Previewing Super Tuesday Part III

Tomorrow, the voters in five big, important states will state their preferences and have the potential to significantly alter the trajectory of the presidential derby. Those states, most of which will be swing states in the general election, are Florida, Ohio, Illinois, North Carolina and Missouri.

Some are calling tomorrow Super Tuesday 2; I’m calling it Super Tuesday 3. A week ago, Bernie Sanders pulled a stunning upset by besting Hillary Clinton in Michigan while Donald Trump solidified his stranglehold on the Republican race by winning three of four states. Last Tuesday also signified the beginning of the end of the campaign for Marco Rubio. Just as the Democratic race has been a de facto two-person race for months, the Republican race is coming down to Trump and Ted Cruz, with Rubio and John Kasich hanging on by the slimmest of threads.

I’ll start with the Dems because it’s super simple on Super Tuesday 3. Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, with the help of 472 un-elected superdelegates, has a commanding 670 delegate lead over Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders. The self-avowed 74-year old socialist’s unexpected triumph last Tuesday in Michigan gave him a boost to remain relevant in the campaign but it resulted in a mere nine-delegate advantage while Clinton trounced Sanders in Mississippi, scoring a 76-point thumping and thus 25 more delegates.

For tomorrow, in the Real Clear Politics average of voter polls, Clinton holds the lead over Sanders in all five states voting, although three of the polls show just a small advantage (Ohio, Illinois, Missouri). Still, he only thing that could alter the flow of this contest would be if Sanders won four out of five states. Because the Democrats award all delegates on a proportional basis, even an upset on that level wouldn’t change the delegate math. Bernie’s best and likely only chance at the nomination is for Hillary to lose the “FBI primary” if she gets indicted by the Justice Department for her use of a private email server.

Let’s move onto the Republicans. The billionaire businessman Trump has thus far accumulated 462 delegates (out of the 1,237 needed to secure the nomination). Texas Senator Cruz is 91 behind with 371 with Florida Senator Rubio and Ohio Governor Kasich way behind (with 165 and 63 respectively). These delegate numbers, incidentally, come from CNN’s website (other news organizations have slightly different numbers).

The big news story of the week is that Trump had to cancel a rally in Chicago because of the volume of anti-Trump protesters and the fear of violence. It is the million dollar question whether this helps or hurts the bombastic front-runner. Most events that would hurt a normal candidate have gone Trump’s way in this bizarre election season. I can’t imagine it would do anything but further solidify the resolve of those who are firmly in his camp but also can’t fathom that it gains him any new voters.

This Tuesday marks a shift in the way that the Republicans allocate most of their delegates. Ohio and Florida are winner take all states. If candidate X gets just one more vote than candidate Y (out of a million cast), candidate X gets all of the delegates. The other states are some degree of winner take all, winner take “most” or proportional allocation. Below is a quick state-by-state explanation of the delegates at stake and who is likely to win.

• Florida (99 delegates): winner takes all delegates.

The Sunshine State was supposed to be Rubio’s firewall but Trump is way ahead in all of the polls. The young senator dealt his candidacy a fatal blow two weeks ago when he started insulting Trump personally, essentially trying to out-Trump the Donald. As Bill O’Reilly said in his “Who Wants to Be President” show (which I attended Saturday night in LA), this was like Pee Wee Herman jumping into the ring to fight Mike Tyson. Rubio’s positive, aspirational message for the future of America was replaced by comments about Trump’s hand size, hair, tan, and whether he had wetted his pants.

By sinking to Trump’s level of ad hominem attacks, Rubio sunk his campaign. In the eight states that have voted since Super Tuesday, Rubio finished 3rd or 4th. The only good news in the last two weeks for Rubio were wins in Puerto Rico and Washington DC. The voters in the commonwealth and district don’t have a say in the fall election but do participate in the primary process. These wins are nice and the delegates count but they represented a microscopic number of voters (less than 40,000 combined) compared to what’s happening this week. I’m surprised I haven’t heard Trump “congratulate” Rubio for winning the “lobbyist” primary in DC.

After playing in the gutter for a week and getting trounced in last Tuesday’s voting, Rubio went back to his old style and had a terrific debate on Thursday but, in a debate which was uncommonly civil, none of the other candidates stumbled and so it likely did not help Rubio at all.

Florida’s is a “closed” primary (only registered Republicans can vote). That normally portends a weaker performance for Trump. Rubio vows that all of the polls are wrong and that he’ll win in his home state. It’s possible but extremely unlikely and, although he has vowed to stay in the race regardless, he’ll be functionally finished when he loses.

(Incidentally, all of the other four states are open to independents, which is to Trump’s benefit)

• Ohio (66 delegates): winner take all.

The hometown Governor Kasich, who boasts a 80% approval rate in the Buckeye State, has staked his candidacy on winning here. It’s an unusual year when a candidate can lose 26 contests in a row and still feel as if he has a path to the nomination. That’s the uniqueness of a process in which the front-runner is considered unacceptable by more than half of the electorate. Kasich has a slight lead on Trump in the RCP average of polls. Having won two state-wide elections as governor, one would expect Kasich to have a vastly superior ground game and be able to cruise to a fairly easy victory.

Kasich has said that, if he loses his home state, he’s finished. Even if he wins, his primary role going forward would be as a spoiler to help Cruz deny Trump the 1,237 delegates needed to win.

• Illinois (69 delegates): 15 of those delegates go to the overall winner, the other 54 split three at a time among the 18 congressional districts.

Trump has a fairly consistent lead in the polls conducted in the Land of Lincoln but Cruz is not far behind (4 points back in the most recent CBS poll). I would expect the Donald to accumulate the lion’s share of the delegates, especially with 10 of the 18 districts in the Chicago area. In the earlier contests, Rubio did well in the urban and big-city suburban areas but his campaign has tanked in such a big way that I doubt he’ll be competitive anywhere in the state.

Cruz will likely win most of the southern districts (which more closely mirror the areas where he has done well). Still, it wouldn’t be surprising if Trump emerges with more than 50 of the 69 delegates up for grabs.

• North Carolina (72 delegates): strictly proportional delegate allocation

This is the one state where all four candidates will get some delegates and Trump has a sizeable lead in three of the four polls taken in March (with Cruz nipping at his heels in the other). Trump will likely win but it won’t have the significance of the other contests because of the proportional allocation of the delegates.

• Missouri (52 delegates): 12 delegates are awarded to the state-wide winner. The other 40 are split five at a time in a winner take all formula vote for each of the eight congressional districts.

Strangely, we have only been shown one poll in the Show Me State so there’s little scientific evidence to look at to determine who will win there. In the only poll I’ve seen, Trump has 36% to Cruz’ 29% (with Rubio and Kasich in single digits). This is a critical state for Cruz. He should be spending all of his time here but has wasted some of it in states where he can’t win (Florida and Ohio) in an effort to try to knock out the other two non-Trumps.

Missouri is bordered on the west by Kansas, where Cruz won handily. It’s bordered on the north by Iowa, where he beat the 11-candidate field to kick off the primary season. It’s bordered on the south by Arkansas, where he ran neck-and-neck with Trump. The Arkansas result occurred before Rubio’s popularity tanked. If you ran that race again tomorrow, Cruz would likely win. On the eastern border of Missouri sits southern Illinois, where Cruz is running even with Trump in the polls.

So, based on the map and the fact that Trump will likely win all 99 Florida delegates, you can see why Missouri is so critical for Cruz.

Having run through these states, let me throw out a projection with the delegate consequences:

Wordpress Table Plugin

The key number on the table above is, if the results go as predicted here, that Trump will need to win 61% of the remaining delegates to secure the nomination before the convention begins. While a tough road, with many of the future contests in “winner take all” or “winner take most,” getting 61% is very realistic.

This is why the Ohio contest is so crucial: if Trump manages to beat John Kasich and the other results hold as I predicted, Trump would only need 53% of the remaining delegates to win. On the flip side, if Rubio pulls a massive upset and wins in Florida, the Donald would need to earn 71% of the remaining delegates, a much, much bigger hurdle to climb.

With Cruz as Trump’s prime competitor, look at some of the key states yet to come between now and the end of April:

• Arizona (March 22nd): 58 delegates (winner take all)
• Utah (March 22nd): 40 delegates (proportional)
• Wisconsin (April 5th): 45 delegates (winner take most)
• New York (April 19th): 95 delegates (winner take most)
• Connecticut (April 26th): 28 delegates (winner take most)
• Delaware (April 26th): 16 delegates (winner take all)
• Maryland (April 26th): 38 delegates (winner take all)
• Rhode Island (April 26th): 19 delegates (proportional)
• Pennsylvania (April 26th): 71 delegates (winner take most)

Notice something? After Arizona, Utah and Wisconsin, the next six states are all in the northeast. This is not Ted Cruz country. Instead, it’s right in Trump’s wheelhouse: remember he won Massachusetts at 49%. Pennsylvania is a mixed bag but it’s pretty clear that the upcoming map favors the Donald. This is why Ohio (for Kasich) and Missouri and possibly Illinois (for Cruz) are so critical for members of the “Never Trump” movement.

Finally, let’s spell out the best and worst case scenarios for all four candidates:

• Donald Trump

Best case: he sweeps all five contests but Rubio stays in the race anyway while Kasich drops out. With moderate states upcoming on the docket, Rubio and Cruz would split non-Trump vote, paving the path for the billionaire businessman.

Worst case: he loses Florida, Ohio, Missouri and either loses (or barely loses) Illinois. This would re-set the whole race. I think it’s a very unlikely outcome but it’s the worst case.

• Ted Cruz

Best case: Kasich wins Ohio, Cruz wins Missouri handily, ekes out a narrow win in Illinois, over-performs in North Carolina and finishes 2nd in Florida. A 2nd place finish in the Sunshine State would have to knock Rubio out of the race and Rubio’s presence in a three-person contest probably hurts Cruz more than Kasich’s. Cruz has been banging the drum for a two-person race so he would likely quibble with my analysis that a Kasich win in Ohio is good for him. I disagree with his campaign’s analysis.

I see a come-from-behind win in a two-person race really tough for Cruz based on the states upcoming. New York and Connecticut in particular (with 123 delegates combined) would almost certainly go to Trump in a two-way race. However, with Kasich still there and now benefiting from “establishment” dollars on his behalf, Trump would likely fall short of the 50% needed to take ALL of the delegates in those states.  What Cruz needs to do is survive April, let Trump win some northeast states but not hog all of the delegates while Kasich wins nothing and then drops out after April 26th.

Worst case: Trump wins Missouri and Illinois and Rubio unexpectedly wins Florida.

• Marco Rubio

Best case: the young senator begins his third comeback story with an unexpected come-from-behind victory in Florida. He gets the 99 delegates and the case to move forward. In the best case here, Kasich also wins Ohio (denying Trump the 69 delegates there) and Cruz wins only one state (Missouri). A four-person race, for the time being, would ensure Trump couldn’t take all delegates in some of the upcoming states that are “winner take all” if nobody gets 50%. Rubio’s only possible path is a contested convention in which he has momentum in the last two months and is in the neighborhood of Trump and Cruz in delegate count. Odds of this scenario taking place? Probably 2 or 3%.

Worst case: he not only loses to Trump in Florida but finishes third behind Cruz.

• John Kasich

Best case: a huge win in Ohio (nearly 50% and more than 10 points better than Trump) while Rubio loses Florida and Cruz wins Missouri and Illinois. Kasich’s only (exceedingly narrow) path is keep both Trump and Cruz way, way short of the 1,237 delegates needed for the nomination. In that scenario, the GOP goes to a contested convention, which might favor the only governor remaining in the race. For this fantasy to play out, of course, Kasich would have to ride this momentum to some more wins which, though unlikely, is possible in the northeast in a three-way race with Trump and Cruz.

Worst case: he loses his home state to Trump and is out of the race.

Thanks for reading.

Chris Bodig