Romney still needs almost 500 delegates to clinch GOP nomination
(CBS News) -- Mitt Romney may be the Republican Party's presumptive nominee, but it will be a while before he actually has the delegates needed to clinch the nomination.
Romney currently has 645 delegates, according to CBS News estimates. He now needs 499 more to reach 1,144 - the number of delegates a candidate must have to be nominated.
Full state-by-state delegate estimates from CBS News
Complete GOP primary results
Even though Romney's chief rival, Rick Santorum, has suspended his campaign, states continue to hold primaries. There are five contests on April 24th with 219 delegates at stake; but even if Romney won every single delegate that day he would be far short of 1,144. Wyoming and Missouri are holding conventions before April 24th where Romney may pick up some delegates but even winning all of them wouldn't bring him much closer to the magic number.
Looking ahead, Romney would need to win about 80 percent of the delegates available in the April and May events to possibly clinch on May 29th when Texas holds its primary with 152 delegates at stake. If Romney won 90 percent of the delegates in April and through May 22nd he may still come up short of the 1,144 and need delegates from Texas' primary on May 29th.
There are a couple ways Romney can get more delegate support aside from the remaining primaries: Unpledged delegates and upcoming state conventions.
There are about 120 delegates who are members of the Republican National Committee and are technically unpledged and free to support who they choose (similar to superdelegates on the Democratic side). According to CBS News estimates, Romney currently has the support of 34 of these delegates (these are included in the 645 total for Romney), but most of these delegates are uncommitted at this point. With Santorum now out of the race many of these delegates may be more likely to express their support for Romney.
Also, many of the states that held caucuses earlier in the primary season will be holding conventions soon (many in early May), which is often where the delegates are actually chosen. These delegates sometime reflect the results of the caucus results but sometimes they don't. Romney could get a few more delegates from these conventions.
As for Santorum's 252 delegates, he basically gets to keep them for now. According to the Republican National Committee, since Santorum suspended his campaign and didn't actually end it, this becomes a state by state issue. In states that bind delegates for a specified number of ballots, the delegates remain bound until they are released by the campaign. In other states that do not specify, they are free to go where they want as soon as someone's campaign is suspended.
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Why? First and foremost, a vote for Rick is a vote for freedom! Rick was a champion for freedom. He is also a very strong advocate for protecting our constitution.
Also, and possibly most importantly, a vote for Rick will show the establishment that they can not choose our candidate for us. It will tell them that we are not going to lie down and play dead while they tell us who to vote for. It tells them that we have minds of our own and that we will use those minds to choose the candidate who best represents our values.
Some people argue that voting for Rick is a wasted vote since he is no longer running. That couldn't be further from the truth. It will take votes away from the other candidates that we don't believe in. Worst case scenario, it will send us into a brokered convention. That could be a good thing, because then anyone, including Rick, can become our nominee.
You will not be alone in your vote. There are thousands of us online banding together, actively campaigning for Rick to make this happen. We do realize Rick may not re-enter the race, but for the reasons I stated above, it is important that you still vote for Rick. Plus, who knows... If Rick sees enough support, if he gets enough votes, maybe he will decide to re-enter the race.
Gina Marie Cadorette
Simsbury, Conn.
We have nothing to lose and everything to gain.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AMjycf1sh_0&feature=youtu.be
Hey CBS why dont you do your job and report the truth once in your life?
http://rtr.org/videos/35567/43242/fox-news-says-ron-paul-is-the-biCa
The LSM have, for the past few election cycles, taken the most liberal candidate from the last cycle in the GOP (McLame and now Romney) and made them their darling. Just because the media pushes a candidate, doesn't make them a viable candidate. They believe that they will be tops in the oligarchy they are trying to set up, why do you think they have supported censorship of the Internet??? It's where they will be the only place to get your "news", chocked full of lies, that furthers their deception of the masses. There is only one hope for America, RON PAUL 2012
http://rtr.org/videos/35567/43242/fox-news-says-ron-paul-is-the-biCa
Ron Paul is doing way better than you can imagine, I guarantee you. It might be at the Convention before that becomes clear to you in the media.
Paul has a plurality or majority of delegates in IA, NH, MN, ME, MO, WA, CO, NM, AK, ND, and stands a good chance in TX (his home state), KY, IN, NC,MT, SD, and the remaining southern states that won't vote for a moderate or a Mormon. All Dr. Paul has to do is keep Romney from reaching 1144 delegates. Since Romney's counts are exaggerated in the media (his actual tally is somewhere in the low 500's) and Dr. Paul's are understated (actual total in the high 300's), this is a likely outcome. And that is before any of Santorum's delegates are released to Dr. Paul in the conservative states previosly "won" by Santorum.
The reason you have no empirical evidence of pluralities of delegates is that the delegations have not been chosen yet. All we have in most states are anecdotes and interviews with the lower level delegates that will choose them. When will the media understand? ALL VOTES CAST IN NON-BINDING "BEAUTY CONTESTS" ARE IRRELEVANT TO THE FINAL APPORTIONMENT OF DELEGATES.
I am a delegate from my precinct caucus to my Leg. District caucus. I can attest that the Paul campaign is extremely potent and well-organized. They actively canvass the District and County delegates to assess their strategy for the State Convention which occurs in 2 months in my state.
If anyone is qualified to give a projection in the many caucus states which have yet to even form their conventions, the Paul campaign would be among the most credible sources.
In states like mine (WA) where Romney had majorities in a few Districts, the Santorum and Paul campaigns allied on a combined slate to deny Romney as many delegates as possible. We succeeded in many cases and are on good terms with them. I expect the Santorum delegates will respect this and support Dr. Paul going forward.
Nobody in the Paul campaign is blowing smoke. The estimates you are hearing from them are about as accurate as exit polls which are pretty close to reality.
Nobody can predict delegate counts from conventions which won't occur for weeks, especially with Gingrich scaling back and Santorum dropping out entirely.
Here is a great tool on Yahoo that can be used to estimate the actual number of delegates from each state in both past and future contests.
http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/signal/yahoo-delegate-calculator-interactive-look-primary-odds-195241348.html
Using known preferences and constituency of the respective state delegations you will find that nearly any realistic scenario leads to Romney falling short of the requisite 1144 delegates. In the resulting brokered convention the Paul-delegate-stacked delegations can switch their votes in the 2nd ballot.
One thing is certain: there is only 1 fiscal conservative left in the race. Independent accounting groups estimate that Romney's plans will increase the debt by $500 billion over his 4 year term. Gingrich? $7 Trillion more debt! Obama? You don't even wanna know.
Ron Paul is the only guy with a solid plan to really cut government in size and cost. $1 Trillion in debt reduction in year one and at least another trillion in years 2-4 with a balanced budget.
If these cuts are not made and heaven forbid we add another Trillion a year under Obamacare, our Republic will cease to exist within less than 5 years. This is not trivial campaign jargon; it is math; as certain and inexorable as the intersection of two curves on a graph. We WILL default on our sovereign debt and the dollar WILL collapse.
The resulting inflationary death spiral of the dollar will lead to a global Dark Age (95% of nations use the US dollar as their reserve). It can be prevented if we turn the ship now. It will depend on how willing we are to listen to one feisty old Congressman from south Texas.
So: Yes. Not only is Dr. Paul a real and viable threat to upset Romney, he deserves your support as possibly the last chance to prevent the end of Western civilization.
Sorry, that is untrue. You are referring to the St. Charles county caucus which was the only caucus held last week. All 147 delegates went to Ron Paul. However, all of Missouri's other counties held their caucuses a couple of weeks before, on March 17th. As a Missouri delegate, I can attest to the fact that Ron Paul certainly did not win every caucus.
Ron Paul delegates may have the majority of delegates at the State convention, but there is still the Congressional District conventions this Saturday, which will select the first half of National delegates. There is no telling whether RP will have the majority at our 9 different CD conventions.
Please also take into account that the St. Charles county delegates have been split between 2 Congressional districts, and will thus be going to 2 different CD conventions.
The MSM is going to pay a big price as a result of their biased and sometimes downright fraudulent reporting on Ron Paul and what they've done to his campaign. Same thing goes with the GOP neocon leadership at all levels... they're already getting pushed out of their party positions all across the country.
The Liberty Revolution has begun and can no longer be stopped. People are finally waking up to the fact that we've been duped by the 2 party system over the last 50 years. Enough is enough...
GO RON PAUL 2012!!!
Also, the numbers for Washington aren't right - the Santorum and Paul campaign shut out the Romney delegates after the Romney delegates tried to create a sneaky "Unity Slate" to block out the Paul campaign. It totally backfired and the Romney campaign ended up getting BLANKED. I think when people see the actual delegate counts, rather than the media misrepresentation, they are going to be pleasantly surprised - Romney has nowhere near as many delegates as they are saying, and Ron Paul has tons more!
If the GOP thinks we're going to vote for a guy who supports the Brady Bill and the Assault Weapons ban - IN DIRECT VIOLATION OF THE 2ND AMENDMENT - then they are out to LOSE AGAIN. Why do they keep putting up LIBERAL like McCain and Romney??? What are they thinking???
Furthermore, what kind of chance do they think Romney has against Obama when he can't even fill a stadium with more than a few hundred people ... while Dr. Paul regularly fills multiple stadiums across the country with THOUSANDS of people?
To date - NOBODY - has been able to show me a picture of a Romney Rally that has more the just a few hundred attending. (?????)
Here's Dr. Paul at UCLA on 4/4 with a stadium that seats 10,000 people full and standing room only remaining. --> http://www.thedailypaul.com/images/rp-uclac.jpg
Here's the best I could find with Romney having about 1,200 people cheering him on. --> http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/25/us/politics/for-romney-a-message-lost-in-the-empty-seats.html?_r=1
I'm convinced beyond the shadow of a doubt that massive voter fraud is being practised along with the FAR MORE OBVIOUS tactic of a media that is totally IGNORING Dr. Paul.
Well, at least they finally learned how the delegate system works. Something Ben Swann on WXIX-19 has been telling us for months. I guess the guys who make the big bucks just have a hard time paying attention.
For those curious, this will likely cause what is known as a brokered convention. All delegates get to choose who they want to vote for. Jeb Bush could win a brokered convention. Or Donald Trump. It is up to the delegates.
The winner of the brokered convention will then go on to challenge President Obama in the 2012 election.
There. CBS, I give you permission to copy/paste my comment in to your article to save time. I understand that you are busy people who cannot be bothered to understand the political system that has been a part of the USA since the 1860s.