South Dakota Primary

[Young Paleocon]

So McCain, Romney, and Huckabee are on the South Dakota ballot. Any estimates on our chances to pull of 20%?

[Dr. Rostov]

Perhaps it would be helpful to examine a map I made. The color of the states is determined by an algorithm that spits out a different combination of saturation and brightness depending upon the percentage result in the state..

http://209.85.48.12/3560/8/upload/p2688813.gif

South Dakota is in Paul's strongest area of the country. He passed 10% in each of the contests around it (except, of course, the private convention in Wyoming). Granted, most were caucuses. But Nebraska wasn't, and he still got around 13%. I'd venture that Paul's voter floor is about 10%. He's almost indubitably going to get double digits. The question really becomes whether he can pass 20% and net a few delegates from South Dakota. That seems, if not likely, plausible.

The delegate allocation system in SD is a proportional primary much akin to the Democrat's usual allocation scheme. The difference is that in the usual proportionally distributed Democratic delegate race you only need to net 15% to get a few delegates; in accordance with South Dakota law, you must net 20% there. But of the four states where Paul passed the 20% threshold, two are directly adjoined to South Dakota and the other two are still very close.

I'm not saying he'll get delegates, but given Paul's regional strength combined with the expectation of very low turnout, I'm cautiously optimistic that he has a distinct likelihood of pass 20%.

[acptulsa]

Interesting analysis. Thanks for going to the trouble. Interesting to see that New Mexico is right there with you. I personally think that if there's anyone on Earth that can get the Natives out in droves to vote against them, it's McCain.

Wish I could be up there to help ferry them to the polls!

[Dr. Rostov]

If I had to venture a guess about New Mexico, I'd say he'll probably get in the 8-15% threshold. One would think that McCain might have a bit of trouble with Native American voters due to his generally abrasive nature, but one must remember, he's the senator from Arizona. As thus, there is a slight regional bias in his favor in the states directly adjacent to his own. Arguably, it's why McCain almost outmanned Paul at the initial preference poll in Nevada. We had 2nd place in our grasp and eked it out in the end, but his regional strength certainly brought more people to the polls than we expected.

But, as any man well-versed in politics would know, McCain's support was skin-deep. His supporters didn't turn out very well in subsequent conventions, and as thus, Paul was able to grab a lot more support at the convention stages due solely to the tenacity and effort shown by his acolytes in the west. This made McCain's close caucus victories, and the times he beat out Paul in the caucuses, far less valuable because it was a margin that could be easily made up solely by the McCain campaign slipping up and putting a dearth of resources towards strumming up the support at the initial caucus to attend the later caucuses.

Of course... this leads one to conclude that Paul is not going to do as well in New Mexico as one would expect he'd have done due to experience in other recent states. And I'm inclined to agree. While in a caucus Paul's supporters can overwhelm at the late stages when activity is weakest, in a primary all that matters is the initial preferential vote. And Paul always does worse in those than he does later on, as we very well know. So, again. I'd project 8-15%. We might get over that, though I sincerely doubt we'll get under. It really just depends on how low the turnout gets. The nice thing about New Mexico, though, is that it's a proportional primary and Paul can get delegates for as low a showing as 15%. So, if turnout is low, Paul can probably pick up one or two delegates here. And, again, while this really has very little effect, attaining delegates means that Paul has that many more supporters at the convention and ready to advocate for the Old Right's platform on his behalf. And that's a good thing.

[acptulsa]

If I had to venture a guess about New Mexico, I'd say he'll probably get in the 8-15% threshold. One would think that McCain might have a bit of trouble with Native American voters due to his generally abrasive nature, but one must remember, he's the senator from Arizona. As thus, there is a slight regional bias in his favor in the states directly adjacent to his own.

You're right on all counts and I don't hold the world's highest hopes either. Proximity can create familiarity, however, and in the case of some of the things McCain has done to the Arizona Navajos I can't help but think they could be rallied the most easily. Familiarity with that will breed contempt. That said, New Mexico has a larger off-reservation population and I do agree that South Dakota is looking like it could be our best state (or, at least, is very likely to be our best behind only Louisiana).

[scandinaviany3]

Perhaps it would be helpful to examine a map I made. The color of the states is determined by an algorithm that spits out a different combination of saturation and brightness depending upon the percentage result in the state..

http://209.85.48.12/3560/8/upload/p2688813.gif

South Dakota is in Paul's strongest area of the country. He passed 10% in each of the contests around it (except, of course, the private convention in Wyoming). Granted, most were caucuses. But Nebraska wasn't, and he still got around 13%. I'd venture that Paul's voter floor is about 10%. He's almost indubitably going to get double digits. The question really becomes whether he can pass 20% and net a few delegates from South Dakota. That seems, if not likely, plausible.

The delegate allocation system in SD is a proportional primary much akin to the Democrat's usual allocation scheme. The difference is that in the usual proportionally distributed Democratic delegate race you only need to net 15% to get a few delegates; in accordance with South Dakota law, you must net 20% there. But of the four states where Paul passed the 20% threshold, two are directly adjoined to South Dakota and the other two are still very close.

I'm not saying he'll get delegates, but given Paul's regional strength combined with the expectation of very low turnout, I'm cautiously optimistic that he has a distinct likelihood of pass 20%.

Can you do the same plot for romney, huckabee..i am curious to see the strengths on the map vs paul

[Dr. Rostov]

Can you do the same plot for romney, huckabee..i am curious to see the strengths on the map vs paul

Well, the maps do take a bit of time to make (about 30-40 minutes, since I hand-enter them in Photoshop and do the editing/computing in Excel to put together the election results and calculate algorithms), but I'll do McCain and Huckabee sometime soon. I plan on writing a detailed account of the Republican and Democratic campaigns sometime in the next few weeks (which is why I'm making these maps in the first place!). Perhaps I'll link you, if you're interested.

http://209.85.48.12/3560/8/upload/p2688826.gif

(I updated the Paul map to adapt to the stylistic changes I adopted with this version of the Romney map. Also, keep in mind that my algorithm is designed differently for each candidate. You cannot directly compare state-by-state performance on these maps. For instance, Romney received 25% in Iowa to Paul's 10%. However, they both appear in the same sort of shade on the respective maps. That's because the algorithms are different for each candidate to account for their respective highs and lows. Romney's lowest performance in any contest was his 14% in Arkansas; Paul's lowest was a barely 3% showing in Utah. In fact, Romney's lowest showing would have been one of Paul's upper-median results, had he gotten that 14% in Arkansas. So, if you would like to think about the map, I urge you not to compare state by state results. Compare trends. It's far more useful.)

[huckans]

Nice work Dr. Rostov! I have a suggesstion, however...

In order to compare states for Dr. Paul, it would be good to get at the Republican voter concentration, which is different than the percentage he received. Here's why: In NH, Paul only received 8% of the Republican vote...however, dividing the number of votes Paul received by the number of registered NH voters, NH was Paul's absolute best state--even compared to Idaho (because Idaho has such a high percentage of its voters registered as Republicans.)

So, I suggest redoing the map where a state's color is related to the absolute number of votes Dr. Paul received divided by the number of registered Republicans in that state. This approach automatically corrects for turnout variations.

Also, caucus states should be handled the same way with one major difference---after calculating the Republican voter concentration, a multiplier should be used to account for the fact that so few people normally turn out for caucuses (with a few exceptions like Iowa). In this way, the caucus states can be displayed on the same map as the primary states.

Cheers and thanks for the work!

John Huckans

[skyorbit]

Perhaps it would be helpful to examine a map I made. The color of the states is determined by an algorithm that spits out a different combination of saturation and brightness depending upon the percentage result in the state..

http://209.85.48.12/3560/8/upload/p2688813.gif

South Dakota is in Paul's strongest area of the country. He passed 10% in each of the contests around it (except, of course, the private convention in Wyoming). Granted, most were caucuses. But Nebraska wasn't, and he still got around 13%. I'd venture that Paul's voter floor is about 10%. He's almost indubitably going to get double digits. The question really becomes whether he can pass 20% and net a few delegates from South Dakota. That seems, if not likely, plausible.

The delegate allocation system in SD is a proportional primary much akin to the Democrat's usual allocation scheme. The difference is that in the usual proportionally distributed Democratic delegate race you only need to net 15% to get a few delegates; in accordance with South Dakota law, you must net 20% there. But of the four states where Paul passed the 20% threshold, two are directly adjoined to South Dakota and the other two are still very close.

I'm not saying he'll get delegates, but given Paul's regional strength combined with the expectation of very low turnout, I'm cautiously optimistic that he has a distinct likelihood of pass 20%.

BTW. The 20% isn't Law. It's Republican PArty Bylaws.

The threshhold can be changed at the state convention, if we're smart.

Tracy

[pahs1994]

So McCain, Romney, and Huckabee are on the South Dakota ballot. Any estimates on our chances to pull of 20%?

With Huck, Romney, and Paul on the ballot. What are the chances that McCain loses??? I think it would be amazing if the presumptive nominee loses the last primary

[Miexon]

I figure huckabee pulls 10+ romney can pull 10+ and Paul can pull 20+ so there will be a good chance Mccain will fall under 60% perhaps even lose altogether

[Miexon]

also uncommitted is on there which could take about 5% away as well. Things look good for Paul in SD. SD is where billboards, the high tide, and major grass root efforts have occurred so I'm expected a high Paul count.

[HOLLYWOOD]

Here's Yahoo!'s Election Political Dashboard.

If you select each of the states left, RON PAUL is beating McInsane in all the states.

here's the link:

http://news.yahoo.com/election/2008/dashboard/ (http://news.yahoo.com/election/2008/dashboard/)


But overall across the nation, RP's Yahoo! BUZZ map has him negative... which doesn't make any sense... BUT it would be GREAT to have McCain LOSE to ANY GOP!

FWIW