The polls close in a few minutes in Lousiana, and if the pre-election polling hold, Rick Santorum should win easily.
Tonight’s win is important for Santorum, because there is mostly bad news for him in the near future primary Schedule. A week from Tuesday will be a triple header of D.C, Maryland, and Wisconsin. I doubt Santorum can win any of these, unless Mitt’s Etch-a-sketch wound turns into full-blown political septicemia. And after that, we have a April 24 mini-Super Tuesday, with Connecticut, Delaware, New York, Rhode Island, and Pennsylvania. As it stands now, Romney should take all but Santorum’s home state of Pennsylvania.
I’ll probably get dragged away from the computer for various thing, but have at it in the comment threads.
5:59 pm (PDT): There are 20 delegates up for grab in LA (46 total). They are’t very important for Santorum who probably cannot win on delegates anyway. He needs a outright slaughter with hopes that it will catalyze a big momentum change in his favor.
6:03: Results can be found here and here.
6:12: Here is a livestream from NBC. From what I can tell, both NBC and CNN have called it for Santorum.
6:30: Barack Obama seem to be taking the Democratic primary in Louisiana with 69.3% of the vote (0.4% reporting).
7:50: With 83.1% of precincts reporting, here is what we have:
- Santorum, 49.7%
- Romney, 25.9%
- Gingrich, 16.1%
- Paul, 6.1%
Santorum would get a “bragging rights” boost by getting over 50% and/or doubling Romney’s votes—perhaps the former will happen.
yawwwwn…
With about half of the precincts in it’s:
Horrible Jesus Freak 42,129 Votes 48.9%
Super Rich Guy 22,519 Votes 26.2%
That Asshole from the 1990’s 14,378 Votes 16.7%
Racist Newsletter 5,151 Votes 6.0%
Okay, Santorum carried 63 out of 64 parishes in Louisiana in the GOP primary, while Obama carried 61 out of 64 parishes in the Democratic primary.
Richard Pope @3,
Yes…clearly, Rick Santorum should be the G.O.P. nominee!
Is there any coverage of the legislative and county GOP caucuses which occurred on Saturday?
TNT has a single story, but with no results.
Seen nothing on the 32nd and 45th Legislative District Caucuses in King, nor anything about Island County Republican Convention.
Here’s the urban/rural split for LA. Which is to say that Santorum took all of it.
I’m wondering how much of Santorum’s win is do to Louisiana being 28% Catholic.