How Trump could secure the Republican presidential nomination in Tuesday’s contests
WASHINGTON — WASHINGTON (AP) — Donald Trump is on the cusp of unofficially clinching the Republican presidential nomination for a third time as voters finished casting their ballots Tuesday in Georgia, Mississippi, Washington and Hawaii, but he has about eight of the ten delegates needed available in those states to do it. Otherwise, he will have to wait a week before he can claim the title of presumptive nominee again.
The former president’s nearly clean victory in last week’s Super Tuesday contests, as well as his more recent victory in the American Samoa caucuses, left him just 126 delegates short of the 1,215 needed to clinch the nomination. This includes 11 delegates in Texas that the state party announced Tuesday would be awarded to Trump. The party had previously planned to reward the delegates at the state party convention in May, but instead awarded them based on the March 5 primary after saying there was a conflict with Republican National Committee rules .
Trump now needs about 78% of the 161 delegates in Tuesday’s contests, a reasonable target considering he won 93% of the huge Super Tuesday delegate pool last week.
With former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley out of the race, there is little doubt that Trump will win most or possibly all of the delegates up for grabs on Tuesday. But the exact timing of when he reaches that milestone and which state puts him over the top would depend on how dominant Trump is in Tuesday’s election and possibly how quickly election officials and caucus organizers provide updates on voting results.
A potential source of delay in awarding delegates to candidates could be the determination of voting results at the congressional district level.
All four states holding Republican primary elections on Tuesday will allocate a portion of their delegates based on voting results within a congressional district. However, most states collect voting results at the county level and not at the congressional district level, at least not for non-congressional races. This can be a complex and time-consuming operation because the boundaries of many congressional districts do not neatly correspond with county boundaries. Counties sometimes fall within two or more congressional districts, meaning that when county results are reported on election nights, they must be further analyzed and parsed to subdivide them into the correct congressional district.
The winners of a state’s congressional districts are easier to determine when a candidate has an overwhelming lead statewide as well as in the counties that make up the district. As the race gets closer, determining the outcome in a district may take longer.
In Georgia and Washington, a candidate can win all the delegates in a district by gaining a voting majority in that district. In Mississippi, a candidate can win all twelve district delegates by gaining a majority of votes statewide. If a candidate does not meet the required voting majority threshold in all three states, district delegates will be allocated in proportion to the votes in that district. Hawaii allocates its six district delegates proportionally based on caucus results, regardless of whether a candidate receives a voting majority.
The first polls of the evening close at 7 p.m. EDT in Georgia, which has 59 Republican delegates, 42 of which are awarded in 14 congressional districts. At 8:00 PM EDT, voting ends in Mississippi, where twelve of the state’s forty delegates will be awarded by four congressional districts if no one wins a statewide majority. At 11 p.m. EDT, polls close in Washington, which has 43 delegates, 30 of which are awarded in 10 congressional districts.
These three states account for 142 delegates. If Trump wants to win the nomination before the Hawaii caucuses end, he would have to win all but five delegates from Georgia, Mississippi and Washington.