Attytood projects Mitt Romney as winner of the 2012 Republican presidential nomination
Up until this week, I thought there was a 50-50 chance of a contested convention in Tampa.
Ain't no stopping him now. Up until this week, I thought there was a 50-50 chance of a contested convention in Tampa (although even then Romney had most of the cards). But even though Romney won't mathmetically clinch the nomination in June, he's all but impossible to beat. Even Rick Santorum knows it -- he's staying in the race not to be the 2012 nominee but to be the 1976 Ronald Reagan...more on that later.
Meanwhile, Nate Silver does the math:
The more telling number, therefore, may be this one: Mr. Romney has so far won 56 percent of the delegates, according to the Associated Press count. That is, obviously, more than half — in fact, Mr. Romney's share of the delegates as calculated on this basis has steadily been inching upward over the course of the last month.
It's also enough to permit him some slack. Mr. Romney would need to win only 46 percent of the remaining delegates to get to 1,144.
There is no reason to think that the remaining states will be much better or worse for Mr. Romney than the ones that have already voted.