[Update 2/22/12] See my new post with updates here [/Update]

In my various internet reading and conversations with Ron Paul supporters in the last several weeks, I have heard multiple people make the claim that Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum aren’t on the ballot in enough states such that they would miss out on being eligible for 564 delegates and thus can’t win the nomination.

Going through mentions of this claim have lead me to the two sources that are cited as the basis for this claim or a similar less specific one. A Washington Times article that makes the claim:

Along with establishment candidate Mitt Romney, Ron Paul is the only candidate who was able to get on the ballot in all fifty states. Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum will not get enough delegates from the states they have qualified for to receive the Republican nomination.

However, the article provides no evidence or support for the claim.

I believe that the original source of the myth and the more specific 564 delegate claim is Ron Paul campaign advisor Doug Wead speaking on MSNBC:

Regardless of the source, the notion that Gingrich can’t win enough delegates to be the nominee is very clearly false.

First of all, in order to win the primary, a candidate only needs 1144 of the 2286 total delegates. Even if we accept the 564 delegate number at face value, the NY Times estimates that there are 2174 delegates yet to be awarded, plenty for Gingrich to be able to secure more than the 1144 needed to win even if he can’t win 564 of them.

Secondly, Gingrich and Santorum have different ballot access problems. Both are not on the ballot in Virginia and don’t have full slates of delegates in Tennessee, but in Missouri Gingrich is not on the ballot while Santorum has no issues and Santorum is not on the ballot in Washington DC and lacks full delegate slates in North Dakota, Ohio and Illinois. Whatever the true number of delegates each are ineligible for, the number is different for both of them.

Santorum’s delegate situation is more complicated given the greater number of states involved and Gingrich looks like the much stronger candidate at this point in time, so for the moment I’m only going to discuss in detail his delegate situation. My independent research concurs with this Wikipedia page that shows that Gingrich only has delegate issues in 3 states – Tennessee, Virginia and Missouri.

Virginia is the easiest and most highly publicized state. Due to the 10,000 signatures required, only Ron Paul and Mitt Romney were able to get on the ballot there. The loss of a chance for 49 delegates is significant, but not a deal breaker by any means for Gingrich.

The situation in Tennessee is a bit more complicated. Tennessee awards 58 delegates, but only 41 through the primary process. 3 are reserved spots for party leaders and 14 are determined by the state Executive Committee. Of the 41 remaining 14 are allocated to the winner of the entire state and the other 27 are allocated through the state’s 9 House districts through a modified proportional system. I went through the official list of Tennessee delegates and was able to determine that Gingrich has 10 delegates-at-large; 5 delegates for the 2nd district; 4 for the 3rd and 6th; 3 each for the 1st, 7th and 8th; 1 in the 4th and 5th; and none in the 9th. Exactly how many delegates Gingrich can win depends on what exactly delegates at large are – can they be on the ballot in any district or are they specifically delegates for the winner of the state? – and whether or not the extra delegates he has in the 2nd, 3rd and 6th Congressional districts can count if he wins the state.

If we assume a worst case scenario for Gingrich, where he wins the state and every Congressional district with 2/3 of the vote and thus would theoretically win all 41 delegates, he might not have 4 state wide delegates, 2 in the 4th and 5th Congressional districts and 3 in the 9th for a potential loss of 11 delegates. The much more likely scenario where Paul and Romney makes the race close enough to win some delegates through the Congressional districts the lost delegates would be even fewer. If Gingrich doesn’t win the state, it would be almost impossible for him to win all 3 delegates in a Congressional district and unlikely that he would win even 2. That would cap his lost delegates at likely 4 or fewer.

The main takeaway from all of this is that, Gingrich’s ballot troubles in Tennessee aren’t able to cost him more than 11 delegates and that scenario would only be if he absolutely crushes Romney and Paul a scenario which would likely have him on his way to the nomination anyways. Out of the 1144 delegates he needs to win, the losses are minimal.

In Missouri, not being on the ballot literally means nothing in terms of delegates. Much like Iowa, the actual vote in Missouri is functionally a giant straw poll. Votes to send delegates to regional and national conventions where actual delegates to the national convention are voted upon is what really counts. Not being on the ballot means Gingrich doesn’t lose out on any potential delegates he might have gotten.

This means that in total, by my calculation the maximum number of delegates that Gingrich is ineligible for is 60. The number would require a sweep of  yet unseen magnitude in this primary season and the real number is likely closer to around 56. The idea that Gingrich’s ballot access issues will have any impact on his chances to win the nomination can only be true in a race of historical competitiveness that would likely end up in a brokered convention anyways.

Update 2/8/12 I wrote about the details of Santorum’s problems in a post here.