Watching the Iowa Caucus Results Come In
I wasn’t going to do this, but I couldn’t help myself…
[9:02] With 8% of precints reporting, according to the AP vote total (reported via ABC News) it’s a dead three-way tie Paul 24% Santorum 23% Romney 23%.
[9:05] Up to 10% reporting: Paul 24% Romney 24% Santorum 23%. Perry (5th place) single digits at 9%. I know it’s just one state yadda yadda yadda but does Perry seriously go on after this?
[9:07] CNN’s front-page graphic is seriously screwed up. Even though its Paul 24% Romney 23% Santorum 23% Gingrich 13% Perry 10%, all of their graphs are of the same height. (12% reporting)
[9:12] I’ve been looking for the old Bloom County strip, where Binkley comes up with a scenario where a divided vote gives Mick Jagger the GOP nomination, but it’s apparently not online anywhere.
[9:19] Via the ABC News liveblog, Jeff Greenfield makes the crusty old political reporter’s point: “So 500 or so votes may separate 1st and 3rd? And we think it’s significant, this order of finish?”
[9:23] 15% reporting. Paul 24% Santorum 23% Romney 23%. Perry back into double digits at 10%. Huntsman into triple digits (in total number of votes, 126 to leader Paul’s 4,440).
[9:26] With 18% in, CNN figures out that their graphic is broken, and “fixes” the problem by dropping 4th place and below off of their front page graphic. Paul 24% Santorum 24% Romney 22%. Paul has 65 more votes than Santorum.
[9:31] Ye gods. With 22% of precincts in, Romney 23% Santorum 23% Paul 23%. Maybe I should start reporting vote totals. (Romney has 57 more votes than Paul).
[9:40] 27% of precincts reporting. Romney 7,844; Santorum 7,726; Paul 7,655. Gingrich 4th with 4,440 votes.
[9:58] Correction: That’s 31% of precincts reporting, representing 27% of the expected vote. Results have been stuck at the same place for about 20 minutes or so.
[10:05] Pure speculation on my part, but I’m guessing we’ll be seeing Santorum at a more central podium during the next debate.
[10:10] 48% of precincts in: Santorum 13,339 24%; Romney 13,011 24%; Paul 11,972 22%.
[10:14] Something else to ponder before the next debate: CW is that Huntsman needs to knock out one of the three Iowa leaders, to make a respectable showing (and keep his chances alive for a future run). So who does Huntsman go after? Paul, with the message of “I’m the non-crazy guy that wants to bring the troops home”, or Santorum with a message of “Just kidding, I was a conservative all along, and I look more Presidential than Santorum”.
[10:17] Chuck Todd of NBC News concedes: They’re not going to try and call the race until all the votes are counted.
[10:34] I would like to go on record as saying that doing anything serious on the Tuesday following a New Year’s Day long weekend is a bad idea. We do need to think about a way to reform the primary-process, so states stop trying to leapfrog one another to be able to vote ridiculously early.
[10:45] 60% of precincts in, Santorum opening a little lead? Santorum 16,916 25%; Romney 15,688 23%; Paul 14,459 21%.
[10:52] 88% of precincts in. Looks like Paul will be 3rd, Romney and Santorum fighting it out for 1 and 2. Santorum 26,443 25%; Romney 26,398 25%; Paul 22,728 21%.
[11:00] Just another New Year’s Eve, just another Auld Lang Syne…
[11:06] Romney edges ahead 27,101 25%; Santorum 26,976 25%. However, unless there’s a huge swing in the last 11% of the voting, the result is going to be Santorum and Romney tied for 1st, Ron Paul a close 3rd. Other totals (from the AP via ABC news) are Gingrich 14,576 13%; Perry 11,279 10%; Bachmann 5,576 5%; Huntsman 645 1%.
[11:12] Also for the record, CNN.com got their front-page graphic issue fixed. You can see the difference between Ron Paul’s bar, and the two leaders’ bars.
[11:20] According to the AP via ABC News, just 13 votes separate Romney and Santorum with 92% of precincts in.
[11:45] 96% of the vote in, no significant change Santorum 28,958 25%; Romney 28,879 25%; Paul 25,044 21%. That’s the main result from Iowa.
[Wed. morning] Final results, from CBS News…Mitt Romney: 30,015 (25%);
Rick Santorum: 30,007 (25%);
Ron Paul: 26,219 (21%);
Newt Gingrich: 16,251 (13%);
Rick Perry: 12,604 (10%);
Michele Bachmann: 6,073 (5%);
Jon Huntsman: 745 (1%).
“[10:17] Chuck Todd of NBC News concedes: They’re not going to try and call the race until all the votes are counted.”
Hey, now there’s a novel concept. Let the people vote, then count the votes and then decide who won. Why didn’t we think of that before?
“[10:34] I would like to go on record as saying that doing anything serious on the Tuesday following a New Year’s Day long weekend is a bad idea. We do need to think about a way
to reform the primary-process, so states stop trying to leapfrog one another to be able to vote ridiculously early. ”
Why do we do the whole election on one night in November but we do these primaries spread out over a few months? Why not just pick a date in March or April and do them all at once?
At the GOP presidential debates we saw the nauseating right-wingnuts in the audience cheering at the prospect of somebody dying because they don’t have health care and loudly booing a soldier who was serving in Iraq
They booed – and it was MORE than a handful. Not one of the manikins on stage spoke out against this shameful outburst.
Off to bed, thanks for tweeting the Caucus. Will be back in AM for the final results.
Fun! Thanks, Andrew.
Just heard on the radio that Romney won by only 8 votes, the closest result ever, and Ron Paul finished a close third.
While he may be “electable” Romney is too middle of the road for me. Paul has some appealing ideas for internal politics, but his isolationism scares me. If we abdicate as “polieman of the world”, the job will not go vacant. Who would you prefer?
I guess I will have to give Santorum another look.
More prerecorded left wing rhetoric from the Sammy in Arizona bobblehead doll.
I could actually go for Huntsman, I think. Unfortunately he’s gotten zero press.