Santorum takes Alabama and Mississippi Romney takes Hawaii American Samoa Not Reporting

This election night didn't turn out like I had thought it would. I had already colored in the map to show Newt Gingrich taking Alabama and Mississippi. Instead, Rick Santorum had a very good closing argument and eeked out twin wins in the deep south. Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney finished in very close second and third in both, with Ron Paul a very distant fourth. As expected, Mitt Romney is taking close to fifty percent of the vote in Hawaii and is expected to take American Samoa also. The results from the latter haven't come in yet.  It is possible that the delegates from Hawaii and American Samoa will cause Romney to net more delegates than either of his opponents.


**update 10.25am** According to ABC News [link], here is the expected delegate haul from last night:


41 Mitt Romney
35 Rick Santorum
24 Newt Gingrich
01 Ron Paul


The Washington Post has more on the delegate math [link]:

According to the Associated Press delegate count, Mitt Romney won 42 delegates last night to 38 for Rick Santorum. By winning nine delegates in American Samoa and 45 percent of the vote in Hawaii, Romney wiped out Rick Santorum’s narrow wins in the Deep South. And, just like Saturday, when Santorum won Kansas and lost ground to Romney, today Santorum’s task to get to 1,114 delegates (as he promised last night he would) is that much harder.
Over and over again you hear pundits say things like, “Well if you look at the math. . . ” and “Romney wants to focus on just the math.” There should be a gong at the ready when talking heads and pundits go into that mode. The nominating process is about the delegates. Math, like gravity, can’t be ignored.
To be clear, Santorum cannot win the nomination by closely splitting proportional states and losing winner-take-all states. That is a formula for falling further and further behind. And that is what is happening.
There are 1,358 delegates yet to be awarded. Romney has 495. He needs 694 delegates, less than 48 percent of the remaining delegates, to wrap it up.

Here are some maps, exit polls and videos of the results for you to check out the results of the March 13th voting results:

Alabama





The AP projects that the delegates from Alabama will be awarded as follows:
16 Rick Santorum
12 Newt Gingrich
10 Mitt Romney
00 Ron Paul

Here is some exit polling data:

Which best describes your education?	Total	Romney	Santorum	Gingrich	Paul
High school or less	21%	27%	32%	33%	4%
Some college/assoc. degree	35%	26%	34%	32%	6%
College graduate	26%	31%	40%	25%	4%
Postgraduate study	18%	35%	31%	25%	6%

No matter how you voted today, do you usually think of yourself as a:	Total	Romney	Santorum	Gingrich	Paul
Democrat	6%	-	-	-	-
Republican	70%	30%	34%	32%	3%
Independent or something else	24%	27%	33%	25%	11%

On most political matters, do you consider yourself:	Total	Romney	Santorum	Gingrich	Paul
Very conservative	36%	18%	41%	36%	4%
Somewhat conservative	31%	31%	31%	33%	2%
Moderate or liberal	33%	39%	29%	19%	9%

How do you feel about the Tea Party movement?	Total	Romney	Santorum	Gingrich	Paul
Support	62%	26%	36%	34%	3%
Neutral	24%	32%	35%	23%	7%
Oppose	9%	41%	26%	15%	11%

White evangelical or white born-again Christians	Total	Romney	Santorum	Gingrich	Paul
White evangelical or white born-again Christian	75%	27%	35%	32%	4%
All others	25%	34%	31%	21%	10%

Which comes closest to your position? Abortion should be:	Total	Romney	Santorum	Gingrich	Paul
Legal in all cases	8%	-	-	-	-
Legal in most cases	18%	39%	26%	26%	6%
Illegal in most cases	38%	24%	37%	31%	5%
Illegal in all cases	32%	18%	49%	28%	3%

Which ONE of these candidate qualities mattered most in deciding how you voted today? (CHECK ONLY ONE)	Total	Romney	Santorum	Gingrich	Paul
Can defeat Barack Obama	36%	51%	15%	32%	1%
Is a true conservative	18%	5%	51%	34%	9%
Has strong moral character	24%	24%	62%	7%	7%
Has the right experience	19%	33%	6%	51%	5%

See the rest of this exit poll at Fox News.

Mississippi




The AP projects that the delegates from Mississippi will be awarded as follows:
13 Rick Santorum
12 Newt Gingrich
12 Mitt Romney
00 Ron Paul

Here is some exit polling data:

Which best describes your education?	Total	Romney	Santorum	Gingrich	Paul
High school or less	22%	31%	29%	37%	3%
Some college/assoc. degree	35%	26%	37%	32%	4%
College graduate	26%	31%	34%	29%	5%
Postgraduate study	17%	36%	31%	25%	7%

No matter how you voted today, do you usually think of yourself as a:	Total	Romney	Santorum	Gingrich	Paul
Democrat	4%	-	-	-	-
Republican	80%	31%	34%	32%	2%
Independent or something else	16%	28%	29%	25%	16%

On most political matters, do you consider yourself:	Total	Romney	Santorum	Gingrich	Paul
Very conservative	42%	22%	39%	35%	4%
Somewhat conservative	29%	33%	31%	31%	4%
Moderate or liberal	29%	38%	28%	26%	7%

How do you feel about the Tea Party movement?	Total	Romney	Santorum	Gingrich	Paul
Support	66%	27%	34%	34%	4%
Neutral	25%	35%	32%	27%	5%
Oppose	6%	37%	30%	21%	8%

White evangelical or white born-again Christians	Total	Romney	Santorum	Gingrich	Paul
White evangelical or white born-again Christian	80%	29%	35%	32%	3%
All others	20%	33%	27%	27%	11%

Which comes closest to your position? Abortion should be:	Total	Romney	Santorum	Gingrich	Paul
Legal in all cases	8%	-	-	-	-
Legal in most cases	18%	40%	19%	33%	6%
Illegal in most cases	43%	34%	31%	29%	4%
Illegal in all cases	28%	21%	44%	30%	4%

Which ONE of these candidate qualities mattered most in deciding how you voted today? (CHECK ONLY ONE)	Total	Romney	Santorum	Gingrich	Paul
Can defeat Barack Obama	39%	46%	22%	30%	1%
Is a true conservative	20%	7%	52%	34%	5%
Has strong moral character	20%	22%	65%	8%	5%
Has the right experience	19%	29%	8%	59%	4%

You can see the rest of the exit poll at Fox News.



Hawaii




There are no projections for how the delegates from Hawaii will be awarded, but since it is proportional according to congressional district, I expect that Mitt Romney will get a few more than the second place finisher, Rick Santorum. There are 20 delegates at stake in Hawaii. 

As far as I can tell, there have been no exit polling data released that covers Hawaii.

American Samoa

There are no results from American Samoa yet. I expect that it will go to Romney. 6 of the 9 delegates are up in this election.



The Speechifying




Rick Santorum


Newt Gingrich

I can find no video of Mitt Romney or Ron Paul from last night. That is odd, especially since the Ron Paul people almost always upload hundreds of copies of his remarks to Youtube.

Next Up

With the unexpected wins for Santorum, this puts extra pressure on the Romney Campaign to do well in a very electorally lean March. Illinios becomes very important.

The rest of March sees Missouri caucusing (again) on the 17th, Puerto Rico on the 18th, Illinios (95 delegates in one winner take all race) on the 20th and Louisiana on the 24th.


In April, Maryland, Washington, DC and Wisconsin are on the 3rd and the bigger fish of Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Delaware, New York and Rhode Island taking place on the 24th.