How GOP anti-Trump voters in New Hampshire could inadvertently vote for Donald Trump

Donald Trump could even win New Hampshire&#039;s anti-Trump vote

(Image credit: Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

Donald Trump is widely expected to win the Republican primary in New Hampshire on Tuesday, despite the probable majority of Republicans who want to vote against him. Oddly, a lot of those anti-Trump votes could actually help pad Trump's delegate lead, Domenico Montanaro explains at NPR News. That's because with any candidate who doesn't earn at least 10 percent of the vote, their would-be delegates go to the primary winner. There are eight Republican candidates in the race (not counting Jim Gilmore), and four of them are vying furiously for the "establishment" vote. Not all those "establishment lane" candidates will reach the 10 percent threshold.

To illustrate his point, Montanaro takes a recent average of polls and awards New Hampshire's 20 delegates accordingly. Based on proportional allocation, Trump would earn six delegates (31 percent), Marco Rubio would win three (16 percent), and John Kasich and Ted Cruz would each take two (12 percent). The four remaining candidates would collectively earn 22 percent of the vote, or about four delegates, but because none of them met the 10 percent threshold, those four delegates would go to Trump, raising his delegate count to 10.

The icing on the cake for the anti-Trump establishment, Monatanaro writes, is that those 10 delegates "are bound to vote for Trump at the Republican National Convention in July, because of changes to the Republican National Committee's rules." You can read more about the establishment-voter dilemma at NPR News.

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Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.