2016 Republican Primary if IRV was used

[Coolface Sock #42069]

More specifically, if the following reforms were made:

1. Allocate delegates to each state based on the number of people who voted for the previous Republican presidential nominee

2. In each state’s primary, starting with the candidate who received less votes, remove each candidate who has less than 15% of the vote and redistribute the votes to those voters’ second choices as stated in the IRV ballot, or third if the second choice has already been removed, etc.

3. Award delegates to each candidate from each state based on share of the statewide vote after applying IRV.

[Coolface Sock #42069]

Of course there would have been different decisions made as far as who runs and how long they stay in, but if I just follow the actual vote counts and distribute them based on my best guesses of where they’d go, I get the following:

Iowa

Ted Cruz 41%
Donald Trump 31%
Marco Rubio 28%

Instead of the narrow victory Cruz actually got in Iowa, he gets a 10-point blowout. This is largely made possible by Ben Carson and Rand Paul not making the cut and majorities of their voters choosing Cruz second.

[President Biden Democrat]

This could be closer but I still think Trump would win. I have no idea what would happen in the general. Trump barely won and if something changed a little bit Hillary Clinton would have won. it is possible that Hillary would have won if the GOP was further divided.