NPI's Cascadia Advocate

Offering commentary and analysis from Washington, Oregon, and Idaho, The Cascadia Advocate is the Northwest Progressive Institute's uplifting perspective on world, national, and local politics.

Tuesday, February 7th, 2012

Rick Santorum running ahead in Minnesota, Colorado caucuses… and the Missouri primary

After going more than a month with­out a vic­to­ry (or even a sec­ond place fin­ish, for that mat­ter) it looks like Rick San­to­rum will final­ly get to bask in the glow of vic­to­ry for a change. In two states that are hold­ing cau­cus­es tonight (Min­neso­ta and Col­orado) he is cur­rent­ly run­ning well ahead of his rivals, and in the mean­ing­less Mis­souri pri­ma­ry (which won’t be used to allo­cate any del­e­gates) he has more than twice the num­ber of votes that estab­lish­ment favorite Mitt Rom­ney has.

Here are the cur­rent results from each state:

Min­neso­ta (as of 8:18 PM): 51.32% of precincts reporting

  • Newt Gin­grich — 10.82%
  • Ron Paul — 27.02%
  • Mitt Rom­ney — 16.64%,
  • Rick San­to­rum — 45.17%

Col­orado (as of 8:18 PM): 3.4% of precincts reporting

  • Rick San­to­rum: 47.72%
  • Mitt Rom­ney: 22.48%
  • Newt Gin­grich: 17.33%
  • Ron Paul: 12.33%

Mis­souri (as of 8:18 PM): 98% of precincts reporting

  • Mitt Rom­ney: 25.3%
  • Ron Paul: 12.2%
  • Rick San­to­rum: 55.2%

A few things to keep in mind:

  • San­to­rum could relin­quish his lead in Col­orado by the time all the results come in. It’s still ear­ly, and returns are still being tab­u­lat­ed by the state’s Repub­li­can Par­ty. Updates are com­ing in slowly.
  • Newt Gin­grich was not on the bal­lot in Mis­souri, which like­ly helped Rick San­to­rum win a much larg­er share of the vote than he oth­er­wise would have. Gin­grich’s cam­paign has dis­missed the Mis­souri pri­ma­ry as a “beau­ty con­test”, not­ing that the results are not bind­ing and won’t be used to allo­cate any del­e­gates. Even if the pri­ma­ry is noth­ing more than a well pub­li­cized straw poll, it still indi­cates Mitt Rom­ney is not the first choice of many Repub­li­can voters.
  • Tonight’s Repub­li­can cau­cus­es in Col­orado and Min­neso­ta took place at the precinct lev­el, and con­sti­tute a pre­lim­i­nary round in the cau­cus and con­ven­tion cycles in those states. The per­cent­ages we’re see­ing tonight for each can­di­date could change, depend­ing on what hap­pens in the next round.

TPM has a recap of San­to­rum’s vic­to­ry speech in the Show Me State.

UPDATE, 9:16 PM: Mitt Rom­ney has pulled even with Rick San­to­rum in Colorado.

  • Mitt Rom­ney: 36.59% (6,019 votes)
  • Rick San­to­rum: 36.49% (6,003 votes)
  • Newt Gin­grich: 14.24% (2,343 votes)
  • Ron Paul: 12.46% (2,050 votes)

In 2008, Rom­ney won the Col­orado cau­cus­es pret­ty hand­i­ly. But he’s not doing so well this time around.

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