THE BOOK--Playing The Percentages In Baseball

It’s only one delegate, but…

that is some of the most stupid logic I have seen.

Michigan awards 3 delegates to the winner of each of their 14 CDs. Then they have 14 at large delegates, split proportionally between those candidates who finish above 15% statewide. Only Romney and Santorum accomplished that, with Romney receiving 52.6% of the votes cast for all the candidates (two) who had above 15%, so he gets 7 and Santorum 7. They each have 28, plus 3 uncommitted for a total of 59.

Then they acknowledge that the state will likely lose 50% of their delegates because they had the primary before Super Tuesday. Those stricken delegates apparently still attend the convention, but don’t get to vote. In that case, there will be 2 voting delegates for the winners of each of the 14 CDs, and 2 at large to be split proportionally.

That sounds easy, but not how they did it. When awarding the at large delegates, the non voting ones were still in the pool (why? this is scenario #2). Becuase they start allocating with the highest vote getter, Romney gets both at large voting delegates, Santorum none.

It’s only one delegate, but under this logic, they could have decided to award 1 voting and 2 non-voting to the winner of each CD, and 14 voting and 14 non-voting at large, with all the 14 voting to Romney and all the 14 non-voting to Santorum.

It should be easy. When allocating voting delegates, ignore the ones who aren’t voting. Do scenario #1, full slate if no penalty is assessed, scenario #2 at 50% penalty. No need to mix the two.

So, the only way that the two voting delegates get awarded to different candidates is if there were at least 14 candidates that got more than 15% of the vote (since if only 13 got at least 15% of the vote, and they were all essentially tied for first place, the top candidate would get 2 delegates and everyone else 1 delegate, since you can’t award partial delegates)

However, it’s impossible to have any more than 6 candidates get at least 15% of the vote, so there is in fact no scenario where the voting delegates are split, which makes it a “winner-take-all” situation - very well-disguised…

Have I got this wrong?

Right!  I wonder if someone in the news media will point that out.

Note that the “winner take all” is only for the two “voting floating” delegates.  The other 28 of the 30 voting ones are allocated by district.

I’ve read this a number of times and I have no idea what you think it means.  As best I can tell, you think it means that “starting with” will always require you to allocate all the delegates to the first candidate before you allocate to the second candidate.  I would argue, and I think that this is how it was read until after primary day, that it means “allocate proportionately, starting with the first one(s) to the first candidate and the next one(s) to the second candidate, etc.” So if two candidates are proportionately tied, the first gets the first delegate, the second the second, etc.  If one candidate has twice as many as the second one, that candidate gets the first two, the next goes to the second, the next two to the first, etc., until they are all used up.  The words can take that meaning as easily if not more so than your interpretation, and it gives “proportionately” a lot more meaning. 

If they meant “the first place winner will get all the voting delegates” they could have said so in exactly so many words.  There are no party rules against a winner take all primary, as there was one in Arizona the exact same day.  If they were leaving in an intentional ambiguity, so they could interpret it against Santorum either way, then they deserve every drop of criticism they’re getting.

I’m not arguing FOR their interpretation. 

I’m just describing WHAT their interpretation is.

4 - yes, that’s how it reads, the top candidate gets delegates, then the next

It is nit winner take all for the at large, it clearly says that by referring to the allocation. But they effectively made it winner take all by putting the non-voting delegates into the pool when assigning voting delegates.

The issue (and with all the ‘not many delegates have been handed out, the news is obsessive, this is dumb’ pieces) is you’re presuming the primary process matters because of the delegates it awards. Far more important is that it runs candidates through an election-like gauntlet, quite realistic in fact because it is an election itself.

What matters about Michigan is it’s a swingy state itself with many similar characteristics to a state like Ohio that Republicans need to win. What matters is it’s a state where Romney had a dedicated advantage from birth, spent millions of dollars, swore he wouldn’t lose, and still only eked out a win.

While the direct delegate effect was minimal, it tells something about the candidate. When the last not-Romney standing come Iowa time manages to almost beat a Romney in Michigan, what does that say for Romney trying to run against the Obama machine?