No delegates will be determined tonight. Not only will no delegates be determined by the local caucuses in Colorado or Minnesota, but the representatives they choose for the district or state conventions will be officially uncommitted. They will offer straw polls, like the one Bachmann won back in Iowa last year.
Missouri is even less meaningless. At least in Colorado and Minnesota, the local caucus results and the straw poll results may turn out to have some relationship to each other, even if it’s coincidental. In Missouri, people who go to vote will not, and will never have an effect on Missouri’s delegates. That state’s delegates will begin to be chosen in a caucus next month.
Santorum is predicted by CNN to be the winner in Missouri, is leading in Minnesota in early results, and is leading in Colorado in extremely early results.
Total delegates to the RNC gained by Santorum so far tonight = 0.
So what is the point of Missouri’s election tonight? If they’re not choosing candidates, and they’re not choosing delegates to a later convention that will choose candidates, what are they doing? I imagine having a vote costs a non-trivial amount of money, so presumably it must have some purpose.
According to wikipedia, candidates were awarded in the 2008 Missouri Primary. Did the state party changed things around so they didn’t get penalized by the national party for having an early primary? Weird in any case.
Delegates or no though, tonight would seem to put an end to Romney’s hopes of easily running away with the nomination after FL.
Yes, they did, and for the same reason Colorado and Minnesota are electing non-committed delegates to their district and state conventions.
It’s worth noting, I think, that in years past we would still be waiting for Iowa. Should this push ahead trend continue, I see the 2016 caucus in Iowa taking place in about December 2012.
It will cost Missouri $7 million dollars. Missouri has 6 million residents so it amounts to $1.17 per citizen. Cheap for a democratic process. Flabbergasting for a meaningless one. Or maybe it’s not meaningless: maybe this is what a modern smoke filled room looks like.
Santorum is leading Colorado by a large margin as well, based on 7% of the precincts. Gingrich and Romney are dueling for 2nd place.
It appears the election is basically Romney facing a see-saw with a Romney-Gingrich battle on the Coasts and the South and Romney-Santorum battle in the Midwest and the Plains states.
While I know that Colorado’s thing tonight is pretty meaningless, and that only the most committed voters participate in a caucus - the idea that 40% of the voting Republicans in this state chose Rick McFrothy Santorum frightens the crap out of me.
I wouldn’t get so worried; we won a governor and a senator in 2010 that by all rights should have lost. Things have changed since the days of Ben Campbell, etc.
I’m not worried, exactly. I’m just…weirded out?..that the conservatives in this state, who until relatively recently seemed more fiscal than cultural, have decided to overwhelmingly support the likes of Santorum.
Although we do have the legacy of Amendment 2, so I suppose it’s not THAT out of character for Colorado conservatives.