Watching Washington, semi live chat
The King Prawn ·
March 4, 2012 at 3:12am
Results from the Washington state GOP caucuses are coming in. Results can be found here. Romney is off to a solid lead in early returns. Paul is doing surprisingly well, Santorum is under-performing compared to polling, and Gingrich is still running. As noted by member call4552, the state is embarrassing itself by having to turn away potential caucus goers in one county. Early results are probably not very representative as the more populated counties have not yet reported. Stay tuned for updates as they come in.
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Comments:
Jul '10
Re: Watching Washington, semi live chat
KP, any idea how the more populous counties are likely to lean?
Dec '10
Re: Watching Washington, semi live chat
The 5th most populous county (my county, Kitsap) has Romney 37%, Santorum 28%, Paul 18%, Gingrich 13%. It had enough votes to put Santorum in a tie with Paul for 2nd. If trends continue that way expect Romney to get a solid win. All that being said, no delegates will be decided today. They will come from the convention, and that could be completely unrelated to the straw poll results.
Apr '11
Re: Watching Washington, semi live chat
In 2008, the only populous Eastern county, Spokane, went Paul, along with Grant and Clallam. Whatcom, Snohomish, Chealam, and Douglas all went Huckabee, and seem likely ground for a Santorum stronghold, although some Huckabee 2008 counties appear to be Romney or Paul in 2012. The rest were McCain in 2008 or have already declared, but turnout is much higher this time and I'd guess that Nate Silver is right to say that predictions about the results are hard.
Dec '10
Re: Watching Washington, semi live chat
I see the results being important today for a couple of reasons:
Dec '10
Re: Watching Washington, semi live chat
Great, my county is showing 100.5% (186 of 185) precincts reporting. Apparently we had a spare...
Jul '10
Re: Watching Washington, semi live chat
Okay. I think that this is an important, possibly widely misunderstood (at least I doubt my understanding) point.
For instance, in call4522's post he noted that 5 of 12 votes in his precinct went for Romney, 3 for Paul, 2 for Newt, & two for Rick. Yet the two delegates chosen were for Santorum and Paul.
The returns would say: Romney 41%, Paul 25%, Santorum 17%, and Gingrich 17%, not Paul 50%, Santorum 50%. Correct?
Apr '11
Re: Watching Washington, semi live chat
The King Prawn: I see the results being important today for a couple of reasons: ·
Non-binding caucus states are kind of a wash. Iowa was very close, Colorado and Minnesota easy wins for Santorum, Wyoming and Maine easy wins for Mitt. I'm with you on 2, but I don't think that 1 will show a particularly strong message about conservatives and Mitt. They liked him in the West already (although the Colorado surprise was, well, surprising), just like they like him in the East. Santorum gets them in the Mid-West, and will get them in the South. ND will be interesting on Tuesday, as it roughly marks the western boundary of the Santorum Corridor.
Dec '10
Re: Watching Washington, semi live chat
Palaeologus
Okay. I think that this is an important, possibly widely misunderstood (at least I doubt my understanding) point.
For instance, in call4522's post he noted that 5 of 12 votes in his precinct went for Romney, 3 for Paul, 2 for Newt, & two for Rick. Yet the two delegates chosen were for Santorum and Paul.
The returns would say: Romney 41%, Paul 25%, Santorum 17%, and Gingrich 17%, not Paul 50%, Santorum 50%. Correct? · 0 minutes ago
My understanding is that the delegates are not bound to any vote at the county conventions. The delegates for my precinct say they will attempt to represent the people of the precinct to the best of their ability. We'll see how that actually works out. The actual delegate count for the state will not be decided until May 31st when the state convention takes place. Normally half the delegates are decided by the primary, but since we didn't have one this year all the delegates will be allocated by the state convention.
Apr '11
Re: Watching Washington, semi live chat
Palaeologus
Okay. I think that this is an important, possibly widely misunderstood (at least I doubt my understanding) point.
For instance, in call4522's post he noted that 5 of 12 votes in his precinct went for Romney, 3 for Paul, 2 for Newt, & two for Rick. Yet the two delegates chosen were for Santorum and Paul.
The returns would say: Romney 41%, Paul 25%, Santorum 17%, and Gingrich 17%, not Paul 50%, Santorum 50%. Correct? · 2 minutes ago
Correct. The thing being published is the Straw Poll, which should, as a practical matter, roughly correlate with the delegate elections, but which does not have to.
Apr '11
Re: Watching Washington, semi live chat
Kitsap's ghost precinct appears to have faded back into the mists from whence it came. Unfortunately I didn't note the totals, so I've no idea who the fraudulent votes benefited.
Dec '10
Re: Watching Washington, semi live chat
James Of England
Correct. The thing being published is the Straw Poll, which should, as a practical matter, roughly correlate with the delegate elections, but which does not have to. · 1 minute ago
Funny thing, my precinct elected delegates prior to straw polling. Like I said in the other post, the whole thing was very disorganized.
Dec '10
Re: Watching Washington, semi live chat
James Of England
Kitsap's ghost precinct appears to have faded back into the mists from whence it came. Unfortunately I didn't note the totals, so I've no idea who the fraudulent votes benefited. · 2 minutes ago
Same results. Probably a typo on google's end of things.
Aug '10
Re: Watching Washington, semi live chat
James Of England
Kitsap's ghost precinct appears to have faded back into the mists from whence it came. Unfortunately I didn't note the totals, so I've no idea who the fraudulent votes benefited. · 3 minutes ago
The ghosts realized this wasn't for a Democrat and decided to rescind their votes.
Apr '11
Re: Watching Washington, semi live chat
The King Prawn
James Of England
Correct. The thing being published is the Straw Poll, which should, as a practical matter, roughly correlate with the delegate elections, but which does not have to. · 1 minute ago
Funny thing, my precinct elected delegates prior to straw polling. Like I said in the other post, the whole thing was very disorganized. · 5 minutes ago
Even if a lot of precincts chose without knowledge of their delegate's leanings, or chose delegates that disagreed with the precinct's straw poll results, the delegates shouldn't be all that different from the general result. Delegates picked at random would be almost identical to the straw poll; some campaigns (notably Paul) are working hard at getting delegates elected, while Romney's establishment ties and possibly the cash fee could help him, and maybe there are other factors, but I'd have thought that the correlation is still reasonably tight. If Newt wins the delegate count, you can consider my eyebrows to have been raised.
Aug '10
Re: Watching Washington, semi live chat
Thanks for the link to the results page, KP. Great for lazy folks like myself!
Aug '10
Re: Watching Washington, semi live chat
Big lead in King County so far for Romney. I would think that would end up being the decider.
Dec '10
Re: Watching Washington, semi live chat
Always is, sadly.
Dec '10
Re: Watching Washington, semi live chat
I'm a little surprised by the results so far. The ABR sentiment in my precinct was so strong I expected Romney to squeak out a win if anything. Of course, I was pretty surprised by how ill informed the people were in general as well. One dear old gal firmly believed Romney had repudiated Romneycare and apologized for it.
Apr '11
Re: Watching Washington, semi live chat
Funny how these things work. It looks as though Romney will win every county won by McCain in 2008, plus every county won by Romney (after he dropped out), plus Clark, Snohomish, Wahkiakum, Grays Harbor, Thurston, Clallam, Garfield, but losing Columbia, which he won in 2008.
Still, he looks to be doing far less well in the overall vote. For the next county to flip, I'm guessing Grant, from Paul to Romney, again, despite Paul's superior performance to 2008.
Dec '10
Re: Watching Washington, semi live chat
James Of England:
Still, he looks to be doing far less well in the overall vote.
I would suggest that is because we're doing something other making applause or protest votes this time. Also, are you comparing this year to '08's caucus or primary numbers?