Is it even statistically possible for Ron Paul or Huckabee to win?

Please note that the question is not "Do you think Ron Paul or Huckabee will win?". I am not asking whether or not you like either of them. I am not asking you to bash either of them or talk about how much you love Hillary, Obama, or McCain. Is it statistically possible for any of the other Republican candidates to beat McCain with the number of delegates that are left and with the number that McCain already has? Could someone who actually knows WTF they are talking about answer?

Public Comments

1. NOPE!
2. NO Only if Romney gives Huckabee his delegates, which he won't do. There's no scenario in which Ron Paul could win.
3. yes, romney dropped out, so most of his conservative supporters will vote for huckabee, so huckabee has a chance.
4. Huckabee is a gomer pal idiot he is like up there I want anything, He is a bum. That's coming from Arkansas
5. Huckleberry - no Paul - NO! He never had a snowball's chance
6. No, it's not possible. McCain will be the nominee because Huckabee or Paul cannot get enough delegates.
7. No. Huckabee would need 85% of the delegates remaining and the way the states break down those delegates makes it impossible to do. Paul is in even worse shape. McCain needs 41% of the delegates to lock and, especially since Romney is out, he will get them. If not its a brokered convention....but McCain still has all the cards (hes going to get alot more even if he does not lock).
8. No.
9. Its possible for anything to happen. McCain could drop out. I love to watch the media squirm. How many times have they declared someone the GOP winner and they dropped out?
10. Yes, it is still possible for Huckabee to win if he can take about 80% to 90% of the rest of the republican delegates. Ron Paul on the other hand probably couldn't however he could always run as a third party canidate. The Ron Paul campaign and the Mike Huckabee campaign have been helping eachother out in order to beat McCain.
11. Yes, he is not over the majority threshold at all. However, Huckabee has an uphill battle and Ron Paul basically needs a miracle. If the race became a three way with Ron Paul being more competitive, each candidate could end up not having the majority and the convention would have to decide. This is all statistically possible, but really very unlikely.
12. I'm no political analyst, but statistically, I'd say it's impossible for either Paul or Huckabee to win, especially Paul who had just a bare minimum of votes compared to the other candidates on Super Tuesday, and as for Huckabee, who is an earnest and likeable person, his popularity does not extend much further than the deep south. Had he campaigned in the other states, he would definitely have maxed out Mitt Romney. I think McCain will be the winner of the G.O.P. On the Democrat side, it will be very close between Obama and Clinton. That's as close a prediction as I can come by, statistically, that is.....
13. Yes. I can't address odds of which candidates won't be under the pre-election impact of in-bound comet or asteroid but can say delegates will not ignore post-event beating. Expect crater to get more attention than survivors before subsequent primary. Source: Carl Sagan's 'Cosmos'.
14. First we'll start with where we stand: McCain has 720. To win, he has to reach 1191 (471 more.) Romney has 279 (for now, I'll leave those delegates out of it). Huckabee has 197. Paul has 14. There are 1008 more delegates up for grabs (not counting those of Romney and the "unpledged" delegates of anyone who's already bowed out) We'll start with the most statistically improbable: Paul could win ALL 1008 ending up 1022, leaving him 169 short. If Romney threw support to Paul, he ends up with 1301. If he was able to win ALL delegates (this is still difficult but a bit more probable in the GOP because of more "winner take all" situations), I can't honestly see Romney agreeing to support someone who would get us out of Iraq when he gave that as one of the reasons he was dropping out (he's afraid Obama or Clinton might leave Iraq but he feels McCain will stay). Statistically yes, realistically no. Ron needs to stay in now to get the message out there and try and influence the party platform and direction but he won't be doing it from the White House. (Besides a good showing will set him up for 2012) Alternately, he could try an independent run but historically there's never been more than 19% won nationally on one of those. If he stays with the GOP, he has a better shot at getting his message out there (it will be harder to exclude him from debates when there are only 3 candidates left). On to Huckabee: He needs 994. So statistically it's possible but only slightly more likely than Paul. His best bet is to keep going long enough to obtain a VP slot on the ticket and force McCain to the right on social issues (which is where Huckabee gets most of his base). If you are a Ron Paul backer, you NEED to vote for him anyhow. If the GOP doesn't see good numbers for Paul, they will never be forced to consider any of his ideas. Same thing for Huckabee. If you really like his ideas, McCain doesn't share them and to get the GOP to listen, you need to protest McCain's anointing in the remaining primaries. If Paul/Huckabee backers stay loyal...a brokered convention could be forced. Unlikely, but it's more likely than either of the other 2 scenarios are. Short answer: It is marginally statistically possible for either of them but very very VERY implausible.
15. As it stands now, Huckabee would have to get almost 84% of the remaining delegates to win. Ron Paul would have to get almost 99%. If Romney delegates go to Huckabee, he would still have to get over 60%. If Romney's delegates went to Paul, he would still have to get over 75%. Romney himself would have had to get over 76%.
16. Yes. If the delegate count is deadlocked (meaning that no one has the required 1,191) when the primaries are through, we would have an open convention - meaning the delegates are free to cast as they like. Not sure what to think of that. Less likely now that Romney has dropped out with fewer candidates to thin the delegates out. According to cnn.com/ELECTION/2008/primaries/results/scorecard/#R a total of 1,197 delegates have been handed out, with Paul having won 16 of them. That means that mathematically he could still accumulate enough delegates to gain the nomination. There is also a matter of delegates that would have been awarded to other candidates had they continued in the race until the GOP convention. Some states now leave that up to the delegate to award it how they see fit, others may award to the candidate that had the most votes below them...there are a variety of ways they determine who receives those delegates. So that leaves a few more to be passed out. Huckabee has a more likely chance than Paul of this playing out to his advantage. With that said, all of the delegate counts are different and there is no way to know for sure the official delegate count because all of the "pledged" delegate that are not cast yet, but some news sites may include those in the count due to the assumption of how that delegate will vote. Bottom line, there are still a lot of delegates at stake, so things could change quickly.
17. To be statistically correct, O'Reily said last night, 86% of the future delegates will have to go to Huckabee for him to win, and only 40% has to go to McCain for him to win. Ron Paul really doesnt have a chance unless he wins every state, but I dont think that is possible, due t ohim not being dicussed last night.