The State of the GOP Nomination Battle March 13, 2012 Edition

The above map shows how things currently stand on the morning of March 13, 2012 in the extended (thanks to the dimwits in the RNC) nomination battle for the Republican nomination for President.
Where possible, I like to put things into numbers, and the table below is an effort to paint a picture of what the nomination battle looks like in terms of how many delegates each candidate has and how many are needed to secure the nomination of the Republican party. The magic number is 1,144 of 2,268 delegates.

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Candidate	Current Delegates	Percent of 1,144	Needed	% of Remainder Needed
Mitt Romney	458	40.0%	686	47.6%
Rick Santorum	203	17.8%	941	65.3%
Newt Gingrich	118	10.3%	1,026	71.2%
Ron Paul	66	5.8%	1,078	74.8%

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I think the table shows the challenge faced by those opposing Mitt Romney in this primary season. Many of the states award delegates proportionally unless the victor manages to finish above the fifty percentile. That will make achieving the number needed well-nigh impossible as long as both Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich stay in the race.


I also still believe that Romney will be the nominee of the party. 


Today's Primaries


Alabama, Mississippi, Hawaii and American Samoa hold elections today and I expect Newt will probably take the two southern states and Mitt will take Hawaii and American Samoa.

After Today


The rest of March is pretty lean, with Missouri caucusing (again) on the 17th, Puerto Rico on the 18th, Illinios (95 delegates in one winner take all race) on the 20th and Louisiana on the 24th. 


In April, Maryland, Washington, DC and Wisconsin are on the 3rd and the bigger fish of Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Delaware, New York and Rhode Island taking place on the 24th.