If Romney Loses in Michigan

The latest commentary on the Republican nominating contest goes something like this: Rick Santorum is now in the lead, and if Mitt Romney loses in Michigan then his campaign may be over. We should address the first point first; Rick Santorum is not in the lead. Santorum (44 delegates) is in third place behind Romney (123 delegates) and Gingrich (45 delegates). Even the claim that winning the most recent contests is more important than the total number of delegates doesn't clearly place Santorum in the lead; Mitt Romney won the Main caucuses, which ended February 11. Before going any further, I should note that there is substantial difference of opinion on projected delegate numbers. The Associated Press is much more bullish on Santorum, projecting 71 for him, while projecting 105 for Romney and 29 for Gingrich. CNN, on the other hand, projects 127 for Romney, 38 for Gingrich, and 37 for Santorum. Most of the discrepancy results from differing opinions on Minnesota. The Associated Press projects all 37 of Minnesota's caucus tied delegates going to Santorum. CNN is only confident that he'll get 6 of them. I'm trusting my favorite source, Wikipedia, which is between the AP and CNN projections. 

So lets say that Romney loses in Michigan. In fact, we'll suppose that he'll lose terribly, and Gingrich will win all 30 delegates. That would bring Gingrich's total up to 75. But if we're supposing that Romney will do poorly in his home state of Michigan, then perhaps we should also assume that he'll do poorly in Arizona. That is potentially another 29 delegates for Gingrich, bringing his total to 109. That is still 14 delegates less than Romney.