June

There are only six contests left at this point: California, New Jersey, South Dakota, Montana, New Mexico and Utah. New Jersey and Utah are obviously Romney-friendly, while South Dakota and Montana are Santorum-friendly. California is probably Romney-friendly, as is, probably, New Mexico, but California divvies up almost all of its delegates by congressional district.

I’ve said this before, but who is voting in a Republican primary in Maxine Waters’ district? I honestly have no clue whom they would favor — and there are a lot of districts like this in California. The whites who vote in the Central Valley districts are culturally similar to Southern whites, and the mountain districts are awfully conservative as well. We’ll give Romney 42 districts, but this is probably giving him too much benefit of the doubt.

So what’s the bottom line here? Romney ends up with 1,071 delegates, still short of the nomination. Now, there are a few important caveats. First, there are 114 unpledged RNC delegates, who can vote for anyone. Second, there are another 86 delegates in states that have already voted that have yet to be allocated. Romney will probably get somewhere between a third and half of these delegates.

So a brokered convention is still a long shot, but (1) note how long it takes Romney to get into range; and (2) recall that we’ve perhaps been too generous with Romney in our delegate allocations in New York, Texas and California, especially after the brutal March he is likely about to have.