GOP Primary Scoreboard - Maine Edition

In the barely noticed Maine Republican caucus that wrapped up on Sunday, Mitt Romney captured an estimated 52% of the vote, trouncing John McCain's 21%, despite the state's two moderate Republican Senators (and fellow Gang of 14ers) Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins actively supporting McCain.

All 18 of the delegates tied to the caucus will go to Romney, which brings him within 5 of McCain.  Per most other metrics, Romney boasts the better aggregate record.  He now holds 4 gold medals (Maine going up on the mantle next to Wyoming, Michigan, and Nevada), versus McCain's 3.  Mitt's average place finish over the 8 contests so far is 1.8th, compared to McCain's 2.3rd.  And Romney's already best-in-party average vote share improved to 39.2%, while McCain's slipped to 23.0%.

McCain still leads in total votes cast (in part because Wyoming technically only registered 13 votes), but the wide margin of victory in Maine closed the gap to about 41,000 votes (out of 3.2 million).  That equates to just 1.3% of the weighted average vote share.

If you'll indulge me in a spot of delegate math...

There are 1,048 delegates up for grabs on Super Tuesday.  While Romney has improved in a couple of the most recent polls, McCain certainly seems to enjoy a significant national edge going into the big day.  The magic number for nomination inevitability is 1,191, so McCain will be mathematically unable to score a true fait accompli.

Still, even though the path to the nomination for Romney doesn't necessarily requre a huge upset on Tuesday, he does need to collect enough delegates to stave off effective inevitability.

You can decide for yourself where that elusive threshold of "enough" may be, but below is an illustration of how tough a row Romney will need to hoe, according to how many delegates he wins on Tuesday.

For example, if Mitt wins 40% of the Super Tuesday delegates (bringing his total to just over 500), he'd need to go on to win 61% of the post-Super Tuesday delegates.  That would likely be "enough" to preserve viability.  Even a showing of just 20% on Tuesday would saddle Romney with a not-out-of-the-question 80% burden thereafter.

If I had to spitball it, I'd guess a 2/3 delegate burden going forward would be near the far edge of true feasibility, suggesting an "enough" threshold of roughly 34% on Super Tuesday (requiring Mitt to win around 350 of the 1,048 delegates).

Update:  Right About America walks through the Super Tuesday states and finds Romney winning - as luck would have it - just about 350 delegates (which assumes Romney loses Missouri).  He then lays out how Mitt could stitch together the 2/3 burden in the remaining states.

(HT: Hugh Hewitt)