Why You Want a 3-Man Race For Now
With a whopping 2 states in, there have been a lot of self-serving calls for all of the other candidates to drop out and back one opponent to Donald Trump. That’s a scary proposition because, frankly, we don’t know how any one individual would fare 1–1 against Trump. But we do know that with more than 1 opponent, Trump has been kept from getting close to the 50% threshold needed to win big. Heading into the March 1st primaries, you definitely want it to be at least a 3-man race. Why is March 1st so big?
- It’s the first date with multiple states voting - ranging from the south to the northeast to Alaska. It’s the first time candidates won’t be able to focus on 1-state for many weeks. They have to prove a national operation.
- The absolute worst thing to do is to turn proportional contests into Winner-take-all contests (by virtue of getting 50%+) as is the case in many states, unless you are darn well sure you stop Trump from being the one who hits 50%. The media is highly invested in securing a Trump win, both for their ratings and to embarrass the GOP and elect Hillary. You don’t think they will try to bury the second candidate? If the best chance ends up being a brokered convention, this keeps that option open in the event one candidate can’t break away after March 1st.
- Not all candidates can do well everywhere. Supporters of Ted Cruz want it to be a 2-man race early because the south votes early, and that is his main hope to rack up delegates. But Trump is also strong in the South. And Trump is strong everywhere else, as well. You probably need a wider-appealing candidate to slow down Trump in the Northeast, Midwest, and West. And starting March 15th, the map gets very unfriendly to a candidate like Ted Cruz. (But more on that map later)
Let’s look at the map after SC and NV. Regardless the outcome of those, March 1st becomes the biggest test of all.
March 1st:
Alabama 50 Delegates: There is a 20% threshold to receive delegates, but hitting 50% effectively makes the state winner-take-all. If Trump wins a 2-man race 54–46%, he likely gets 80–100% of the jackpot. If it’s 40%-35%-25%, he still wins, but the delegates are split much more evenly, and he probably doesn’t get half of them.
Alaska 28 Delegates - A 13% threshold. Similar to Iowa, and 3 candidates getting 33% is better than two getting 50%. Keeping delegates away from Trump needs to be a priority. (Remember, Iowa ended with Trump, Rubio, and Cruz all getting roughly equal delegates.)
Arkansas 40 Delegates: Same scenario as Alabama. Keeping Trump at <50% is crucial. Unless you are sure you know the one person does it, why risk it?
Colorado and Wyoming (Weird Caucus situations)
Georgia 76 Delegates: Same as AL/AR. Making this WTA by hitting 50% is not a great idea.
Massachusetts 42 Delegates: True statewide proportion with a 5% threshold. This is where a 2-man race can get ugly if the second man has no appeal. It is states like this where more candidates can be better, because everyone gets delegates. A Cruz-Trump duo would not be pretty. The more the merrier!
Minnesota 38 Delegates: Has a 10% threshold. Ted Cruz won’t be able to focus on much outside of the South, Rubio has focused everywhere. and actually has a strong organization here. Same situation.
Oklahoma 43 Delegates: Proportional at 15%, winner-take-all at 50%. Again, unless you know you can beat Trump head-to-head (and it’s unknowable at this stage) it’s too risky.
Tennessee 58 Delegates: Proportional at 20%, winner-take-all at 66%.
Texas 155 Delegates: With a 50% threshold, this would be the one state that has an obvious advantage for Cruz, which is great because it’s the biggest state of the day.
Vermont 16 Delegates: Same as Massachusetts. The more the merrier.
Virginia 49 Delegates: All proportional, no minimum threshold. Same as Vermont.
On March 1st, a field with at least 2 strong non-Trump candidates pretty much assures Trump won’t get 50% anywhere, and that’s a big deal. He needs to be kept as low as possible in proportional states. And with Trump being quite strong in the South, putting a lot of delegates at risk of being winner-take-all. What is key coming out of March 1st is that Trump isn’t hitting the 50%+ threshold in delegates. After two states, and performing well in both, he currently only has 32% of the total delegates allocated so far. It needs to be that - or preferably much lower - after March 1st.
March 5th
Kansas, Kentucky, and Louisiana combine for 132 delegates. There is no 50% WTA threshold, so keeping Trump as low as possible is advantageous. In Maine, it’s a 50% threshold and the winner gets all 23 delegates in a 1–1 race, but would get less than half in a 3+ man race that went 40–30–30.
March 8th
Michigan and Idaho have 92 delegates combined that turn WTA at 50%, and Mississippi has another 40 that is mostly WTA at 50%. Hawaiia has 19 proportionally.
End of Proportional Requirement
Up until this point, states were required to dish out their delegates proportionally. The advantage to that is no one candidate is likely to have run away with the nomination by this point. However, if it were a 2-man race, half of those early states convert to winner-take-all by hitting a 50% threshold. So until we get to at least March 1st, stop demanding all the other candidates get out! If stopping Trump is goal number 1, the best way to do that is make sure he has as few delegates as possible heading into true Winner take all states. If at this point, 70% of delegates are not in Trump’s column, that is a win (After all, the losers can consolidate together later, which will be another messy story).
March 15–22
Florida (99), Arizona (58), and Ohio (66) go WTA. North Carolina (72) is proportional and Illinois is complicated. Missouri is WTA by district and statewide.
April: Some real decisions need to be made by candidates. You can’t head into April with 4–6 candidates, because now even 30% can deliver huge delegate hauls.
We will know a lot of things by now. How strong will Trump be at this stage? Who really knows? If the strategy has worked, but Trump is still doing well, it may have to continue and go all the way through the convention. A 2-man race may still not be the way to go, but a lot of that depends on the candidate.
April - Cruz’s Problem Month
The Problem for Cruz is the map. Most of his good states are in early March (and those aren’t necessarily bad states for Trump, either.) His goal is to run up delegates in the South to make up for what happens in April. So even if Cruz is the second-strongest candidate, it might not be in his best interest to be left alone with Trump in April.
Wisconsin (42), New York (95), Connecticut (28), Delaware (16), Maryland (38), Pennsylvania (71), and Rhode Island (16) are the only April states. None of those stand out as great state for Cruz, and most feel more like New Hampshire. The good news is New York is only WTA at 50%, and keeping him below that may require more than 2 candidates, unless you think Cruz wins New York.
May is a slow month, and then the big finale is on June 7th. By June 7th, we will know if Trump is within striking distance of winning the nomination. 300 delegates will be handed out in winner-take-all fashion in California, Montana, New Jersey, New Mexico, and South Dakota. If he is, the candidate with the best chance to win those states will have to be left to go 1–1, with the other candidates coalescing around that one guy.
Sound crazy? It mat be the only way.