Partial Wyoming Results

Wyoming is funky even by caucus standards. Wyoming splits its delegate allocation (29) into three piles. Three delegates are the party leader delegates who go unassigned. The next 14 are decided at the state convention (April 14) and, to my knowledge, are not tied to any voting across the state. The last 12 are decided by county caucuses that run from February 9 to 29. However, the process for allocating these county delegates is curious.

There are 23 counties in Wyoming. Twenty-two of these counties are paired up, while Laramie County (where Cheyenne is located) stands alone (electing both a delegate and an alternate). The pairing doesn't change but the order of the pairing does as it alternates every presidential election. The reason this is important is that in each county pairing, one county elects a delegate while the other county elects an alternate. Thus, you could have two different candidates represented in the delegate/alternate pairing depending on who wins each county.

Delegates will be chosen on March 10 at the county conventions but one would expect the delegate selection to mirror that of straw poll (unless the vote was very close and someone switched). As such, we should expect the delegate selection to reflect the county poll winners as follows:

1. Laramie - Santorum
2. Natrona - Santorum
3. Carbon - Santorum
4. Lincoln - Romney
5. Sublette - Romney
6. Park - Romney
7. Washakie - Romney
8. Big Horn - Romney
9. Johnson - Paul
10. Weston - Paul
11. Niobrara - Paul
12. Platte - Santorum

This gives Mr. Romney 5 delegates, Mr. Santorum 4 delegates, and Uncle Ron 3 delegates. These however are soft allocations as all 29 Wyoming delegates are to be officially "unbound." How unbound they actually are is open for debate.

If the alternate counties are considered, Mr. Santorum would jump to 7 delegates while Mr. Romney falls to 3 and Uncle Ron would get only 1. Sweetwater County will decide today but their vote will not be enough to overcome Mr. Romney's win in the straw poll. Whether any of this will matter at the state convention in April is anyone's guess.