It’s All About Delegates – The State of the Presidential Primary Races – January 18th
Bottom Line: Presidential nomination processes are all about one thing throughout the primary and caucus season. Delegates. For all of the other storylines, here’s an immovable fact. The Republican presidential candidate with a minimum of 1,215 delegates (out of the 2,429 potential delegates) will win the nomination. For Democrats, it’s the candidate who wins a minimum of 1,969 delegates (out of the 3,936 potential delegates). While Republicans held their first contest of the cycle this week in Iowa, Democrats will hold their first election of the nomination process in New Hampshire next Tuesday.
With the first contest of the cycle behind us here’s a look at where the Republican candidates stand.
Total pledged delegates won:
- Trump: 20
- DeSantis: 9
- Haley: 8
Here’s the percentage of available delegates each candidate has won:
- Trump: 50%
- DeSantis: 23%
- Haley: 20%
While Trump won a commanding 30-point victory, his delegate pace is actually ever-so-slightly below what’s needed to clinch the nomination prior to the convention as he obtained exactly 50% of the available delegates in the state (with 50% plus one delegate being needed to clinch). With that said, Vivek Ramaswamy, who has dropped out of the race, has 3-pledged delegates from Iowa which he would like to see pledged to Trump at the convention. This is illustrative of the challenges DeSantis and Haley, who have long odds of winning this race, already face as they head towards New Hampshire. They must not only make up the early deficit they have to Trump, but must also well more than double their delegate pace the rest of the way to pull out what would be a historical upset.