Republican Super Tuesday results thread (first polls close at 7pm ET)

[Mr. Morden]

WTF happened in Colorado ?

It seems the Republicans had a 80.000 caucus turnout, but they released no popular vote numbers ?

There is no popular vote there.  The caucusers pick delegates, but they don't hold a vote for president.

[Mr. Morden]

WTF happened in Colorado ?

It seems the Republicans had a 80.000 caucus turnout, but they released no popular vote numbers ?

There is no popular vote there.  The caucusers pick delegates, but they don't hold a vote for president.

So these delegates are technically uncommitted?

Erc explains the process here:

https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=226605.msg4912583#msg4912583

The March 1 caucus just selects delegates for the next level up (the "County Assemblies and District Conventions").  We won't even know who those people support for another few weeks, at which point they can either select a presidential candidate to pledge to or go unbound.  Then on April 8/9, the delegates to the actual RNC will be selected, so I guess we'll know who got how many delegates at that point.  But even then, some of the delegates may be unbound.

[Mr. Morden]

WTF happened in Colorado ?

It seems the Republicans had a 80.000 caucus turnout, but they released no popular vote numbers ?

There is no popular vote there.  The caucusers pick delegates, but they don't hold a vote for president.

So these delegates are technically uncommitted?

Erc explains the process here:

https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=226605.msg4912583#msg4912583

The March 1 caucus just selects delegates for the next level up (the "County Assemblies and District Conventions").  We won't even know who those people support for another few weeks, at which point they can either select a presidential candidate to pledge to or go unbound.  Then on April 8/9, the delegates to the actual RNC will be selected, so I guess we'll know who got how many delegates at that point.  But even then, some of the delegates may be unbound.

Can the state party stack the deck with anti-TRUMP delegates if they want?
I read somewhere that this process might be an ace up the sleeve for the establishment.

I don't know.  Were there any limitations on who showed up for the initial round of caucuses today?  Or was it open to any registered Republican?  If any registered Republican could show up, then Trump's campaign or any other campaign would of course be free to try to stack the event with their own supporters.  But I'm not sure Trump's campaign is organized enough to be bothering with such things.  Seems like the sort of thing that Cruz would most likely be on top of.

[Mr. Morden]

What's the best source for the national popular vote?  Wikipedia has it as:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republican_Party_presidential_primaries,_2016#Candidates_and_results

Trump 34%
Cruz 28%
Rubio 22%
Kasich 7%
Carson 6%

But I don't know if that's up to date or not.

[Mr. Morden]

And speaking of the popular vote, is this the first time in modern primary history that we've managed to get through 15 state contests without a single candidate getting more than 50% of the vote in any of those contests?

[Mr. Morden]

Based on Super Tuesday, it's clear that TRUMP's only shot at the nomination is that the GOP primaries will soon be mostly Winner Take All. If they remained proportional, we'd definitely be having a contested convention.

Imagine if there was some insane anti Trump conspiracy where all his opponents are on the ballot in the states that are proportional with a low threshold, fewer if there's a high threshold, and only 1 if it's winner take all (including variants like SC).

Ross Douthat actually suggested that Kasich endorse Rubio in Florida and Rubio endorse Kasich in Ohio, in order to make it harder for Trump to get a delegate majority.

[Mr. Morden]

Are there county results maps for Minnesota and Vermont?

I dont think for Minnesota but for Vermont you can do it town by town and add it up.

There's county data for Minnesota here:

link

so someone could make a map out of it.

[Mr. Morden]

Rubio vs. Cruz (via Nate Cohn):

[Mr. Morden]

Another Nate Cohn map: Trump support drops when you go west of the Mississippi River: