NBC News reports:
Mitt Romney’s campaign gathered the national press corps in their campaign war room this morning to deliver a simple message: It would take an “act of God” for any candidate not named Mitt Romney to win the Republican nomination.
The Boston-based campaign projected confidence in Romney’s ability to win the nomination given the emerging delegate math in the campaign following last night’s Super Tuesday contests.
“We will get to 1,144 whether it’s on someone else’s timeline, or on our timeline,” said one top Romney aide. “We will get to 1,144 and be the Republican nominee.”
The Romney campaign sent out a memo this morning from political director Rich Beeson arguing that it was impossible for any other candidate to reach the 1,144 delegate threshold. Noting that Romney now had 40 percent of the delegates needed to become the nominee, Beeson wrote, “Neither opponent succeeded in closing his delegate deficit, and the calendar ahead offers them dwindling opportunities to close the gap.” For one thing, “only two remaining dates offer more than 200 delegates each: April 24 offers 231 delegates, and June 5 offers 299 delegates.”
“Only four of the remaining 34 contests award their delegates on a statewide winner-take-all basis. The four statewide winner-take-all states (Utah, New Jersey, D.C. and Delaware) are unlikely to offer Senator Santorum or Speaker Gingrich victories,” Beeson wrote, noting Santorum hadn’t qualified to be on the D.C. ballot. “Even if Senator Santorum or Speaker Gingrich win one of the 30 remaining states, Governor Romney is still likely to finish second, thus taking a considerable portion of the delegates.”
Beeson’s last point was how few caucuses were left: only about a fifth of the remaining contests are caucuses. Speaking of primaries, Beeson argued, “These contests require a national organization that Governor Romney’s opponents simply don’t have.”