Romney Wins Nevada Caucuses     Permalink

Mitt Romney easily won the Nevada caucuses yesterday as expected. Vote counting is going extremely slowly because Republican officials in Nevada do not want a repeat of what happened in Iowa with the results being reported incorrectly on the night of the caucuses only to be corrected two weeks later. With 45% of the vote tallied as of 6 A.M. EST, the votes were as follows.

If these results hold, it will be a blow to Ron Paul, who has worked hard in the state and hoped to come in second. The results also show that even in a state where a quarter of the Republican electorate consists of Mormons, Romney has a tough time cracking 50%. But as long as the opposition continues to be badly fragmented, Romney's ship will continue to have clear sailing.

Update 1: With 71% of the vote counted, it's Romney 48%, Gingrich 23%, Paul 19%, Santorum 11%
Update 2: With 100% counted, it's Romney 50%, Gingrich 21%, Paul 19%, Santorum 10%

Republican Primary and Caucus Schedule     Permalink

With Nevada behind us, it is time to move on to the next events. On Tuesday, Colorado and Minnesota will hold precinct-level caucuses to elect delegates to the county-level caucuses later in the Spring. In addition, Missouri will hold a completely useless beauty contest that will cost the taxpayers about $7 million but will select no delegates to the Republican National Convention. The actual selection process will begin March 17 at the Republican caucuses. State legislators passed a bill that would have moved the primary to a later date, but that bill contained many other items that Gov. Jay Nixon (D-MO) found objectionable and vetoed.

One noteworthy aspect of the Missouri primary though is that Newt Gingrich didn't bother to get on the ballot (because no delegates will be selected). As a consequence, Rick Santorum has a chance to show what he can do in a key swing state absent Gingrich.

Below is a list of this year's dates of the Republican primaries and caucuses that occur before April 1, 2012.

It is important to distinguish the elections before and after April 1 because the ones before it all require some form of allocating the delegates proportionally whereas those after it do not have this requirement. The states are free to determine themselves what "proportionally" means. One way is simply to say if a candidate gets x% of the vote he gets x% of the delegates. But that is not the only possibility. Another scheme is winner-take-all per county or per congressional district. In this scheme, you have to actually win in some geographical part of the state to get any delegates. The April 1 cutoff is especially important to Gingrich, Santorum, and Paul. Before this date, they can continue accumulating delegates, which increases their power at the convention. After April 1, Romney is likely to get a plurality in most, if not all, states, and thus all the delegates. So for the second tier, it is April 1 or bust.

Here is the schedule for primaries after April 1.

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