With voting tonight in Arizona and Michigan, there are just a few simple words to remember about the way delegates are handed out in these two states - "winner take all." But instead of saying there are two primaries, you might say there are fifteen in Michigan alone.
Arizona will hand out all 29 of its delegates to the winner this evening, even though the GOP rules say that kind of delegate award is not allowed until later in the spring.
But since Florida did it, Arizona will as well.
In Michigan, it's not really 'Winner take all" - but it sort of is.
Michigan has 30 delegates at stake tonight - 2 at large and 28 from the 14 congressional districts in the Great Lake State.
Assuming that Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum fill out the Michigan Primary Exacta tonight, those two candidates will battle over those two at-large delegates.
After that, the focus is on vote results by congressional district, as the winner of each of the 14 congressional districts in Michigan will get two delegates.
So, it is possible that you could win the statewide vote, but not win a majority of the delegates in Michigan.
Still, because of his overwhelming advantage in the polls in Arizona, it looks like Romney should emerge tonight with the edge in delegates.
Things will get more complicated on that front next week on Super Tuesday.
Meanwhile, we should take on one major myth of this election season, one that has been given a lot of attention by supporters of Ron Paul that Santorum and Newt Gingrich aren't eligible for hundreds of delegates.
564 delegates - to be exact - is what Paul supporters say will be split between Paul and Romney because Gingrich and Santorum didn't properly qualify for ballot slots in the GOP nomination race.
But let's be clear about the 564 delegate argument - it is completely false. It is a myth. It isn't true.
Yes, Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum aren't on the ballot in Virginia.
Yes, Santorum won't be on the ballot in the District of Columbia.
Yes, Santorum and Gingrich don't have full slates of delegates in a couple of states like Ohio.
But it doesn't add up to over 500, and even if it did, there would be no guarantee that the delegates would be split between Romney and Paul.
Take Virginia as an example. On Super Tuesday, only Romney and Paul are on the ballot in the Old Dominion; no write-ins are allowed.
That means someone is probably going to get over a majority of the votes cast, and that candidate wlil then receive all 13 of Virginia's at-large delegates.
The other 33 Virginia delegates are awarded winner-take-all by congressional district, just like delegates will be handed out tonight in Michigan.
So, even if you get 45% of the vote - if you can't win a majority in a congressional district - you don't get any delegates.
The delegate math will become very important next week. This is just a taste of what's next tonight in Michigan.
