Wyoming looks to be pushing Mitt into 1st!
It’s already rolling. Go to USA Today’s Wyoming site for the totals throughout the day. Right now with 67% of precincts in, Mitt has won 6 out of the 8 delegates that have been claimed (one each were taken by Hunter and Thompson), with four more up for grabs. If Mitt gets the delegates people have reported elsewhere (about 9 from Iowa), that would put him in the nominal lead as of right now, with Mitt at 15, Huck at 13, Thompson at about 6 and McCain at 5. Iowa’s system is indirect enough (and neither is technically binding, they’re based on an honor system–see the NY Times explanation) these numbers aren’t exact (one more place to look for delegate counts: the Green Papers website). But if these counts are right, the Tour de France metaphor is turning out to be correct so far in the early going. Take 2d in IA, win the stage in WY. On to the yellow jersey!
Another story: Mitt has the lead for claim of Republican National Convention’s delegates not tied to any one state. CNN ran this story before the Iowa caucuses.
Keep an eye on WY and keep calling out there in NH!
January 5th, 2008 at 5:38 pm
Paul, I do not know how accurate CNN is, but they have the delegate scorecard for each candidate. It is here. Not counting today’s Wyoming Caucus, so far, Huckabee has 20 delegates, vs Mitt’s 18. For the rest, it is 3 for McCain, 3 for Thompson, 2 for Paul and 1 for Rudy. So yes, Mitt is now ahead coming out of Wyoming at 26 (8 plus 18), vs Huckabee’s 20.
To put things in perspective for the rest of you who may not know. There are a total of 2,380 delegates; of which there are 1,917 “pledged delegates” (committed to states) and 463 “unpledged delegates” (the Republican insiders, many with whom Mitt has a stronger relationship than Huckabee. Still, they could go for anyone, including Rudy).
In order to win a nomination, you must have 50% plus one of the delegates, which is 1,191. If no one get that many, there will be a national party convention in September, where those delegates have to convince others to support their own candidates, until we get the 1,191. More likely, they will try to broke the deal of some kind (having candidates on the same ticket or such). So far, it is looking more and more likely that we could end up there as we may not have a clear winner. It is not a good sign, because the Democratic nominee could use the whole year campaigning; opposing to us being focused within the party.
January 5th, 2008 at 5:45 pm
With the Wyoming Delegates, Mitt is in first place with at least 26 compared to Huckabee with 20 and McCain with 3. Even if McCain should win in New Hampsire, Mitt will still be ahead of him and will have expanded his lead over Huckabee. I believe Mitt will win in New Hampshire because the independents who support McCain are more likely to vote in the Democrat primary this time because of the Obama phenomenon.