Mitt Romney won both races Tuesday night in Arizona and Michigan. He also won in Washington state and Wyoming. Let’s have a look at those real quick before we look ahead to Super Tuesday.
Romney won Arizona with 47% of the vote, followed by Rick Santorum’s 27%, Newt Gingrich’s 16%, and Ron Paul’s 8%. Arizona was winner-take-all, so that’s 29 delegates for Romney.
Michigan was a tight race, but went to Romney in the end over Santorum, 41% to 38%. Paul came in third with 12% and Gingrich took fourth with 7%. Note that Michigan was an open primary, so non-Republicans could vote. I previously discussed some open primary voting dynamics with regards to South Carolina, so I won’t replay that here.
Washington went to Romney with 38%. Paul took second with 25%, narrowly beating out Santorum’s 24%. Gingrich brought up the rear with 11%. Note this was a nonbinding straw poll and none of the state’s 43 delegates were awarded.
Romney took Wyoming with 39%. Santorum followed with 32%, beating out Paul’s 21%. Gingrich again took last with 8%. This also was a nonbinding vote.
For perspective on the delegate counts, it requires 1,144 delegates to win the nomination. Romney has 173 delegates, followed by Santorum at 87, Gingrich at 33, and Paul at 20. As you can see, the overwhelming majority of delegates remain uncontested and unallocated at this time.
Going into Michigan and Arizona, I was of the opinion that Romney needed two decisive wins. Though I appreciate the sentiment that a win’s a win, I maintain that view. Here, to get a ‘decisive win’ means Romney needed to not only beat Santorum, but beat the combined anti-Romney vote (aka Santorum plus Gingrich, but excluding Paul). Romney did that in Arizona, but failed to do so in Michigan.
Anti-Romney would have won Michigan, in other words. It’s still something that should be a major warning flag for the Romney camp and those who have (prematurely, in my view) coronated Romney as the nominee. Romney was widely expected to decisively win Arizona, and he did. He was also widely expected to win Michigan in a close race, which he did. I think Romney needed to exceed expectations, and merely meeting them is not good enough. In terms of delegates, Romney clearly won the night 40-11. In terms of expectations, however, I’d call it a draw for Romney in that he merely met them rather than exceeded them (obviously, a loss would have been if Romney failed to even meet expectations).
As I’ve been saying all along and will continue to say until it happens, anti-Romney needs to coalesce around one guy if they want to win. The longer they wait to do that, the better it is for Romney. This is one way of saying that Romney’s best friend right now is Gingrich. Similar to how Romney was hoping Rick Perry would stay in the race as long as possible (he dropped out just before South Carolina), Romney is now hoping Gingrich stays in the race for Super Tuesday. Santorum has, in my view, clearly displaced Gingrich as the choice of the anti-Romney camp. As long as this remains a four-person race, Romney is obviously still the guy to beat, but the race is too close to call if/when it goes down to three.
If you want Romney to win the nomination, you want Gingrich and Santorum to stay, and if you want Romney to lose it, you want Gingrich or Santorum to go (but not both). It’s that simple.
Now, it’s time to look ahead to Super Tuesday. The Los Angeles Times has a great primer on this year’s events here. Georgia, Ohio, Tennessee, Virginia, Oklahoma, Massachusetts, Idaho, North Dakota, Alaska, and Vermont are all in play.
Massachusetts and Georgia are absolute must-wins for Romney and Gingrich, respectively. I’m still generally of the opinion that a candidate failing to win his/her home state is pretty much intolerable. History proves that out in presidential elections since only two presidents have won an election and lost their home state (Polk in Tennessee in 1844 and Wilson in 1916 in New Jersey), but I admit I haven’t looked into it at the primary level.
I’m also of the opinion that candidates should be able to win in neighboring states to their home states, though I’m obviously not as rigid in neighbor states as the home state. To me, the home state is almost always a must-win, but the neighbor states are generally should-win (neutral or immaterial are other categories here). Under this logic, Vermont, Tennessee, and Ohio are should-win states for Romney, Gingrich, and Santorum, respectively. I’d even go so far as to peg Ohio as a must-win for Santorum based on how the race is going.
Being from Texas, Oklahoma is a neighbor state for Paul. For a more typical candidate/campaign strategy, I’d consider it a should-win for Paul, but Paul is not your typical candidate/campaign, as I’ve outlined before.
One might have considered Virginia to be Santorum and/or Gingrich’s neighbor depending on how far we want to stretch, but neither made the ballot, which is a major organization failure. Virginia is of particular interest to me because it’s just Romney and Paul. Nobody else made the ballot. Though I don’t see it happening, a Romney loss in Virginia would be a disaster for him.
Alaska, North Dakota, and Idaho present no home/neighbor advantage for anyone in the race. Also, given their opacity and general lack of data, I don’t really have a feel for them. All I’m listing here, for the most part, are states that I view as must/should-win states for various candidates. We’ll see how this plays out.
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