Governing through Reason
Pelican Brief
Just as Tuesday was a day of little surprise, today is also a day of little surprise in the Louisiana closed primary election. Only 20 of the state’s delegates will be assigned proportionally to the candidates with at least 25 percent of the votes, while the remaining 26 will be assigned by the state Republican Party leaders. Yes, less than half get assigned today.
Today, the momentum story belongs to former Senator Rick Santorum (R-PA). But even though his lead in the popular vote will almost certainly eclipse that of former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney on Tuesday, his lead in delegates today will assuredly be smaller than Romney’s was in Illinois.
Thus continues the dragging out of the Republican primary season. But, hey, it gives us something to talk about, right?
Related articles
- Republican Primary in the Land of Lincoln (logarchism.com)
- Don’t Show Me (logarchism.com)
- Going gets tougher for Santorum as focus shifts north (boston.com)
- Illinois Primary Results: Mitt Romney Scores Decisive Victory (VIDEO) (blippitt.com)
- Mitt Romney’s kind of math (dailykos.com)
- Romney wins Illinois primary, gears up for Louisiana (news.blogs.cnn.com)
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Santorum won nearly every demographic. The ones he lost:
- Really rich people (>$200k)/year
- Non-evangelicals (he tied there)
- Occasional church-goers
- Those who don’t care about the candidate’s religion
- Those who consider defeating Obama the #1 priority
- Those who would be satisfied with a Romney nomination
- Those who made up their minds on their preferred candidate last year
For those who were influenced by the Etch A Sketch comment (a surprising 39% of them), they strongly favored Santorum.
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#3 written by mclever 1 year ago
I think the biggest surprise was the margin of victory (22 points). I figured on about 10 points, with Santorum getting ~45% and Romney getting ~35%. Any insights on the reasons why Santorum performed do well? Is it just because so much of Louisiana is poor and rural?
I also can’t believe that ~40% were actually influenced by the etch-a-sketch comment, and think that’s probably something like a confirmation bias with folks who already didn’t intend to vote for Romney. It’s easy to tell the pollster that the comment affected one’s vote, when really it just affirmed what one already thought.
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#4 written by mclever 1 year ago
Oh, and Santorum will probably net about +5 delegates for his gigantically huge win in Louisiana, making a gigantically huge dent in the 300+ delegate lead that Romney already has. If I understand Louisiana’s rules, Santorum should get 10 of the 20 delegates up for grabs in the primary, Romney 5, and the remaining 5 delegates would go as uncommitted. At that rate, Santorum should catch up to Romney sometime after never.
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#5 written by dawolf 1 year ago
mclever — it seems strange to me the way the different states have such different ways of awarding delegates.
You’d think that making all states have say, winner takes all by CD across all states, or proportional representation across all states, would make sense.
As it currently stands you can net far more delegates by eking out a narrow win in a small, winner takes all state, than whomping your opponents in say Louisiana. -
#6 written by rgbact 1 year ago
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#7 written by Max aka Birdpilot 1 year ago
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#8 written by Mainer 1 year ago
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mclever,
Any insights on the reasons why Santorum performed do well? Is it just because so much of Louisiana is poor and rural?
Personally, I attribute it to the clarity that came from Alabama and Mississippi. Those two states showed that the “correct” NotRomney choice is Santorum, not Gingrich. Louisianans got the message, and those who would otherwise have chosen Gingrich chose Santorum.
This is supported by the number of people polled who said that they chose Santorum very recently.
I also can’t believe that ~40% were actually influenced by the etch-a-sketch comment
It surprised me, too. But only half of those said that the comment was “very important” to them in deciding their candidate. Still, 20% is a mighty big number, considering that’s the size of Santorum’s margin over Romney.
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dawolf,
You’d think that making all states have say, winner takes all by CD across all states, or proportional representation across all states, would make sense.
Not if you are more familiar with American history, and the battle between the Madisonians and Jeffersonians. States have a startling amount of power, compared to their counterparts in other countries. It’s hard to tell if Virginia has more power in the US than, say, Scotland has in the UK, but the comparison is about the closest I can come up with for you.
This Madison/Jefferson tension plays out in the delegate selection process as well. The Madisonians set up the rules like “no primary elections other than New Hampshire before March 1″, “no winner-take-all elections before April 1″, “Iowa is the first caucus”, and rules for delegate allocations to each state and territory. The Jeffersonians demand that the states get more of a say, so they end up with binding caucuses, nonbinding caucuses, open primaries, closed primaries, proportional allocation by statewide vote, proportional allocation by Congressional district, winner-take-all, and every possible combination of the above.
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#12 written by Rose 1 year ago
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Rose,
Louisiana is overwhelmingly Roman Catholic
You’d think that would be the case, but only 36% of those who voted are Catholic. 57%, on the other hand, are evangelical Protestant Christians. And, Santorum’s margin of victory was greater among the evangelicals than among the Catholics.
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Michael said,
36% of those who voted are Catholic
I think Rose is right historically, but the combination of population growth in the north of the state (away from Cajun country) and the depopulation of New Orleans shifted the balance.
I would be interested to see how this changed over time, but I’m too lazy to collect the data. Maybe Rose would go get it (wink)
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To nobody’s surprise, Santorum won handily in Louisiana. He came within a percent of having a majority of the votes.