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[mainiac]

On the other hand

No votes have been counted yet, but CNN's exit poll in Vermont found that both Ron Paul and Rick Santorum were over the 20 percent threshold required to receive delegates there. (Our guess was that this would be true for Mr. Paul but not Mr. Santorum.)

If the exit poll results hold up, Mr. Romney would carry about 8 to 10 delegates out of the 17 that Vermont awards, versus 4 or 5 for Mr. Paul and about 4 for Mr. Santorum. Still, the exit poll sample size was especially small in Vermont, so we should watch carefully as actual results trickle in.

[Aqizzar]

Rick Santorum running away with the early vote in Tennessee, now predicted to win the state.  That'll be a feather in his cap.
EDIT: Santorum also predicted to win Oklahoma.  He's got a respectable little sandcastle going now.

Newt Gingrich is winning Georgia exactly as expected, but depending on how well he does, Romney or Santorum (or even both) could be knocked below the 20% Viability Threshold for a share of the votes.

Romney winning handily in Virginia, Massachusetts, and Vermont.  Still a question of margins, but the headlines are already set.

[RedKing]

Feeling a bit vindicated on Vermont (although it's Ron Paul that's dogging Romney along with Slick Rick).

But I wish to God I'd read this article before coming up with my projection. FINALLY, a good article explaining the crazy-ass different rules regarding how these states are proportional or not. For instance, Virginia is a winner-take-all if someone breaks 50% *AND* wins every Congressional district. That second condition changes everything, because I can totally see Ron Paul winning a district or two in the southwestern part of the state (the Appalachian "neck").

EDIT: Vote totals from Virginia make it a much closer race than earlier polls suggested, at 59-41. Paul narrowly won a swath of counties from Patrick straight up north to Craig county. Interestingly enough, he also won slim majorities in the Norfolk/Portsmouth area. Maybe there's enough sailors that are liking his "no more foreign wars" stance?

Where Mitt really cleaned up was in NoVa, like Fairfax, Arlington and Alexandria counties---the greater DC metro area. You can expect to see that used against him as proof that Romney's "the DC insider candidate".


It's still early going in Massachusetts, but Santorum is only at 12% in 2nd place. If nobody but Romney hits 15%, the state becomes winner-take-all.


Santorum appears to be winning Tennessee by a pretty wide margin, while Ohio is still very much neck and neck.

Gingrich is mopping up in Georgia with 48%, BUT he would need to hold all other challengers below 20% *and* win every district in order to claim the whole thing.

[RedKing]

Santorum has taken the lead in Ohio. If he takes Ohio *and* Tennessee with the margin he has there (and Oklahoma and North Dakota, as it looks like he will)....there's a lot of hay to made out of this. Those big margins in Massachusetts and Northern Virginia almost become a liability, with the label "Massachusetts liberal" and "D.C. insider" slapped all over him.

[Twi]

Santorum has taken the lead in Ohio. If he takes Ohio *and* Tennessee with the margin he has there (and Oklahoma and North Dakota, as it looks like he will)....there's a lot of hay to made out of this. Those big margins in Massachusetts and Northern Virginia almost become a liability, with the label "Massachusetts liberal" and "D.C. insider" slapped all over him.

*lives in Ohio*
FUUUUUUUUUUUUU-
I am ashamed to live here now. >_>
And honestly a bit puzzled. Remind me why Santorum is big in Ohio? I'm sorta a newb at politics and don't remember most of what I read here.

[Aqizzar]

Still watching Ohio - with 66% of the vote reporting, Santorum is in the lead by about thirteen thousand votes out of about seven hundred thousand (38% to 36%).  Wow.  This one could go down the wire, as the most urban and most rural areas keep reporting.  C'mon, gimme something good in the next 45 minutes.

Santorum has taken the lead in Ohio. If he takes Ohio *and* Tennessee with the margin he has there (and Oklahoma and North Dakota, as it looks like he will)....there's a lot of hay to made out of this. Those big margins in Massachusetts and Northern Virginia almost become a liability, with the label "Massachusetts liberal" and "D.C. insider" slapped all over him.

He was going to be stuck with those labels no matter what the votes were.  It will be interesting to see the counties around D.C. going 99% for him though, that might be noteworthy.

[roflgar]

Don't feel too bad Twi, I live in PA.

We made the mistake of electing that clown (and by "we" I mean people who aren't me since I was a child at the time).

[RedKing]

Well looking at the map, outside of the big four metro areas (Cincinnati, Cleveland, Columbus, Toledo) Santorum cleaned up. That's a lot of small-town rural Americana out there.

Thing is, I just crunched some numbers, and if I'm doing the math right, Romney will probably suffer a less-than-impressive night and STILL come out with a lead that is 100 delegates higher than it was going in. The reason? He'll almost certainly keep everyone below the 15% threshold in Massachusetts and thus pick up ALL 41 delegates there. And even though he didn't sweep Virginia, He'll wind up with 43 of 49 (and more importantly, Rick Santorum gets zilch), and finally the way the Idaho caucuses are structured, it's virtually a winner-take-all contest. Early results are heavily in Romney's favor, so that's another 32.

So right there, from those three states he has 116 delegates and Santorum picks up a goose egg. Santorum wasn't able to shut out the competition in Oklahoma, so he winds up having to share delegates with Romney there, and in TN and OH and GA even with the wins. He whittles away at Romney's lead, but he can't whittle away in giant chunks like Romney got in the three above.

Vermont ends up being a small net bonus for Romney, and Alaska is still voting but it's not a large number of delegates.

Right now, Romney looks poised to win four, Santorum to win four, Gingrich to win one. Even if Santorum takes Alaska and thus wins the lion's share of the night, his wins will be paltry in terms of delegates compared to Romney's wins, because of the vagaries of the different state rules. You can bank on the Virginia primary being taken to the courts by somebody, because that's a major blow to the various anti-Romney forces.

He was going to be stuck with those labels no matter what the votes were.  It will be interesting to see the counties around D.C. going 99% for him though, that might be noteworthy.

Nah, they're not that lopsided, but they are roughly 65-35 in favor of Romney over Paul. I'm surprised Paul got 35%, considering he wants to "slit the throat of Federal government" and those counties are more or less utterly tied to the Federal government for their livelihoods.

[Aqizzar]

He was going to be stuck with those labels no matter what the votes were.  It will be interesting to see the counties around D.C. going 99% for him though, that might be noteworthy.

Nah, they're not that lopsided, but they are roughly 65-35 in favor of Romney over Paul. I'm surprised Paul got 35%, considering he wants to "slit the throat of Federal government" and those counties are more or less utterly tied to the Federal government for their livelihoods.

Yeah, that might actually work for him, if he winds up doing worse around D.C. proper than he does statewide.  Since most of the people around D.C. voting in the primary are Republicans who work in or for the federal government, you'd figure they'd be for the "thinking man's conservative" candidate.  Maybe there's a lot of plucky young College Republicans around there, boosting up Paul.

Also, North Dakota has been called for Santorum.  States are not equal in the slightest, but saying you clearly won in three states is pretty impressive for anyone.  Ohio is still too close to call, although the total number of counties are mostly going for Santorum - like Michigan, the Santorum/Romney county breakdown looks almost exactly like a population-density map.

[RedKing]

Mitt still has a shot in Ohio, because Cleveland and Cincy still aren't fully in. Cincy is at 78% reporting, and Cleveland at only 41%. Those are some sizable vote blocks, and they're both trending pretty heavy for Romney (48-30 in Cincy, 47-31 in Cleveland).

Most, but not all of the rural areas are 100% in. Given that the gap is only about 7,000 votes...yeah. Cleveland alone might erase that.

[Aqizzar]

Likewise, Cincinnati is supposedly the conservative talk-radio capital of America.  Provided that's true, I honestly don't know how Ohio's urban areas will break down, in terms of Republican vs. Republican, but it does sound like Santorum should be winning the usually-Romney urbanized Republican vote.

85% in, and the race has narrowed to Santorum winning by about two thousand votes.  There's a whole lot of campaign staffers chewing their nails right now.

[RedKing]

Doing the math in my head, I think Romney pulls this one out by a hair. Probably close enough for a recount.

Also, saw that Sarah Palin commented that she's "open" to jumping into the race if there's a brokered convention. How freakin' awesome would that be? And how very Palinesque..."I don't want to do any that hard stuff like campaigning and fundraising, but you know...if you boys want to just go ahead and make me Queen then yah, I'd be up for that, ya betcha." 

Meanwhile, Newt's victory speech in Georgia was mostly about gas prices, himself and how unfair the liberal media elites are to him.

Alex Castellanos had a pretty good observation earlier:

This is a scary night for Mitt Romney. Santorum is going to be able to look him in the eye tomorrow and say, 'You outspent me to three to one in Tennessee, four to one in Ohio, and in 90 of 95 counties in Tennessee, I beat you, and in Ohio, we don't know.' This is getting scary-close for Romney. This a near-death experience.

EDIT: Also, amusing tweet:

@ BenjySarlin : If Romney's the Death Star, Ohio is looking like a small thermal exhaust port, right below the main port.

[Aqizzar]

Also, saw that Sarah Palin commented that she's "open" to jumping into the race if there's a brokered convention. How freakin' awesome would that be? And how very Palinesque..."I don't want to do any that hard stuff like campaigning and fundraising, but you know...if you boys want to just go ahead and make me Queen then yah, I'd be up for that, ya betcha." 

Well, that was basically how she got on the ticket last time.  And if Romney, and McCain, and Dole, and probably more examples than anyone would be comfortable with suggest, the Republican party does love its past losers.

But, yeah, we all know ain't gonna happen.

Meanwhile, Newt's victory speech in Georgia was mostly about gas prices, himself and how unfair the liberal media elites are to him.

I always love hearing people suggest Gingrich is the "intellectual" candidate, basically for no other reason except that he's been calling himself a genius for eighteen years.  That speech made me want to stab my ears with a pencil.

[RedKing]

Big chunk of votes in from Cleveland and Cincy, and Romney is now in the lead by 5500. With still another 40% or so of Cleveland to report. I think he'll actually win by 8,000 or more. Probably enough for a 2% margin of victory. Team Romney has got to having a HUGE sigh of momentary relief, while Rick Santorum is probably using the sort of language that he'd insist he never uses.

[mainiac]

Should be interesting to see if Santorum pulls just above or just below the 20% threshhold in Georgia.  Could lead to Gingrich dropping out if he goes over that.

Overall this is looking a lot like Silver's middleground projection, which should mean Romney gaining about 150 on Santorum and 140 on Gingrich.