Louisiana primary chat

[Torie]

Well since no one else has done it that I can see, I guess I will so that we can all savor Rick's triumph in Louisiana together.

Actually, I am starting it, because this dude seems to be leaking the exit poll, or pulling numbers from his butt, or something. I really have no idea, nor do I know who he is. Anyway, it seemed to me that this kind of spam or whatever, should be put in the chat thread.

[Torie]

Exit polling six hours before the end of actual voting?
Ok.

Hey px, to keep yourself out of trouble for a few minutes, why don't you read the guy's "open letter" letter to Rick?  I mean, if you think the Mittbots around here are insufferable ...

Here's a lagniappe for you just to wet your appetite:

You must be logged in to read this quote.

[Torie]

Mittens is now closing in!  

Latest update Santorum 41 Romney 35 Gingrich 16 Paul 8

Maybe in a couple of more updates, Mittens will pull into the lead. Maybe this race will be over before the polls close.  

[Torie]

Mittens is now closing in!  

Latest update Santorum 41 Romney 35 Gingrich 16 Paul 8

Maybe in a couple of more updates, Mittens will pull into the lead. Maybe this race will be over before the polls close.  

I'll wait for real exit polls, thanks.

Reading his text give me the impression that he is running his own exit poll. I think maybe he might need to switch his medications. You know, they try one, and if it doesn't work, they switch to another, and when they find the one that works - voila you can then, and only then, diagnose just what subspecies of psychosis someone has. And I am not making this up - that is actually how the skrinks diagnose mental illness.

[Torie]

Etch a sketch is no big deal to LA primary voters. No surprise really.

[Torie]

Yes, the Cajun aspect may not a be a demographic that is picked up very well by the Sean Trende model perhaps, and it will be interesting to see how much they vote like Evangelicals versus white Catholics that are in some concentration elsewhere. The best guess I would think is somewhere in-between. The Trende model would give Mittens about 33%-34% of the vote in LA, and Mittens if the model is right won't get much higher than that with Newt pulling 15% of the vote or so, and if Cajuns are labeled "non-Evangelical," it might be a tad lower, although I suspect not much, since I would guess their educational level is rather low and that would be picked up in the model.

Moreover, outside the urban zones, the Cajun vote in the rural areas is just not that large of the share of the pie anyway, and in LA the Cajun area urban zones go their own way. LA is a very class oriented state under the surface. Huey Long is not totally dead.

Anyway, this is what I was musing about when I came up with my prediction guess, when I ended up at 32% for Mittens.

[Torie]

Question: are the evangelicals in Louisiana more middle-class suburban or more rural poor in demographic? Or mixed?

In the north Baptist zone, it's like Alabama - "everyone" is Evangelical. In the south, middle class urban area voters don't vote like Evangelicals. The Cajuns outside N.O. and Baton Rouge do their own thing.

[Torie]

The Evangelical share of the pie in the exit poll just about matches the Sean Trende figures. The electorate that turned out is no big surprise at all.

[Torie]

I read that last exit poll as Mittens gets no less than 30% of the vote, and no more than 40%.  Mittens wins big with the winner and right experience group, and loses even bigger with the character and strong conservative group.

[Torie]

Jeff Greenfield says on Twitter that Santorum won men and women by 15.

If that is right, JJ's prediction looks pretty good at 45-30, with Newt getting 15% and others 10% or something, mix and match.

[Torie]

Would it appease Romney supporters to know that in 2008 McCain carried Catholics

No, because the demographics with McCain were substantially different than Romney's.  Among other things, Romney was his opponent for awhile. But it is more than that.

[Torie]

For the record, Louisiana Cathoics do behave, politicially, much more like evangelicals than Catholics elsewhere.

The issue is how much more.  Half way, two thirds of the way, or all of the way? 

[Torie]

Well Mittens won the over 200K group.

[Torie]

Exit poll is Santorum +19 (Santorum 47%, Romney 28%, Gingrich 16%)

edit: damn lief

That is clearly below the Trende model for Mittens. It will be interesting to take a look at it.

The 12% for Mittens with the below 50K group must be a record low.

[Torie]

Mittens did get drubbed. He ran about 5% below what the Sean Trende demographic regression analysis predicted. If replicated for the balance of the campaign, the odds suddenly shoot up to maybe 50-50 that the race will not be decided until the convention. That to me is the big story of this otherwise near irrelevant primary. Delegate wise, Mittens dodged a bullet by getting two points over the 25% threshold to get any delegates, so his vote falloff cost him a grand total of one delegate (7 delegates out of 20 rather than eight).

So what is the problem?  One problem might be that the regression analysis could not handle Cajun white Catholics because they just are not like white Catholics in some concentration elsewhere, and the education factor just was not enough to pick up the difference. If that is the problem, Mittens does not need to worry much. Or was it etch a sketch? Late deciders did vote about 4 points more for Santorum, and about 20% of the voters claimed it was an important factor in their vote, and 39% a factor. Whether that was an excuse for why one voted the way they did, or not as much a factor as folks said, one doesn't know. But it could have been.

Here is an interesting graphic from the CNN poll:



60% of the Newt voters say Romney is their second choice. Yes, Newt got the percentage the polls predicted, but maybe some of the Romney vote peeled off to Newt over etch a sketch. Maybe. In any event, it may well not be in Santorum's interest for Newt to drop out now, if this break in Newt's support is in any way representative of his remaining support elsewhere.

Anyway, I hope Sean Trende writes an article on all of this. I would be interested in his take of course. I mean he knows the coefficients of his equation, and I don't.

Finally, despite that rather cruel vignette I put up making fun of some Pub voters in Shreveport, the Pub Louisiana voters are a remarkably educated group, with only 17% not having gone to college, and 20% having had post graduate study.  It seems that Louisiana is remarkably similar to Cambridge, Massachusetts or something.

Or maybe their memories are faulty. It is a reminder that maybe folks are not totally forthcoming about either themselves, or the actual reasons they voted for someone, and just pick a reason from the list they are given that seems most "acceptable" or politically correct.