9 months ago
Nikki Haley’s campaign manager told reporters on the eve of the South Carolina primary that Haley would continue her campaign “until our door closes.”
But when it comes to the delegate math, it’s already swinging shut.
Haley made a big deal Saturday night about winning close to 40 percent of the vote in South Carolina, but it’s only gotten her 16 percent of the delegates. Former President Donald Trump’s sweep of the first four states on the Republican calendar netted him at least 106 delegates to Haley’s 17. (Final results from South Carolina are still rolling in, with six last delegates not yet assigned.)
In the next few contests, the delegates are about to pile up quickly, and there’s no sign that Haley will survive the avalanche. Even in a best-case scenario that stretches the limits of Haley’s appeal so far, based on current polling and each state’s delegate-allocation rules, Trump would end Super Tuesday on March 5 with 894 delegates. Haley would have just 207.
And that’s being generous to Haley.
Even though only about 6 percent of all available delegates have been awarded so far, primaries in the month of March alone account for 65 percent of the delegates. And the rules are structured in a way that means that Haley — who’s already down by large margins in the polls in many of the upcoming states — will likely receive an even smaller share of the delegates than she does votes over the next month.
Of the first three contests in which she’s competed, Haley won about 38 percent of the votes — and 16 percent of the delegates.
Many of the upcoming states have rules that allow the victor to get all of the delegates if they win a majority of the vote. Trump, in probably all cases — will get all of the delegates. (And starting March 19, most states go to a true winner-take-all system, so as long as Trump wins a plurality, he’d sweep all the delegates.)
Trump’s allies engineered some of those rules, like in California, the biggest prize of the entire primary. They pushed for the rule that triggers the state to flip to a winner-take-all system if a candidate receives a majority of the vote. It’s a smart move if you believed that the field would consolidate enough to allow Trump to win more than 50 percent, which turned out to be accurate so far.
Trump is a near shoo-in to get all of California’s 169 delegates: He led Haley, 64 percent to 17 percent, in a Public Policy Institute of California poll released last week.
And he’ll clean up the delegates across the rest of the country through Super Tuesday, too, even in this generous state-by-state scenario for Haley. Let’s game it out, giving her every plausible edge:
In Tuesday’s Michigan primary, say Haley actually wins her first state and gets a majority of the delegates awarded, seven of 13. But the bulk of Michigan’s delegates, 39, will actually be awarded next weekend at a state convention, where Trump is expected to romp with the party insiders.
Let's also assume Haley cleans up with voters in the District of Columbia (which has 9 delegates up for grabs) and American Samoa (4) — two contests too small for there to be reliable polling.
And say Haley also wins delegates from Utah (40) and Virginia (48), which we’re splitting evenly between the two candidates since their Republican electorates have historically been skeptical of Trump. But to be clear, similar majority thresholds exist there that could net the winner — most likely Trump — most or all of the delegates.
But even in the most charitable hypothetical for Haley, Trump will still almost certainly capture all of the delegates from the Super Tuesday states of Alabama (50), Arkansas (40), California (169), Maine (20), Massachusetts (40), Oklahoma (43) and Vermont (17) — all of which become winner-takes-all once a candidate hits a majority. He’ll also win all of the Tennessee (58) delegates if he captures two-thirds of the vote there, which is likely.
Texas (161) has the same majority threshold for its statewide delegates, though it also awards delegates for each of its 38 congressional districts. For this purpose, we’ve assigned two-thirds of the district delegates to Trump and one-third to Haley, though the former president is likely to win more of them than that.
Alaska (29), Colorado (37), Minnesota (39) and North Carolina (74) are proportional, and using a rough, 60-40 Trump-Haley breakdown to divide those delegates — again, probably generous to Haley overall, but that’s similar to what she received in New Hampshire (the state with the friendliest electorate so far) and South Carolina (her home state) —they will deliver Haley dozens of delegates even if she loses by more than that.
Hard reality sets in for Haley within two weeks of Super Tuesday, which has additional contests that would likely push Trump across the finish line.
There are 170 delegates at stake during a three-day stretch in mid-March, and then another 350 up for grabs on March 19 — by which time Trump will have, in all likelihood, clinched the nomination.
Haley on Saturday night vowed to continue her campaign, and if she’s still an active candidate on Super Tuesday, she’ll earn delegates. Just not that many. And it won’t do much to get her anywhere close to the nomination.
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