminded his Twitter followers, it has a fair amount to do with what I will very loosely call The 20% Solution.

The RNC, in its infinite wisdom, decided to change the delegate selection rules for this cycle, in hopes of prolonging the nominating campaign and thereby generating interest and grassroots base-building a la the Obama-Clinton tussle in 2008. (They accomplished one of those, anyway.) The 2012 rules thus dictated that Super Tuesday states have proportional allocation of delegates. However, these states generally took advantage of the fact that the rules did not require strict proportional allocation.

Thus, in Georgia, the allocation of 42 district delegates depends very much on whether a candidate receives more than 50% of the vote, but if no candidate receives a majority in a district, three delegates are split 2-1 between the top two finishers. Another 31 at-large delegates are awarded to candidates receiving over 20% of the vote. Looking at the Georgia polling, it becomes easy to see Romney invested in Georgia in hopes of keeping Newt below 50% where he can, and perhaps in hopes of keeping Rick below 20% overall.

In Oklahoma, the allocation 15 district and 25 at-large delegates depend on whether a candidate gets 50% or how many candidates get more than 15%. Looking at Oklahoma polling, Santorum may be hoping to keep Romney below the 15% threshold. This makes Tom Coburn’s late endorsement of Romney a potentially key get for Mitt. Santorum also may have hoped to keep Romney below a key 20% threshold in Tennessee, but polling suggests a late Romney surge there.

In the key state of Ohio, 48 district delegates are awarded on a winner-take-all system per district, while 15 at-large delegates will likely be allocated based on a 20% threshold. Ohio polling suggests Newt will win few delegates in this system, which makes Santorum’s failure to meet the state’s eligibility requirements in three districts and to file a full slate in six others particularly damaging to Rick.

Lastly, as you may recall, Rick and Newt failed to qualify for the ballot in Virginia, and the polling suggests Romney will win all 49 delegates. The remaining big prize is Massachusetts (41 delegates), which may be almost as lopsided.

In short, the rules matter and elections favor those with the money and organization to work them (despite complaints from Romney and his supporters about them). They also explain why Mitt Romney spent Sunday morning serving pancakes in Snellville.

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