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Will the GOP presidential primary go all the way to the convention without a winner?

Asked by tedd (14078points) March 16th, 2012

I don’t have to update you on the current campaign for the presidency going on with the Republicans. I also don’t want to turn this into a thread arguing about whether or not they’re insane or if their ideas are better than those of the Democrats.

My question is basically this, do you think this nomination process will make it all the way to the GOP convention without a definite winner (aka, the dreaded/infamous “Brokered” convention). Should no candidate have the 1144 delegates needed, the nominee will basically be selected by the Republican establishment. This is generally frowned upon today as people see it as “smoke filled back room bargaining” that the masses are not party too. The last time any candidate secured the nomination via a brokered convention was Adlai Stevenson in 1952 (Democrat). The last Republican was Thomas Dewey in 1948. Both men lost those elections.

As of today, Mitt Romney has secured approximately 498 delegates (well beyond any opponent, Santorum is closest with 239). The nominee needs 1144 delegates to secure the nomination. If Mitt Romney won every single delegate from here on out, he would not secure the nomination until May 8th. He will almost undoubtedly not win every delegate. Romney has won 39.43% of the popular vote, so if you apply that to the remaining primaries in order—and even give Romney the advantage of automatically winning every winner-take-all state—his proportion from every state would not carry him over the 1144 mark until June 5th. This of course doesn’t take into account that Santorum and Romney will do better in some states and worse in others (the % used is just an overall national one, not a state-by-state one). Santorum may well win some of the winner-take-all states as well (in fact he leads the polls in Wisconsin).

What do you think will happen?

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