March 10 Kansas + miscellaneous islands primary/caucus **results thread**

[Mr. Morden]

Newt dropping out actually nets Mittens a few delegates per Nate Silver. Well, about 10 delegates net if Newt hadn't been in the race to start with, and not much if Newt drops out now. It is obvious when you think about it. If Mittens with everyone around is on track with the supers to get an absolute majority of the delegates, it doesn't matter who has the other 45% to 49% of them or whatever. In short, this whole if only one "conservative" were in the race meme against the suspiciously moderate Mittens (I have to laugh every time I hear that one - I'm a moderate - Mitttens isn't - period), has been and remains way over hyped. There is no there, there. It only matters in absolute winner take all states, like Florida, where Mittens on his own one on one would have won anyway, since he got 46% on his own, and gets about a quarter of the Newt votes to boot.

Not really.  It also matters in any state that's WTA by congressional district.  Especially going forward, now that there are going to be more states with WTA by CD + WTA at large beyond April 1.  With Gingrich in the race, Romney can win quite a few CDs with just ~35 to 40% of the vote.  But if Gingrich is out, then that's no longer the case.  In the other post by Nate Silver, he talks about how Santorum can only beat Romney if he starts doing so well that he wins the majority of delegates in states like California.  Obviously, he's more likely to win more delegates in CA (and Romney's likely to win fewer delegates in CA) if Gingrich isn't in the race, pulling more votes from Santorum, given how the CA delegate allocation works.

This is why whether Gingrich decides to drop out or not this week is the key question going forward in terms of how quickly this process gets wrapped up, and whether Romney is able to have a "clean victory" in primary season or not.

[Torie]

Yes, except that about half of the CA CD's have next to no Pubs in them, and the Pubs that are there, are not Santorum types. If Newt is gone, it might flip 2 or 3 CD's in the Central Valley, and maybe a couple in the inland empire. That is about it. CA is one state where the salience of economic issues for Pubs is very high - and for good reason. Also the primary is closed, so we won't have any mischief voters, like happened in Ohio and particularly Michigan.

Newt by the way says he is going to Tampa even if he loses both Alabama and Mississippi. I think he means it. He is not in this race at this point to win the nomination. He's in it for the klieg lights.

[ajb]

A pretty much perfect result in Kansas. A disastrous result (though expected) for Romney's near candidate best friend. Hoping it affects MS and AL.

Bad? Certainly. Disastrous? That's pushing it. It's overshadowed by our ninja delegates.

You're a Newt supporter? Because he's to whom I was referring.

Really? I haven't heard Newt being called his best friend before. And I wouldn't call his showing disastrous either. He had no expectations and is focusing on the south.

He's his new best friend because he keeps the Anti Romney vote split.

Newt dropping out actually nets Mittens a few delegates per Nate Silver. Well, about 10 delegates net if Newt hadn't been in the race to start with, and not much if Newt drops out now. It is obvious when you think about it. If Mittens with everyone around is on track with the supers to get an absolute majority of the delegates, it doesn't matter who has the other 45% to 49% of them or whatever. In short, this whole if only one "conservative" were in the race meme against the suspiciously moderate Mittens (I have to laugh every time I hear that one - I'm a moderate - Mitttens isn't - period), has been and remains way over hyped. There is no there, there.

According to that same Nate Silver piece, Santorum would have gained 110 delegates relative to what he's currently got if Gingrich were not in the race, thus reducing the gap between him and Romney by about a hundred delegates. He would also, by Silver's argument, have won SC, GA, OH and AK.

No, those delegates just move from the Newt column to the Rick column, which is irrelevant to the Romney systems engineering delegate blueprint. Just add the Newt and Rick totals together and consider them one candidate. The only wild card delegates really are the Paul delegates in a brokered convention. Rick would just put Newt on his ticket if need be to get the Newt delegates. What a team! 

If this is indeed the Romney blueprint, it's a faulty design. There's a non-trivial chance that Santorum in a Gingrich-free race might a) increase the odds of Romney not getting a majority of delegates, and b) actually start winning more votes, and delegates, than Romney himself. This would be a problem, assuming that the goal of the Romney blueprint is to elect a president, and not merely a presidential candidate.

[Lincoln Republican]

Thank you Guam, from Mitt and myself.

 

[Mr. Morden]

Thank you Guam, from Mitt and myself.

 

I'm sure the entire island of Guam feels blessed to have Winfield's thanks.

[rbt48]

Which of the remaining primaries are open ones where Santorum could appeal to Democrats to vote for him?

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Dammit Romney broke 20%. He gets delegates.

[Lincoln Republican]

Which of the remaining primaries are open ones where Santorum could appeal to Democrats to vote for him?

Grasping at straws now are we?

[Lincoln Republican]

Dammit Romney broke 20%. He gets delegates.

         

[ajb]

Dammit Romney broke 20%. He gets delegates.

         

And in the process helped Santorum to collect even more delegates than he would have if Romney had scored 19.9 instead of 20.9.

[Lincoln Republican]

Which of the remaining primaries are open ones where Santorum could appeal to Democrats to vote for him?

Open Contests

Alabama (50)
Arizona (Semi-closed, with primaries open only to unaffiliated or unrepresented voters, except for the Libertarian primary.)(57)
Arkansas (36)
Georgia (75)
Hawaii (Open primary for state, local, and congressional races; caucus system for presidential races.)(20)
Idaho (32)
Indiana (46)
Massachusetts (All races' primaries open for "unenrolled"/unaffiliated voters only)(41)
Michigan (59)
Mississippi (37)
Missouri (53)
South Carolina (50)
Tennessee (58)
Texas (152)
Vermont (17)
Virginia (49)
Wisconsin (42)

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Dammit Romney broke 20%. He gets delegates.

         

And in the process helped Santorum to collect even more delegates than he would have if Romney had scored 19.9 instead of 20.9.

Howso? If Romney had failed to break 20% everyone but Santorum would fail viability and Santorum would take all delegates.

[Bacon King]

Dammit Romney broke 20%. He gets delegates.

         

And in the process helped Santorum to collect even more delegates than he would have if Romney had scored 19.9 instead of 20.9.

Howso? If Romney had failed to break 20% everyone but Santorum would fail viability and Santorum would take all delegates.

If only one candidate got above 20% in Kansas, then delegates would have been awarded proportionally with no cutoff, so all four candidates would have split them.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Well that'd still mean less for Romney and some for Paul.

[CatoMinor]

Did all those blank counties on the google map just have 0 turnout?

[ajb]

Well that'd still mean less for Romney and some for Paul.

Fewer delegates for both Romney and Santorum (basically, they would have had 2/10 and 5/10 of the at-large delegates, instead of 2/7 and 5/7). Since Santorum would have lost more delegates, the gap between the two of them would have narrowed.

[Bacon King]

Did all those blank counties on the google map just have 0 turnout?

No; for whatever reason those counties didn't have a caucus. Republicans in those counties could apparently instead caucus at any other county in their congressional district, if they still wanted to participate.

[Brandon H]

.... but looks like Romney won the most delegates.

384 total cast

112 to Paul (29%)  Won one delegate

101 to Romney (26%) Won three delegates plus three RNC  member pledge.  (Pick up a uncommitted delegate after the balloting for a total of seven.)

23 to Santorm (6%) No delegates

18 to Gingrich (5%) No delegates

130 Uncommitted (34%) Two delegates but one changed to Romney after the vote totals were announced

http://vigop.com/

[Phony Moderate]

So, Uncommitted won the Virgin Islands popular vote.

[The Professor]

Not surprising Ron Paul won the Virgin Islands considering his supporters are most likely to be virgins.

[Phony Moderate]

Not surprising Ron Paul won the Virgin Islands considering his supporters are most likely to be virgins.

Are there many in your class, Prof?

[Atlas Has Shrugged]

Not surprising Ron Paul won the Virgin Islands considering his supporters are most likely to be virgins.

Are there many in your class, Prof?

No, no virgins in his class, because he does not have a class

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Not surprising Ron Paul won the Virgin Islands considering his supporters are most likely to be virgins.

Are there many in your class, Prof?

No, no virgins in his class, because he does not have a class

We actually established a while before you showed up that he may very well be an actual professor involved with some particularly surreal strand of postmodernism.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

I wonder what he teaches. Sociology?

[bgwah]

It's probably just someone like Aizen screwing around.