Tuesday, March 20, 2012

Illinois Today

Today is the Republican primary in Illinois. Most polls show Mr. Romney winning easily, the only question will be the margin. What's more, Mr. Santorum failed to file enough signatures in four Congressional districts, making him ineligible for 10 of the 54 available delegates. Those will likely go to Mr. Romney, unless there is a large Newt protest vote. Polls close at 7 pm CDT (8 pm EDT).

Also over the weekend were the Puerto Rico caucuses. Mr. Romney won those by 74 points (82-8) and was awarded all 20 delegates.

Missouri is holding caucuses as well. Most of them occurred on Saturday with a rather entertaining fight breaking out at the one in St. Charles when a few Ron Paul supporters took umbrage with the caucus rules against filming the proceedings. A few people were arrested and the caucus was cancelled. I have no idea if they'll make it up before the caucuses end this Saturday. Like the primary back in February, the caucus is non-binding but at least it is electing delegates to the district and state conventions. The district convention meets on April 21 and will pick 24 of the 49 available delegates while the remaining 25 are selected at the June 2 state convention.

So, for recap, Mr. Romney has 491 (443 confirmed) delegates while Mr. Santorum has 232 (182 confirmed). Newt and Uncle Ron are still out there but they are starting to fade further and further into the background. Mr. Romney has almost 43% of the delegates he needs to secure the win and geography and primary style suggest that he will do well in April. I don't think he will be able to win mathematically until June (depending on how he does in California) but I don't see a situation where he will lose his mantle of front-runner for the duration.

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