Republican Super Tuesday results thread (first polls close at 7pm ET)

[jimrtex]

Texas looks a little low energy, so I suspect Cruz is winning there. The rest are long, high energy lines.

Cruz is from houston specifically and that's where the photo is from. He will demolish there.

I'm slightly jealous when I see the picture of Houston voters in shorts and I'm here in 32-degree Illinois.

Hee!

To the former point, I went to the guy's high school and barely know anyone who likes him.  Most people I know can't stand him.

But, that's anecdotal, and he will probably win.

"Second Baptist School, a posh 42-acre campus in Houston’s affluent west side, with covered red brick walkways and edifices."

I think the Comical was trying to get the story distributed on the wire services.

He was class president, so he must not have been unpopular, just not popular in a social sense.

[jimrtex]

 One can clearly tell from the photos of voters that there are many people pondering their choices and contemplating switching candidates.  Clear evidence of a surge for Kasich and Carson.

Of the folks in Houston, 4 were looking at their cell phone, and 2 were reading a book.

There are around 50 offices on the ballot in Houston, so any contemplating their choices may have been looking at the other offices.

[jimrtex]

Cruz leads 27 of 27 CD's with votes cast. Trump is 2nd in all, though Rubio is kind of close in a few.

Elizabeth Gray is leading Huckabee, Paul, Christie, Fiorina, Graham, and Santorum. Very early on, she was leading all of them combined.

GRAYmentum!!!

[jimrtex]

I wonder if Trump getting official endorsements has hurt him any tonight?

The one Texas CD that Trump is 3rd place in TX-32 (Rep. Pete Sessions). I wouldn't be surprised if the Sessions endorsement hurt.

Also Trump's pandering to Big Corn and appearing to be opposed to eminent domain for pipelines may have cost him Oklahoma.

[jimrtex]

I wonder if Trump getting official endorsements has hurt him any tonight?

The one Texas CD that Trump is 3rd place in TX-32 (Rep. Pete Sessions). I wouldn't be surprised if the Sessions endorsement hurt.

Also Trump's pandering to Big Corn and appearing to be opposed to eminent domain for pipelines may have cost him Oklahoma.

That Sessions didn't endorse Trump...

Nobody outside Alabama has ever heard of that other Sessions.

[jimrtex]

Cruz did extremely well on election day in Texas.

Early voting:

Cruz 40.4%
Trump 28.4%
Rubio 18.2%
Kasich 4.3%
Carson 3.7%
Bush 2.2%

Election Day (reported so far):

Cruz 49.5% (+9.1%)
Trump 27.1% (-1.3%)
Rubio 12.1% (-6.1%)
Carson 5.1% (+1.4%)
Kasich 2.9% (-1.4%)
Bush 0.5% (-1.7%)

Cruz appears to have taken all 36 CDs, and is closing in on 50% in several. So far he is over 50% in only one, TX-10 which runs from Houston to Austin.

Note the above is based on the SOS website which doesn't have anything from Harris County yet, though Harris County has results reported.

[jimrtex]

These are updated. The effect is more mild, so there must have been mismatches between which counties had reported early voting, and which had voted election day voting:

Cruz 40.60% early, 46.12% election day, +5.52%
Trump 28.07%, 25.74%, -2.33%
Rubio 18.42%, 17.25%, -1.17%
Kasich 4.35%, 4.17%, -0.18%
Carson 3.56%, 4.59%, +1.03%
Bush 2.30%, 0.45%, -1.85%
Uncommitted 1.49%, -0.79%
Christie 0.17%, 0.08%, -0.09%
Fiorina 0.13%, 0.10%, -0.03%
Graham 0.06%, 0.06%, 0.00%
Gray 0.20%, 0.19%, -0.01%
Huckabee 0.25%, 0.19%, -0.06%
Paul 0.26%, 0.29%, +0.03%
Santorum 0.07%, 0.07%, -0.00%

I suspect that Cruz had done a better job of figuring out who was a Republican-leaning voter from past elections, and who had not voted early (who had voted early is publicly available on a daily basis). Cruz probably picked up a lot of voters who would have voted for Bush (Jeb's father, brother, and son have all been elected in Texas).

Carson and his supporters may be existing in a parallel universe. And his campaign has a larger list of individual voters than anyone else.

It was quite typical for Ron Paul and Libertarians to do better on election day than in early voting.

In congressional districts, Cruz received a majority in two districts, TX-1 in Northeast Texas (Gohmert's district) and TX-29, the Hispanic district in east and north Houston. Gene Green was being challenged by Adrian Garcia, former Harris County Sheriff (he resigned to run unsuccessfully for mayor of Houston). Some voters who might have crossed over to Trump, may have decided to vote in the Democratic congressional primary.

Rubio finished second in three districts. TX-7 is in western Harris County, and is wealthier and better educated. George HW Bush represented the district. TX-16 is in El Paso, and Pope Francis had celebrated mass before 200,000 persons in Juarez, just across the river. TX-32 is in Dallas and Collin County. Its representative is Pete Sessions, and some voters may have confused with the Sessions who had endorsed Trump. It is also wealthy and better educated. George W Bush lives in the district.

The SOS website is showing Rubio with a majority in TX-33, the Hispanic district in Tarrant and Dallas County, but this is due to a reporting error.

[jimrtex]

WTF happened in Colorado ?

It seems the Republicans had a 80.000 caucus turnout, but they released no popular vote numbers ?

There is no popular vote there.  The caucusers pick delegates, but they don't hold a vote for president.

So these delegates are technically uncommitted?

Erc explains the process here:

https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=226605.msg4912583#msg4912583

The March 1 caucus just selects delegates for the next level up (the "County Assemblies and District Conventions").  We won't even know who those people support for another few weeks, at which point they can either select a presidential candidate to pledge to or go unbound.  Then on April 8/9, the delegates to the actual RNC will be selected, so I guess we'll know who got how many delegates at that point.  But even then, some of the delegates may be unbound.

Can the state party stack the deck with anti-TRUMP delegates if they want?
I read somewhere that this process might be an ace up the sleeve for the establishment.

I don't know.  Were there any limitations on who showed up for the initial round of caucuses today?  Or was it open to any registered Republican?  If any registered Republican could show up, then Trump's campaign or any other campaign would of course be free to try to stack the event with their own supporters.  But I'm not sure Trump's campaign is organized enough to be bothering with such things.  Seems like the sort of thing that Cruz would most likely be on top of.

The state bylaws say that a voter must have been registered as a Republican for two months prior to the caucus, with exceptions for newly naturalized citizens, and adults reaching age 18. There is also an exception for voters who must be permitted to participate as per state law. I don't know if this actually covers anyone or not.

In Colorado, the caucuses are part of the nomination process for partisan offices. A potential candidate must achieve a certain percentage of the delegate vote (IIRC, 30%) to appear on the primary ballot. A candidate may also qualify for the primary ballot if they fail to get enough convention support.

The basic concept is that party activists screen the candidates for the primary ballot. An ordinary voter might have little reason to attend a caucus, since they will still be able to vote at the primary.

If there weren't a presidential election, potential candidates for statewide may encourage supporters to get elected to district or county conventions so that they can help them qualify for the primary ballot (or even better block challengers from qualifying). State party rules permit use of preferential polls, but do not permit them to be binding. They also leave it to each caucus whether to consider the results of the poll when electing delegates to the next level. Election of delegates to the county and other conventions is by plurality voting. So a precinct caucus might elect elect supporters of one faction, or might elect well-regarded community or party leaders - this might be possible in a rural area or small town, where people have more community-awareness.

Now add in the presidential election, and the delegates serve also to eventually choose delegates to the national convention. This may cause the presidential election to overwhelm the state elections. The RNC rules also require that any preferential poll taken at a caucus before March 15 be binding on delegates to the national convention. State rules say that a preferential poll can't be binding, and if the RNC requires that it be binding, then there can't be a preferential poll.

The Iowa Republican party considered doing away with the preferential poll, since the RNC would require it to be binding - since it was before March 15. But the RNC reminded that it was voluntary for the RNC to let Iowa go early - so they reconsidered and had their preferential poll.

But the RNC did not have that leverage over the Colorado Republican party.

Candidates who want to be delegates to the national convention must register in advance of the state convention. They may pledge themselves to a particular candidate. The delegates at the state convention may consider that in choose the delegates.

Presumably at the precinct caucuses, those who had been around for a while knew how things worked. Those who just showed up because they heard it was like a primary, would not. If it looked like a majority at the caucus favored Trump, those in the know might suggest a sort of consensus delegation, one who favored Cruz, one who favored Rubio, one who favored Trump, or perhaps some who urged others to not lock themselves in. If they believed they had a majority or even a plurality, they might invite each candidate to tell a little bit about themselves, including which presidential candidate they liked.

In Texas, delegates to the national convention will be chosen by the state convention. While those who are chosen as delegates will be bound on the first ballot based on the primary result - they won't be bound on procedural votes, or platform votes, etc.