In a story line that no one could have predicted a few months ago, John McCain is expected to emerge from Super Tuesday as the big winner. At 6:30 Eastern on Tuesday morning, Rasmussen Markets data gave McCain an 89% chance of winning the Republican Presidential Nomination (current pricing %).

McCain has solid leads in the winner-take-all states of New Jersey, New York, Arizona, and Connecticut. He also leads in Georgia, Missouri, Alabama, Illinois and Tennessee. Romney leads in Massachusetts and is expected to do well in Utah and several caucus states (see summary of Rasmussen Reports Super Tuesday polls).

The Romney-McCain match is very close in California, but that state is far less significant than a number of smaller states in today’s competition. That’s because most of California’s 173 delegates are awarded on a Congressional District basis. So, regardless of whether McCain or Romney “wins” in California, both men will pick up delegates. If the race is extremely close, neither may gain a significant advantage among California delegates

The biggest prize of the day is New York, with 101 delegates awarded on a winner-take-all basis. It’s also likely that the winner-take-all nature of several other states will yield a richer prize than California. This includes Missouri with 58 delegates, Arizona with 53 delegates, and New Jersey with 52. Regardless of what happens in California, McCain’s strength in these states is likely to make him the big winner on Super Tuesday. Yesterday, a Rasmussen Reports look at the delegate math showed why he is now the heavy favorite.

In addition to coming out on top in the delegate hunt, McCain is expected to win most of the Super Tuesday states. A look at the state-by-state numbers from Rasmussen Markets on Tuesday morning shows that McCain is expected to win twelve states, Romney six, and Huckabee just one--his home state of Arkansas.

If McCain does go on to capture the nomination, it will cap one of the most remarkable comebacks in American history.

Ironically, the comeback was made possible largely because of strategic decisions made by McCain’s biggest rival for the votes of moderate Republicans—Rudy Giuliani. Giuliani’s decision to stay out of the early states let McCain capture the moderate vote while several candidates fought over the conservative vote. That let McCain gain some traction and ultimately led to Giuliani’s precipitous decline in Florida yielding yet another victory for McCain. Not only that, it was Giuliani’s team that pushed to have several northeastern states adopt a winner take all format for awarding delegates. Those states are now the ones likely to put McCain over the top.

In a political season full of surprises, McCain’s path to the nomination ranks up there as one of the biggest. Another is the fact that the Republicans are now likely to settle on their nominee well before the Democrats. That’s something no one expected and something that could have significant implications heading into the fall campaign.