Santorum Wins...And Romney Doesn't Care

Last week, I wrote about how Romney seemed to be the only candidate with any real traction. In the past seven days, he has lost preliminary elections in three states (Colorado, Minnesota, and Missouri) to the same man, Rick Santorum. However, due to some very specific circumstances, the results of these three elections should not cause Romney and his campaign any undue worry. On the surface it looks like a large victory for Santorum, since he won by a substantial amount in all three states, but as the details become revealed, the importance of these wins decreases.

melissablogs.com

            For starters, both Minnesota and Colorado were caucuses, which are different from primaries. In a caucus, a small group of voters come together in a system of local gatherings and decide which candidate they support. This is different from a primary, which is a statewide voting process with secret ballots, similar to the voting process in the general election in November. Also, both Minnesota and Colorado have a proportional system, not a winner take all system, so other candidates besides the one in first place also won delegates. Another indicator that these caucuses and primary weren’t all that important was the number of people who participated. In all three states the number of voters was very small, meaning only a specific part of the population within that state was represented within the vote. The most important part of all of this though, is that none of the results in the three states are binding. In Missouri, the primary was little more than a glorified opinion poll, with the true selection of Republican candidate later in the schedule. In Minnesota and Colorado it means that delegates are not bound by the vote. The specifics are different in each state, but in all three states it means that Santorum gained zero guaranteed votes despite winning in each state.

            At this point, the point count stands at 90 for Romney, 44 for Santorum, 32 for Gingrich, and 13 for Paul. With over 1,000 points needed to win the nomination, there’s a long way to go, and even now the point counts aren’t completely stable. The Republican National Committee (RNC) declared that no states could hold a binding, winner takes all contest before April 1. Florida violated this rule, and Gingrich is currently appealing the RNC to try and capture some of the 50 delegates from that state. Next week Maine holds its contest, which is also a non-binding caucus, on February 11. After that there will be no further elections until the 28^th, when Michigan and Arizona hold their primaries.