Breaking down the delegates and path to the Republican nomination

Geoff Bennett:

While the first contest of the presidential campaign is over, the race for the GOP nomination and the delegates who will vote at the Republican National Convention this summer is only just beginning.

Domenico Montanaro of NPR is here to walk us through the long road ahead.

It's good to see you, friend.

So, we know that 40 Republican delegates were up for grabs last night, and they were allocated proportionally. How did Donald Trump's commanding victory last night position him in the delegate race moving forward?

Domenico Montanaro, Political Editor, NPR:

Well, first of all, I would say it's maybe not so long road after all.

Geoff Bennett:

Yes.

Domenico Montanaro:

I mean, I think that this thing has been moved up significantly because the Trump campaign, which is more sophisticated this time than in 2016, has really been able to make a lot of efforts to move up states in the process that favor him with the kinds of processes that favor him.

And by the end of March, we're going to see 70 percent of the delegates allocated. So we're talking about only a couple of months here. And when you look at that you have about a dozen states in that period of time that Kevin Madden was talking about that have winner-take-all, if a winner — if the person gets above 50 percent, meaning a state like California has 169 delegates.

If Trump were to get over 50 percent, like he did last night, he gets all of those delegates. That's new. That's something that the Trump campaign really pushed for. And when you look at those two dates that Kevin mentioned between March 5 and March 19, there's over 1,200 delegates at stake just on those two weeks.

And 1,215 is the magic number that somebody needs to get. And with all of these potentially winner-take-all states, I'm circling on my calendar March 23, because March 19, I'm calling winner-take-all Tuesday, because there are finally going to be actually states saying whoever wins gets all the delegates then.

And we may be talking about Trump wrapping up the nomination by the end of March.

Geoff Bennett:

Really?

Domenico, I think one of the most underreported stories of the Trump era has to do with the ways in which Donald Trump and his allies reengineered the infrastructure of the Republican Party and installed MAGA acolytes in his supporters in key state positions. Many of them are state party chairs.

Tell me more about that and how he is now capitalizing on it.

Domenico Montanaro:

I mean, it's a hugely undercovered story, I mean, that he was able to hire people who really understand the delegate process and were doing this at times when people weren't really paying that much attention.

Sure, the DeSantis campaign was trying to ramp up. They had people who were trying to influence this as well. But, look, Trump is a quasi-incumbent. He's the former president. And while he was president, he installed a lot of loyalists within those state parties, so that you wouldn't have something like what happened in 2016 on the floor of the convention, where Ted Cruz and people who were associated with him could mount this kind of potential challenge.

It didn't work, but Trump was, like, not wanting to have to see a repeat of some WWE-style moment that we all had to watch, where Ted Cruz is coming down from the rafters.

Geoff Bennett:

Right.

Domenico Montanaro:

He was saying, no, I want this thing wrapped up. I want it wrapped up quickly.

And they have pushed, they have leveraged almost everything that they can, whether it's incentivizing people to go to Mar-a-Lago or Bedminster to be wind and dined or to be threatened with potential punishment if Trump does become president and to be iced out of the process.

Geoff Bennett:

Let's look ahead to New Hampshire. How well does Nikki Haley have to do in New Hampshire to have a reasonable argument for staying in the race?

Domenico Montanaro:

I think a lot of people are saying she's going to have to win in New Hampshire, considering that she finished third place in — second in Iowa.

And I think it's going to be difficult for her to win in a place like South Carolina. I think she — if she finishes a reasonably close second place, considering that Trump has had a double-digit lead there, she can still make the argument that she needs to move on.

But you got to look at the demographics of the electorate in New Hampshire. You're not going to have another state that's quite as moderate, where Haley can sort of appeal to those voters, because it's just not the majority of the Republican caucuses right now, Republican primary voters right now.

I mean, we saw last night, in the entrance polls, two-thirds of Republican caucus-goers said that they felt that, even if Trump was convicted of a crime, that he would still be fit to be president. You had only three in 10 voters say that they thought Joe Biden was legitimately elected.

I mean, that is not the profile of the kinds of voters that Nikki Haley can really appeal to and win out with.

Geoff Bennett:

Domenico Montanaro, senior political editor and correspondent for NPR, thanks so much for coming in.

Domenico Montanaro:

You're welcome.