After disappointing performances in Tuesday's Deep South primaries, Mitt Romney managed to salvage the night with two much-needed consolation wins in Hawaii and American Samoa's Republican caucuses.
The pair of island victories won't do much to help Romney's Southern problems, but it does appear to offset Rick Santorum's delegate wins in the Alabama and Mississippi primaries. The final tallies aren't in yet, but it looks like Romney picked up at least 39 delegates, while Santorum gained at least 32. Newt Gingrich looks poised to get at least 24 delegates, and Ron Paul has picked up 1 so far.
The Romney campaign has seized this "winning" narrative, shifting its focus back to delegate math in the aftermath of his third-place losses. In a statement sent in lieu of an election speech last night, Romney emphasized that he will still win delegates from the tight races in Alabama and Mississippi:
"I am pleased that we will be increasing our delegate count in a very substantial way after tonight. Ann and I made a lot of new friends in Alabama and Mississippi and we look forward to campaigning in those states in the general election," Romney said in the statement. "With the delegates won tonight, we are even closer to the nomination. Ann and I would like to thank the people of Alabama and Mississippi. Because of their support, our campaign is on the move and ready to take on President Obama in the fall.”
But while the math is undoubtedly working in Romney's favor — he holds a sizable advantage over his three competitors — he still only has about a third of the 1,144 delegates he needs to win the nomination outright. Campaign officials told the New York Times Tuesday that it could take another two months to get to the threshold it needs to go into the Republican National Convention with the majority of delegates.
Romney's slow delegate accumulation may get him to the nomination in the end, but it does nothing to address the candidate's inability to appeal to the GOP's conservative base. In fact, Romney's delegate advantage is largely due to his success in densely-populated urban and suburban districts, which tend to lean Democratic in general elections.
As long as Romney fails to solve these problems and keeps losing states, his opponents have little incentive to drop out of the race — even if it means they are only in it to deny Romney an easy ride to Tampa.
Here is a preliminary delegate count, based on the most recent reports. I will update later with my own assessment after district results are reported.
Alabama (50 delegates)
Delegate Breakdown:
21 Congressional delegates (3 per district), awarded to the candidate with a majority. If no candidate gets a majority, then the delegates are allocated proportionally to candidates with more than 20% of the vote.
26 state delegates, awarded by the same proportionality rules as the Congressional delegates.
3 RNC delegates who are not bound to any candidate
Results:
Santorum: 16 delegates
Gingrich: 12 delegates
Romney: 10 delegates
Paul: 0 delegates
Unbound: 3 delegates
Unallocated: 9 delegates
Mississippi (40 delegates)
Delegate Breakdown:
12 Congressional delegates (3 per district) allocated proportionally to candidates with more than 15% of the vote. Any candidate with a majority in a district gets all 3 of the delegates.
15 state delegates awarded by the same proportionality rules as the Congressional delegates.
3 RNC delegates who are not bound to any candidate
Results:
Santorum: 13 delegates
Gingrich: 12 delegates
Romney: 12 delegates
Paul: 0 delegates
Unbound: 3 delegates
Hawaii (20 delegates)
Delegate Breakdown:
6 Congressional delegates awarded proportionally based on the results of precinct caucuses
11 state delegates awarded proportionally based on the statewide caucus results
3 RNC delegates who are unbound to any candidate
Results:
Romney: 8 delegates
Santorum: 3 delegates
Paul: 1 delegate
Gingrich: 0 delegates
Unbound: 3 delegates
Unallocated: 5 delegates
American Samoa (9 delegates)
Delegate Breakdown:
6 delegates to the Republican National Convention are directly elected at the American Samoa Republican caucus. They are technically not bound to any candidate.
3 RNC delegates who are unbound to any candidate.
Results:
Romney: 9 delegates
Santorum: 0 delegates
Gingrich: 0 delegates
Paul: 0 delegates
Unbound: 0 delegates*
*Although the delegates aren't legally bound to any candidate, the AP reports that Romney won the support of all 9 delegates, including the 3 unbound RNC delegates who agreed to support him after he won the six elected delegates.
According to Business Insider's delegate tally, that puts the current tally of committed delegates at:
Romney: 395
Santorum: 150
Gingrich: 131
Paul: 24
Unbound: 246
Check back for more delegate count updates as the race goes on.