At this hour, Mitt Romney is winning the Florida primary with 46 percent of the vote, with 86 percent of precincts reporting. “Newtrick Perigrichum” may be no more, but if you genetically splice the three remaining Romney rivals into “Newtron Paulingrum,” Romney will have a tough road ahead. Keep reading this post . . .
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Mitt Romney, the ‘Somewhat Conservative’ Choice
**Written by Doug Powers Fifty delegates are at stake in today’s winner-take-all Florida primary. The polls close at 8 p.m. EST. Let’s kick off an open thread for comments on the results as they come in. As of 9:15 p.m. with 78% of the precincts reporting, Romney is up on Gingrich 47% to 32% Santorum has 13%, Paul is at 7%, and in Palm Beach County I’m told there were three five accidental votes for Pat Buchanan. CNN has an up-to-the-minute vote tally and county results here . No word yet on who’s ahead in the cracker counties . We’ll have updates as soon as anything worth mentioning happens. Feel free to talk amongst yourselves! Update: Networks saying they’ll be able to call it at 8 p.m. Romney it is. Update II: CNN calls it for Romney. Ditto for Fox News . Delegate count after tonight with 1144 needed: Romney-84, Gingrich-27, Santorum-10, Paul-8 (h/t Curtis Kalin ). The WSJ has it slightly different but you get the gist. A little near future speculation on the delegate front : With Mitt Romney’s win in Florida tonight, he has won all of the state’s 50 delegates – although there is some chance the outcome could be disputed because Florida’s winner-take-all allocation is technically in violation of Republican party rules. But assume that the outcome holds, and that Mr. Romney also wins Virginia on Mar. 6, where only he and Ron Paul are on the ballot. Virginia awards all of its delegates to the winner if he or she gets at least 50 percent of the vote. By definition, the winner in a two-way race will have at least 50 percent of the vote, and the winner is likely to be Mr. Romney in a head-to-head contest against Mr. Paul. That would give Mr. Romney a total of 96 delegates between Florida and Virginia alone (Virginia has 49 delegates, but three of them are automatic delegates, often called super delegates). Although this represents only 8 percent of the delegates that Mr. Romney would eventually need to cinch the Republican race, it would nevertheless constitute a tangible advantage in the event of a close back-and-forth race against Mr. Gingrich. A reporter caught up with Gingrich to ask if he still sees a path to the nomination. “Of course…” (h/t HAP ): Update III: Good news: Rick Santorum said his daughter is doing much better after being hospitalized with a serious condition. **Written by Doug Powers Twitter @ThePowersThatBe
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Florida Primary Open Thread; Update: Romney Wins
What jumps out of the South Carolina exit polls . . . Gingrich won women over Romney, 36 percent to 30 percent. Seven percent of exit-poll respondents identified themselves as “somewhat liberal,” 2 percent identified as “very liberal.” Among those who identified as “somewhat liberal,” 30 percent voted for Gingrich, 30 percent voted for Romney. (Never underestimate that some South Carolinians may simply want to mess with the exit pollsters.) Gingrich won among voters who identified themselves as evangelical or born-again Christians, 42 percent to 22 percent. Ron Paul won 14 percent of veterans. His supporters often emphasize how many veterans and enlisted men and women donate to his campaign; others have wondered if his stances on foreign policy and national security would come across as isolationist or dovish. Paul appears to do roughly as well as he does among veterans as among non-veterans. A striking 87 percent said the debates were a factor in their vote; 64 percent said they were “important” to their vote. Three-quarters of respondents said they made up their minds in the last month. Seventeen percent said they decided today. Sixty-five percent approve of how Nikki Haley is handling her job as governor. Thirty-nine percent said they could support Romney enthusiastically as the GOP nominee, 47 percent said they could support with him with reservations, and 12 percent said they would not support him. Sixty-five percent view Romney’s “background as an investor” positively; 28 percent view it negatively. Ninety-seven percent are worried about the economy, 79 percent describe themselves as “very worried.”
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Exit Polls: Gingrich Narrowly Winning Women Over Romney
Video: On Saturday, the vote in South Carolina may finalize the GOP nomination race or start a long, protracted battle.
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South Carolina primary: Most critical in 32 years
In South Carolina and across the nation, evangelical leaders are still holding out hope that religious conservatives will coalesce around a single Republican presidential candidate, rather than splinter their vote as in 2008.
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Hope Dims for an Evangelical Pick
Reagan biographer* Craig Shirley points out that in 2008, Mitt Romney won 25.19 percent of the vote in the Iowa caucuses. A big question will be whether he surpasses that this year. In the past four polls in Iowa , Romney finished with 23 percent, 19 percent, 24 percent, and 23 percent. Keep reading this post . . .
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Can Romney Beat His 2008 Finish in Iowa?
There were 15 comments on my post from yesterday asking Blaze readers to describe what a Donald Trump endorsement would mean. The one word that kept coming up was “interesting” or some variation on it: “I think it would be interesting to see who he supports. But… it won’t affect my vote.”– OHIO4TEA “ His endorsement would be interesting but not sway me.”– BAKER JOHN “His endorsement doesn’t mean much to me but it would be interesting to see who he would back.”– MENSAMAN62 “…This is what will interest me, even though I will most likely not vote for Trump. His endorsement will not influence my vote either.”– NC “I think it would be interesting to hear who he thinks would be the best candidate and why… On the other hand, I certainly don’t see it having any effect on my vote.”– DRFROST For the purpose of this post, it looks like Trump might be right. People are waiting for his endorsement, if not “millions.” But in the eyes of many (most?) he’s just a celebrity, meaning he’s interesting but not particularly relevant in real world decision making.
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Blaze readers find trump interesting, that’s all
Number of delegates at stake in Iowa: 28 Number of delegates that winning 50 percent of the vote gets you: 14 Keep reading this post . . .
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Perspective on What’s at Stake in the Next Two Weeks
Number of delegates at stake in Iowa: 28 Number of delegates that winning 50 percent of the vote gets you: 14 Keep reading this post . . .
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Perspective on What’s at Stake in the Next Two Weeks
Somehow I get the feeling this is a little more than stepped up get out the vote efforts. At Weasel Zippers, “Occupy Wall Street Leaders Promise ‘Asymmetrical Warfare Strategies’ Bringing Us ‘One Step Closer to Revolution’ In 2012… ” PHOTO CREDITS : Ringo’s Pictures, ” The Occupation of Los Angeles – Part 6 – 10/15/2011: The Global Day of Action .”
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Occupy Wall Street Plans ‘American Spring’ to Bring U.S. ‘One Step Closer to Revolution’
