It bothers me that some news media personalities claim former Governor Mitt Romney only needs to win in South Carolina to wrap up the nomination. He needs 1,144 delegate votes to win outright. He has 6 to 13 depending on which estimate one uses on how Iowan delegates will be distributed. He has 7 from New Hampshire. If he wins South Carolina, then he will get 13-25 more delegates depending on which congressional districts he wins. That would put him at around 26 to 46 delegates. With 2-4% of the needed delegate count does not sound wrapped up to me. It sounds like a long way to go.

UPDATE 2012-JAN-22: Santorum is now the winner of Iowa by 34 votes and will split the delegates with Romney due to the closeness. Gingrich won South Carolina. Thursday the statements about Romney wrapping up the nomination changed to “the winner of South Carolina traditionally wins the nomination”. Now they are saying nomination is a toss up with three winners of three primaries. Added to it is Florida has more expensive markets for running TV adds, so Mitt should handily pick it up.