John Kasich's delegates

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What happens now to Kasich's delegates? 

Now that Gov. John Kasich has suspended his campaign for the GOP nomination, my question is: what happens to his delegates? Does it make a difference if he “suspends” his campaign or officially withdraws? Here’s something I found by Rober Eno at ConservativeReview (March 28):

Last week we debunked the myth that John Kasich’s Ohio delegates would be forced to vote for Trump if the Ohio governor withdrew from the nomination fight. To recap, they remain bound to Kasich for the first ballot and were hand selected by his campaign. Now that 66 of Kasich’s delegates are accounted for, what happens to the remaining 79 of his delegates were he to suspend?

Twenty-one additional delegates from Iowa, Virginia, Illinois, and North Carolina are bound to Kasich, even if he withdraws or suspends. That means a total of 87 delegates are bound by rule to vote for Kasich on the first ballot—that is, 60 percent of his delegates.

Thirty-two delegates would be unbound from Kasich on the first ballot were he to publicly suspend his campaign. The delegates are from New Hampshire, Maine, Michigan, and the District of Columbia. Of those, 13 of the actual delegates were selected by the Kasich campaign. The rest were selected by the state party or at a convention.

Twenty-five delegates would become unbound if Kasich specifically unbinds them in writing to a state party, mostly by informing the party that he has withdrawn. They include delegates from Massachusetts, Vermont, Kansas, and Kentucky. These delegates were not handpicked by the candidate.

The single delegate from Nevada can unbind him or herself upon withdrawal by Kasich if she or he so wishes.

If no candidate reaches 1,237 delegates prior to the convention, and John Kasich has dropped out prior to the convention, only 58 of his delegates would be free-agents on the first ballot in Cleveland.

The entire analysis is here.

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The Delegate Math

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Ted Cruz just got thrashed in the five primaries yesterday, so today, he’s announced his VP running mate: Carly Fiorino. No surprise there. Cruz SuperPacs funders( Club for Growth, Keep The Promise and Robert Mercer) transferred funds to Carly’s campaign. See here and here. Meanwhile, the pro-Trump blogger Sundance runs the numbers following yesterday’s primary results:

The Delegate Math – Going into last night’s contest Trump was holding 848 delegates (Cruz 559).  There were 175 possible delegates available last night, however 54 are unbound from PA.

Based on preliminary results, it appears Donald Trump has swept every pledged delegate in Maryland [38] (won every congressional district), also Connecticut [28] (won every CD and took more than 50% statewide), Pennsylvania [17] (statewide delegates are awarded winner-take-all) and Delaware [16], along with 11 delegates in Rhode Island.

That’s a net pledged delegate gain of 110.  However, the math gets better because it appears Trump has also won 45 of Pennsylvania’s 54 “unbound” district level delegates (delegates declared for Trump, or declared intent to vote for CD winner).  So the approximate gain in delegates yesterday is around 155.

Add those 155 to the previous 848 and you get 1,003.

The Math Will Move In Direct Proportion To The Ideology – Most of the media totals will not include those unbound delegates from PA regardless of who they declared support toward.  Some media totals may include parts or portions of those unbound delegates – so you can expect to see some significant disparity depending on which media outlet is presenting their version of the data.

EXAMPLE:  CNN has a total for Trump of 988 (LINK) –  The New York Times has 950 (LINK)  – Politico is also using 950 (LINK) – and Green Papers has 956 (LINK).  It appears CNN is using “some” of the unbound PA delegates, and the latter three are not using any.

However, the fact that Donald Trump has resoundingly won every congressional district in Pennsylvania, and the fact Trump won the entire state with 57% of the vote total, gives Team Trump an easy leverage point to advance the argument they are entitled to the support of all 54 unbound Pennsylvania delegates.  Again, it appears 45 of them are already pledged to Trump or have agreed to vote for the CD/State winner.

[See here for the charts and map.]

Conservatively it is fair to say Donald Trump has won, at a minimum, 1,000 delegates as of this moment.

The goal is to reach 1,237.  But again, let’s be conservative and say –Moving Forward– Trump needs another 250 just for safe measure.  250 more delegates will easily put him over the top with wiggle room.

There are 502 delegates remaining in the next six weeks.  Indiana (next Tuesday) is holding 57 of those:

27 are district allocated to the winner in each of the 9 congressional districts.  Whoever wins the most votes in that district will receive all 3 convention delegates.

30 (10 base at-large delegates plus 17 bonus delegates plus 3 RNC delegates) statewide delegates are to be allocated to the presidential contender receiving the greatest number of votes statewide. (link)

Currently Donald Trump is slightly ahead of the polls in Indiana.  Senator Ted Cruz has planted his flag, and with it his entire campaign, on winning Indiana.

Prior to last night’s results, Indiana was a must win for Senator Cruz and the #NeverTrump team.  After last night’s results, Indiana is now an absolute MUST WIN for Senator Cruz.

If Donald Trump wins Indiana, taking most, many, if not all of the 57 delegates, the Cruz/Kasich/#NeverTrump scheme is completely wiped out.

However, IF Trump doesn’t win Indiana, and because of the overwhelming victory last night, not much mathematically changes for Trump.

Cruz’s VP announcement today may change the subject for a few days, but it is unlikely to make a significant difference in the remaining primaries.

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