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With polls coming out surveying actual state delegates we are beginning to get our first picture of where Bob Bennett’s chances really stand. Of course we should never implicitly trust a first picture but it’s better than all the guesswork before the delegates had even been selected and more grounded in reality than straw polls or surveys of likely primary voters.
The Bennett campaign continues to say publicly that they think they have a decent shot and that they are making headway among the delegates. We should expect that kind of public statement from the campaign because any serious candidate must be at least publicly optimistic about their chances or else they have no reason to stay in the race. Consider that, like the Bennett campaign, the official line from the Lee and Bridgewater campaigns is that they are making headway among the delegates. I’m sure if you added all their optimism up it would add to well over 100% of all delegates – and that doesn’t count the optimism from any of the other five candidates.
Along with polls come public discussions such as this one of what the polls actually mean and how the convention will play out. Of course all such discussions are nothing more than guesswork but there are a few facts that can tell us a lot about how long Bennett will hold a seat in the Senate. The first fact is that he needs to receive votes from 40% of the delegates to even land in a primary. Also, all the rhetoric from the various campaigns and the delegate poll seems to be remarkably consistent in placing Bennett-supporting delagates somewhere in the low 20% range right now. There is also strong consensus that Bennett is highly unlikely to be the second choice for many delegates because a large portion (easily over 40%, almost certainly over 50%, and quite possibly over 60%) will vote for anyone except Bob Bennett this year. Because of this I feel very confident in saying that Bennett’s magic number at the convention in first round voting is 30% of the votes.
Even if Bennett were the top vote getter in the first round, if he only received 29.5% of the votes in that first round I am very confident that he would not be able to pick up enough votes in later rounds to reach the 40% plateau no matter which of his challengers were left in the top three. (I am not limiting that possibility to Lee and Bridgewater even if they are the only challengers I have mentioned in the post.) Even if he were to receive the most votes in the second round, say 36% (that is my wildest imagination if the first round generated only 29.5% for him), the third round would see virtually every delegate who had not already voted for him voting for whoever was left of his challengers and there would be no primary.
If Bob Bennett currently has the support of 22% of the state delegates, as this poll has indicated, that would mean he needs to convince another 8% to support him in the first round. That is approximately 300 delegates he will need to sway in this highly anti-incumbent atmosphere to have any chance of surviving into a primary.
12 replies on “Bennett’s Magic Number”
Yep…suffice to say, if he doesn’t go down at convention, I doubt he’ll go down at all.
If he survives the convention his chances of reelection increase dramatically – especially if he faces Bridgewater who comes across as much like Bob but with less name recognition and connections. Bridgewater’s differences don’t seem stark enough to overcome the familiarity of the incumbent in a primary.
If Bennett came out of convention with 41% of the delegates against a candidate like Mike Lee who comes across more convincingly opposed to the Washington perspective on governing but also able to make things happen, Bennett might lose with 48% of the primary vote.
My neighbor across the street is a delegate this year, and he is dead set against Bennett. I really just ain’t feeling that theirs much love from him around!
Of course between him and loons like Mike Lee I will take him any day. Not that my vote counts in this 1 party state.
Unfortunate but true about your vote not counting here.
I too wish we had two viable parties here so that we would not have democrats masquerading as republicans in order to get their votes counted or to win elections (I’m not talking about Bennett there).
That practice of throwing almost everyone under a single banner muddies the waters and weakens the political dialog. Some republicans start feeling the need to take extreme positions in order to distinguish tnemselves from those who would be Democrats if Democrats could win here.
“(I’m not talking about Bennett there).”
ROFL, that comments cracks me up!, You guys must really hate him =p.
What I meant was that I am not among those who call him a RINO or believe that if Democrats could win in Utah he would as soon join the Democrats as the Republicans. I think he is sincerely Republican – he simply does not look through the lens of the Constitution when making decisions about what and how to do things in Washington. He cares so much about what can be done that he has forgotten to ask what should be done.
Don’t think for a minute I would accept Bennett as a democrat, RINO… not sure if I buy that but I suppose I will let republicans decide what kind of republican he is. Though I guess that he would fit in fine with the other sellout dems and their caucus leader Joe Liberman.
I will give yea that he is no strict constitutionalist, I suppose that is one of the measures you use in picking who you support?
You suppose?
I thought I had been perfectly clear that in my decisions about who to support the issue of whether they will defend the constitutionality of any decision they make in office is a primary factor. Even if I don’t fully agree with a candidate on the proper interpretation of the Constitution, I will favor a candidate who will make their constitutional argument over someone who just never discusses the founding document of our legal system (or often refuses to consider the question of constitutionality).
Really I don’t consider Bennett to be a RINO, Utah has a funny distortion effect right now where each conservative is trying to out conservative and other conservatives. Bennett has had the disadvantage of being in Washington and unable to participate in the ever increasing cold war like standoff that brings us this “Mutually assured conservatism”.
I never meant to suggest that you considered him a RINO. I was simply acknowledging that there are those who do (they’re all members of the Republican, Constitution, or Libertarian party as far as I am aware).
Being away from the “ever increasing cold war like standoff” as you describe it would be fine but the dangerous side effect of being in Washington is that he seems to believe the Washington mindset that government should do anything that they are convinced would be good and can be done. Once that premise is accepted we can kiss the rule of law goodbye because sooner or later (usually sooner) something good will come up that contradicts the fundamental law (aka the Constitution) and the law will be abandoned in favor of that something. The end result will eventually be worse than we have already experienced.
“Being away from the “ever increasing cold war like standoff” as you describe it would be fine”
I did say that comment with a bit of jest in mind, Tho I did not intent to cheapen the argument.
“but the dangerous side effect of being in Washington is that he seems to believe the Washington mindset that government should do anything that they are convinced would be good and can be done.”
I am not sure that is the argument being used against Bennett by most, I think more then anything most are simply against incumbency this election round. Given I am not saying that the argument you outline isn’t being used as well, I think Both arguments are floating around but I think the unreasoned anti-incumbency argument is the bigger.
You are probably right about the anti-incumbency argument being more prominent than my argument. I’m focusing on my argument here at my site but I recognize that many people are upset but that in many cases they are not even clear about what is so upsetting – they just feel that it has to do with the perpetuation of incumbency generally or their incumbent in particular.