March 13 Results

[platypeanArchcow]

Those were big dumps from Mobile and Baldwin, which have now caught up with the rest of the state.  Gingrich should pull it out.

[Torie]

Whoop, with 90% reporting Romney is now down only 200 votes in Alabama, versus Gingrich.

Honestly, I think a third-place result for Gingrich in Alabama might be even better for Santorum than Romney in 3rd.  Santorum has already embarrassed Romney in both states.  It would help to embarrass Gingrich in one of his "must-wins" too.

Where is Mittens pulling a rabbit out of the hat?  And yes, I agree with you.  Newt being around is probably worth about 75 delegates for Mittens in the end, as a wild guess. That man whom I loathe viscerally (Rick I disdain but certainly do not loathe), needs to be kept somewhat viable for awhile longer. Maybe however he can ride his $2.50 gas price BS to staying viable irrespective. He's gone totally nutter on that one, but maybe that just makes him more appealing!  

[Torie]

Those were big dumps from Mobile and Baldwin, which have now caught up with the rest of the state.  Gingrich should pull it out.

OK, then the earlier vote in Baldwin was from the hinterlands. That early number really freaked me out. It would be like my home town going for Rick - well not really, but you get the drift.

[Grad Students are the Worst]

Romney was getting some urban areas finishing up, which helped them.  At 98% reporting (with Gingrich +2,000) Mobile is still 20% out, but Romney's lead there over Gingrich is only +4,000.  Romney is a doubly cooked goose, I'm pretty sure.

Edit: And the new Mobile dump was basically a three-way tie, safe Gingrich.

[True Federalist]

Looks like Paul's best county of the night so far is Pearl River, at all of 8.4%

While I can't get the percentage for him from the Google maps, it appears that Rick Perry's best county in Mississippi was ...  Perry County!  He also did relatively well in Perry County, Alabama, but with only 42% reporting it looks like Pickens County, Alabama is even better for now.

[J. J.]

Anything on the delegates:

AP has:

MI:  S 12, R 11, G 11

AL:  S 15, G 9, R 7

Anybody with a better estimate?

[IDS Speaker Ben Kenobi]

Congrats Phil. 10 states now for Santorum.

Santorum did what Huckabee couldn't, win Mississippi.

Oh, and if Gingrich wants to see Romney go down in flames- he needs to drop out, so that Santorum can rack up some huge wins.

[Stranger in a strange land]

Congrats Phil. 10 states now for Santorum.

Santorum did what Huckabee couldn't, win Mississippi.

Oh, and if Gingrich wants to see Romney go down in flames- he needs to drop out, so that Santorum can rack up some huge wins.

Huck dropped out before Mississippi voted.

[Sam Spade]

Santorum did what Huckabee couldn't, win Mississippi.

Huckabee had dropped out by that point.

[Grad Students are the Worst]

While J. J. is busy drowning his tears in delegates, here's some actually useful contextualization from Nate Silver, who reminds us that any Santorum victory probably requires Illinois, and even then it's a toughie:

Rick Santroum had a good night, beating polls in both Mississippi and Alabama and carrying both states.

I'm not sure if it qualifies as a great night, however. Mr. Santorum's advantage in the delegate count should be relatively modest: the Associated Press has called 22 delegates for him between the two states so far, versus 18 for Mitt Romney and 17 for Newt Gingrich. A number of delegates have yet to be decided in these states, but both divide their delegates in a relatively proportional way. And if Mr. Romney wins the caucuses in Hawaii and American Samoa, he could potentially take more delegates overall from the evening.

Moreover, these were the sort of states that Mr. Romney was "supposed" to lose based on their demographics. Although the polls overestimated Mr. Romney's standing, projections based on demographic models did reasonably well.

Mr. Romney will not have such excuses, however, if he loses Illinois, which votes a week from today. It's the only contest that evening and Mr. Romney is thought to be the favorite there, although polls and my demographic model show a fairly tight race.

Mr. Romney will have a significant lead in delegates even if he loses Illinois. But a loss there would be more characteristic of those scenarios where he falls short of a delegate majority and needs help from super delegates and other unpledged delegates to win the nomination.

The bar for Mr. Santorum to actually overtake Mr. Romney in delegates is much higher. Illinois would be a first step toward a more competitive path, but hardly a sufficient one. Still, it might be Mr. Santorum's best remaining opportunity to shift the overall course of the race.

[Lief]

Does someone who knows MS/AL demographics want to explain these county maps?

[Stranger in a strange land]

Romney might have come in third in both MS and AL, but he still has hope tonight. Hawaii only has 17 delegates up for grabs tonight, but Romney could very well win all of them.

[IDS Speaker Ben Kenobi]

Huckabee had dropped out by that point

Well then. Santorum did what Huckabee did not, win MS.

[Torie]

Anything on the delegates:

AP has:

MI:  S 12, R 11, G 11

AL:  S 15, G 9, R 7

Anybody with a better estimate?

As I said, the vote in MS didn't matter much. I think Mittens is one short of my spreadsheet (well there are three delegates still out for some reason, maybe depending on the final percentage, but maybe give 1 more to each candidate). In AL, they didn't allocate the CD delegates (where it is a 2-1-0 deal, rather than a 1-1-1 deal). It looks like Mittens might win 2 of the 7 CD's, worth four more delegates. He might pick up another couple coming in second in two CD's elsewhere. So allocate another 6 delegates to Mittens total. The rest go to the Newt/Rick candidate.

[yourelection]

It was an interesting night. My thoughts about the primaries are up on the blog (http://www.yourelection.net/2012/03/santorum-takes-mississippi-and-alabama-from-gingrich/).

Time to sign off.

[Sam Spade]

Does someone who knows MS/AL demographics want to explain these county maps?

To simplify...

With AL - Gingrich won in the black belt, Santorum won in northern Alabama (which is full of all of those used-to-be Democrats who switched based on social issues) and Romney probably won in the suburbs and urban areas, though I'd have to look precinct by precinct there.  I said the polls were most likely to be way off in Alabama b/c most of the Santorum north Alabama folks still identify as Democrats and might get knocked out of the likely voter screen (same thing happened in 2008, btw)

With MS - Somewhat the same, though Mitt Romney had a better showing in the black belt here, which may well be due to Barbour's machine.

[J. J.]

It was an interesting night. My thoughts about the primaries are up on the blog (http://www.yourelection.net/2012/03/santorum-takes-mississippi-and-alabama-from-gingrich/).

Time to sign off.

Interesting headline.  

[Likely Voter]

At the risk of sounding like a cartoonish super-villain...Losing AL and MS are all part of Mitt Romney's master plan.

..seriously. All he had to so is gather up some delegates and maintain his majority of delegates awarded position, which he has (even before he scoops up more from the pacific islands).

Moving forward, Romney's plan still probably expects him to lose almost half the upcoming contests. The only way for Santorum to stop Romney from getting his 1144 is for Rick to actually win a majority of contests, including some WTA states. I still don't see that happening.

The thing that Romney "lost" tonight is another chance to end this thing early. Just like with Super Tuesday, he continues to win just enough and nothing more.

[IDS Speaker Ben Kenobi]

Yeah, but finishing third in both states is an embarrassment. Two, Newt got shutout.

You might call this a tactical defeat (in that Romney didn't win any states), but it's also a serious strategic defeat.

He spent money that he didn't need to spend in states that he lost (outspent Santorum + Gingrich combined).

I've been arguing this a long time now. If you can gain by spending nothing you are best off spending nothing. What he wants, for a strategic victory, are 2 Newt wins, if he can't win the states himself.

This is a big strategic and tactical victory for Santorum. He came from behind once again to defeat both of his rivals, and demonstrated that he's the only viable alternative to Mitt Romney.

[Torie]

The interesting thing about MS and Alabama, is that Mittens did quite well, where he usually blows (maybe ironically "the folks" respect more what "their leaders" are saying, mostly for Romney, because that is the culture, rather than the more sharp elbowed culture that most of us enjoy, where we tend to enjoy telling "the establishment" of our individual cohorts to just take a hike - just who the F do they think they are?), and blew where he usually rules. Demographics didn't matter much, where they have been key everywhere else. If Nate did not pick that up, he's missing something. The issue is why Mittens blew among the upper middle class, and whether that portends anything. Probably not, and the LDS thing needs to be touched upon, but it deserves more discussion than it is getting.

[Bleeding heart conservative, HTMLdon]

It looks like "Uncommitted" has won at least 4 counties against Obama in Alabama

[Erc]

Anything on the delegates:

AP has:

MI:  S 12, R 11, G 11

AL:  S 15, G 9, R 7

Anybody with a better estimate?

As I said, the vote in MS didn't matter much. I think Mittens is one short of my spreadsheet (well there are three delegates still out for some reason, maybe depending on the final percentage, but maybe give 1 more to each candidate). In AL, they didn't allocate the CD delegates (where it is a 2-1-0 deal, rather than a 1-1-1 deal). It looks like Mittens might win 2 of the 7 CD's, worth four more delegates. He might pick up another couple coming in second in two CD's elsewhere. So allocate another 6 delegates to Mittens total. The rest go to the Newt/Rick candidate.

MS will end up as 13-12-12.  I'll dig through Alabama precinct results tomorrow (or the AP will beat me to it).

[Inks.LWC Supports Chuck Hagel]

Well I royally screwed up those predictions.

[Mr. Morden]

It doesn't actually matter how coming in 3rd might have "embarrassed" Romney, or what the delegate count might be tonight.  That's not actually the bad news for Romney.  The bad news for Romney is that Gingrich failed to win either state, and so now there's actually a chance that he might drop out soon.  Gingrich dropping out soon is the one thing with the potential to shake up the race at all.  If Gingrich stays in, then the status quo prevails, and Romney wins the nomination relatively easily.  But Gingrich dropping out at least has the potential to change the dynamics enough to make it interesting.

[Grad Students are the Worst]

The interesting thing about MS and Alabama, is that Mittens did quite well, where he usually blows (maybe ironically "the folks" respect more what "their leaders" are saying, mostly for Romney, because that is the culture, rather than the more sharp elbowed culture that most of us enjoy, where we tend to enjoy telling "the establishment" of our individual cohorts to just take a hike - just who the F do they think they are?), and blew where he usually rules. Demographics didn't matter much, where they have been key everywhere else. If Nate did not pick that up, he's missing something. The issue is why Mittens blew among the upper middle class, and whether that portends anything. Probably not, and the LDS thing needs to be touched upon, but it deserves more discussion than it is getting.

Nate, to is credit, actually pointed out that Romney does much more poorly in affluent suburban areas in the South and Midwest than the rest of the country.  Sean Trende really nailed this with his demographic analysis, though.