The Republican caucuses in the state of Iowa have now begun, and we’ll shortly see the results. At stake tonight are… well actually there aren’t any delegates being formally allocated tonight. Tonight’s precinct caucuses only select delegates to county conventions to be held on 10 March. Those conventions select delegates to congressional district conventions that will be held on 21 April, which select delegates to the state convention. The national convention delegates aren’t selected until that state convention meets on 16 June—over five months from now.
That being said, it’s possible to estimate delegate preferences from tonight’s caucus Presidential preference vote. These are, naturally, extremely rough estimates which can and almost certainly will change before the actual delegates are selected. (Updates to the Iowa delegate count will be made if the race is still contested during subsequent Iowa delegate selection stages.) So, here’s the current estimate of pledged delegate preferences from Iowa:
| IA-R |
Gingrich |
Paul |
Perry |
Romney |
Santorum |
Unallocated |
| Total |
2 |
7 |
2 |
7 |
7 |
|
| Last updated 8:42 Central Standard Time |
UPDATE [19:08 CST by Goobergunch]: The CNN entrance poll of “early bird” caucus voters: Paul 26%, Romney 23%, Santorum 19%. Note that this result is skewed in favor of more enthusiastic voters and won’t necessarily hold up—Romney led the entrance poll in 2008, but Mike Huckabee was the winner at the end of caucus night.
UPDATE [19:30 CST by Goobergunch]: The final CNN entrance poll data: Romney 24%, Paul 24%, Santorum 18%, Gingrich 13%, Perry 11%. The “winner” of the Iowa caucuses doesn’t really matter in term of the delegate count, but the order of finish, especially for the top three, matters in terms of the media narrative and that mystical momentum factor.
UPDATE [20:57 CST by Goobergunch]: Well, NBC is saying they’re not going to project a winner in Iowa until all the votes are counted. Fun. At the moment, with 31% reporting, the order is Romney>Santorum>Paul, each with 23% of the vote.
UPDATE [21:13 CST by Goobergunch]: Paul’s fallen behind Santorum/Romney by about a thousand votes. Looks like he’ll drop to third. Also looks like Santorum might be the One True Not-Romney. (I know, I can’t believe that either.)
UPDATE [22:41 CST by Goobergunch]: Well, Bachmann didn’t drop out in tonight’s speech, so looks like we won’t scratch anybody from the field tonight. And the first-place spot is still too close to call with 95% in!
UPDATE [22:59 CST by Goobergunch]: Perry’s not actually withdrawing tonight, but he says he’s going back to Texas and mulling over his options. Look for the official withdrawal in the next couple days.
UPDATE [1:25 CST by Goobergunch]: With one precinct remaining, Santorum’s ahead by 4 votes. Fox News and the Romney campaign are claiming that the final precinct will yield a 14-vote Romney victory. With that effective tie (I think the designation of Rick Santorum as the One True Not-Romney is the most important result of the caucuses), I’m calling it a night. I’ll see who won and make the final delegate calculations tomorrow morning.
UPDATE [8:40 CST by Goobergunch]: And the final tally: Romney 30,015, Santorum 30,007, Paul 26,219. Rommey wins by 8 votes. Of course, delegatewise that’s a three-way tie.