Republican Presidential Race

The fate of the world is in their hands. It may sound a bit melodramatic, but it’s true, whoever the Republicans decide to put forward will affect who becomes president even if it’s Obama. Let me explain, many Americans are swing voters, which means they are on the Republican/Democrat borderline. So if the Republicans select the more moderate Mitt Romney then they will probably take more of the swing voters, making a Republican president more likely. On the other hand if they select the more hardline Rick Santorum then they will be less able to attract swing voters and this will lower the chance of a Republican president.

So far nine primaries/caucuses have been held (although the Missouri Primary didn’t award delegates, they will award delegates after a caucus in March) Romney has won four, Nevada, Florida, Maine and New Hampshire. He is currently tied with Rick Santorum who has also taken Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri and Colorado. Gringrich is currently third having only taken South Carolina and Ron Paul is trailing behind with no states. Yet the system is more complex than simply how many states won, due to variations in population different states award different numbers of delegates, some states award all delegates to the winner and some states award delegates to the runners up. In terms of the popular vote Mitt Romney is well ahead with over 1.1 million votes, Gringrich is second on 840,000 votes, Santorum is third on 432,000 votes and Ron Paul is still last on 310,000 votes. Yet more important than the amount of states carried or even the popular vote is how many delegates each candidate have received and this changes the order again. Romney is still first on 91 delegates, Gringrich is second on 32 delegates, Ron Paul third on nine delegates and Santorum is last on only four delegates. The reason for Santorum’s poor placing in terms of delegate numbers is that the four states he won are all non-binding, despite this he has still proved extremely strong.

The front runner Mitt Romney

Rick Santorum

The system by which Republicans select their presidential candidate is far from simple. Rather than simply a national vote of all Republicans in which the person who gets the most votes wins the nomination there is a complicated patchwork of state primaries or caucuses, binding or non-binding, winner takes all delegates or runners up get delegates too. The reason why Santorum has very few delegates is because the four states he won were all non-binding and delegates do not have to pledge to a candidate. The first state to go to the polls was Iowa, the state has the largest caucus of the race and is key, people who do well in this state tend to go on to become the Republican candidate, Santorum won this state but by an extremely slim margin. The second state to go to the polls was New Hampshire, which holds the country’s first primary. Here Romney did very well and won the state easily. The third state to go to the poll was South Carolina, here Newt Gringrich was chosen. This has been the first time since 1980 that three different candidates have been chosen for the first three states. It shows that the Republicans are extremely divided on who should become their presidential candidate. This leaves the race wide open, usually after South Carolina has voted the winner has been effectively chosen. This means that the early states have much more importance than the last states, resulting in more power being focused on the first few states. After South Carolina only four of the original seven candidates were left, after polling poorly in Iowa, Michelle Bachmann dropped out, Jon Huntsman left after placing third in New Hampshire, a state he had invested heavily in propaganda. The final person to drop out was Rick Perry who dropped out two days before the South Carolina polling and endorsed Gringrich.

Newt Gringrich

Ron Paul, trailing behind

The Republican presidential race is viewed by many, including myself, as a three horse race, Gringrich has only won one state and Paul has won none, whereas the frontrunners, Santorum and Romney are tied on four each but in the delegate and popular vote count put Gringrich and Romney as the front runners. Romney is probably going to get the nomination as he is first or joint first by any measure and most Republicans realise he has the best chance of defeating Obama. If the results of the Super Tuesday, in which ten states go to the polls, are decisive, then the race will largely be a foregone conclusion. If they are more mixed then it could be the closest race in years. Between Santorum and Romney, if I had to choose one to be President I would definitely choose Romney as he is more moderate. On the other hand I would rather Santorum wins the race as I believe he is too hardline for many of the swing voters, making Obama more likely to be re-elected. From my experience most Europeans would support a Democrat over a Republican; polls show that when America elects a Democrat as president it is more popular internationally than when it elects a Republican. This is most acute in Europe which is much more liberal than America. It’s not only public opinion outside of America that wants Obama re-elected, the IMF in a recent statement said that for America to continue its current growth rate it must keep the stimulus. As the Republicans have pledged to stop the stimulus the IMF may as well have said, don’t vote Republican.

With the race so tight it’s impossible to know what will happen. Michigan and Arizona are the next states to go to the polls when they both hold primaries on the 28^th of February.

Romney in Orange, Santorum in Green and Gringrich in Purple
source: wikipedia.org