The Associated Press reports that John McCain is now leading Mitt Romney in delegates 93 to 59. Unless support for McCain dramatically drops in the next week, he’s poised to amass a commanding delegate lead on Super Tuesday (a.k.a. Super Duper – Mega – Tsunami Tuesday), when 1,081 delegates are up for grabs. McCain’s greatest advantage lies in the states that award all of their delegates – 373 in all – to the winner of the statewide popular vote: Arizona (53), Connecticut (30), Delaware (18), Missouri (58), Montana (25), New Jersey (52), New York (101), and Utah (36). Polls have shown McCain leading in all of these states, except Utah where Romney is up big, Delaware where Giuliani was ahead, and Montana where caucusgoers haven’t been polled. If the polls are right, and assuming McCain and Romney split the remaining delegates, McCain would be leading by at least 300 delegates after February 5. And a close look at the rest of the Super Tuesday states makes that a generous assumption in Romney’s favor. Almost all of the delegates from California (173) and Illinois (70) will be elected winner-take-all by congressional district, with 3 delegates awarded per district. Oklahoma (41), Georgia (72), and West Virginia (30) use a hybrid system that awards some delegates winner-take-all by congressional district and the rest to the statewide winner. Delegates from Alaska (29) and Massachusetts (43) will be awarded proportionally, as will delegates from Alabama (48), Arkansas (34), North Dakota (26), and Tennessee (55). (However, Alabama and Arkansas would award all delegates to a candidate who amasses over 50 percent of the vote, and North Dakota and Tennessee have a similar conditional winner-take-all rule if a candidate wins more than 67 percent.) Colorado (46) and Minnesota (41), like the Iowa caucuses, will allocate delegates at state and congressional district conventions later this year. If you factor in Huckabee siphoning off votes from Romney in the South and Giuliani boosting McCain in California and Illinois, then the total delegate count after Super Tuesday might be closer to 700 for McCain and 300 for Romney. While McCain would be well short of the 1,191 delegates needed to win the nomination, it’s hard to see how Romney could make a comeback at that point.
