Romney wins Nevada Caucuses… What’s next?

Mitt Romney appears to have won the Las Vegas Caucuses tonight, racking up only his second win in the 2012 Presidential nominating process but cementing his front-runner status. The big drama tonight as returns come in:

• Will Romney pull in more than 50% of the vote? In 2008 he won with 51%; less than that would be disappointing,
• Will second place go to Ron Paul? He’s been working Nevada hard for months, and this state – built on “guns, gold and gambling” – could be one of the most receptive to his unusual message.

We’ll keep you updated with numbers as results come in. With each locale setting its own time, caucuses have been held from early morning to later this evening, so results will be trickling in for a while.

UPDATE 9:40 PST: Another reminder about Clark County, where 62% of Nevada Republicans live. We’re still seeing just 3% of precincts reporting, but – their votes total to almost 2500. When the rest of Vegas and Clark County weigh in, you can expect Romney’s percentage to rise.

Nate Silver @fivethirtyeight tweets: “Based on actual results so far + Clark County exit poll, final NV results would be Mitt 53, Newt 20, Paul 18, Santorum 9.” In the meantime, we’re stuck at 43% of precincts, and it’s Saturday night. I’ll come back later and update these numbers once the final tally comes in.

• Romney: 42.5% | 6,858
• Gingrich: 26.2% | 4,228
• Paul: 18.2% | 2,966
• Santorum: 13.0% | 1,811

UPDATE 9:15 PST: Gingrich gave a press conference, rather than a prepared speech as is traditional, post-election; that may have been a mistake.

He vowed to keep fighting right through the convention, but in doing so he may have reshaped the narrative into “Newt’s too mean and angry to win it.” @jimantle tweets: “This press conference is a much bigger disaster for Newt than his showing in the Nevada caucuses.”

Markos Moulitsas adds, “Newt’s press conference was the Dean Scream of 2012.” And @Hesiod2k11 tweets: “Are we sure this Newt press conference isn’t an SNL skit?”

Meanwhile,  PublicPolicyPolling  notes that “Gingrich‘s net favorability with Colorado Republicans has fallen by 33 points in the last 2 months”.

Watch the full presser here:

-> Next page: What’s next? Has Mitt won this thing, or is he still deep in Santorum?

UPDATE 9:00 PST: I’m still amazed at the tiny numbers here. Many in the media are trumpeting this as a “major victory” for Romney, but hell, hardly anybody showed up. Compare: In Florida, Rick Perry polled 6,768 votes after dropping out of the race. That was good for 0.4% of the vote. Here, it’s got Romney a “major victory”.

Now with 43% of precincts reporting.

And still just 3% reporting from Clark County, home of Las Vegas and the vast majority of this state’s voters.

• Romney: 42.5% | 6,858
• Gingrich: 26.2% | 4,228
• Paul: 18.2% | 2,966
• Santorum: 13.0% | 1,811

UPDATE 8:30 PST: Here come some numbers at last. Now at 38% of precincts reporting.

Reminder: We still haven’t gotten any numbers in from Clark County, home of Las Vegas and the vast majority of this state’s voters. Romney did well here last time, and exit polls show him winning an amazing 69% this time, so we could yet see his number push back over the 50% mark.

• Romney: 42.7% | 6,019
• Gingrich: 26.3% | 3,699
• Paul: 18.1% | 2,551
• Santorum: 12.9% | 2,102

UPDATE 8:15 PST: More enthusiasm gap from the exit poll numbers: not only is overall turnout down, but Latino participation is down (from 8% in 2008 to 5%) and youth participation is down (from 11% to 8% – also, Paul beat Romney among under-29s!). Neither number bodes well for the GOP in November, or the future.

One more: in 2008, 80% of GOP Nevada caucus voters were white. This year: 90%.

blogbat tweets:

UPDATE 7:45 PST: This will be disappointing for Ron Paul if he doesn’t crack second. Last time around he bumped John McCain into third place (which tells you how much the Nevada caucuses OUGHT to matter, but that’s not going to stop the pundits from blathering on about Romney’s “two wins in a row”). But if Paul can’t do better in this hotbed of Libertarian, don’t-tread-on-me conservatism, he’s gonna have a hard time resonating anywhere else.

If these numbers hold up, we may once again see a night that disappoints everyone… Now with 16.6% reporting:

• Romney: 38.9% | 3,642
• Gingrich: 27.5% | 2,573
• Paul: 19.8% | 1,810
• Santorum: 14.4% | 1,347

UPDATE 7:25 PST: In 2008, only 44,000 GOP voters showed up at the caucuses. It looks like this year only 35,000 will bother, out of more than 400,000 eligible. Can we say “enthusiasm gap”?

Counting is going slowly, but starting to trickle in after a long gap. With 14.8% reporting:

• Romney: 42.5% | 3,569
• Gingrich: 24.5% | 2,059
• Paul: 19.8% | 1,663
• Santorum: 13.2% | 1,112

UPDATE 7:00 PST: The biggest surprise so far tonight has been how god-awful slow the GOP has been at counting and releasing votes. This is not going to endear them to Ron Paul supporters, many of who are convinced the GOP establishment is in a conspiracy to keep his numbers small.

UPDATE 6:30 PST: With the small numbers expected tonight (last time around it was just about 44,000 voters) we can expect some see-sawing as the night goes on, particularly between Gingrich and Paul for second place. As of the moment, with 8% of precincts in, we’ve got:

• Romney: 40.6% | 1,956
• Gingrich: 24.9% | 1,201
• Paul: 21.6% | 1,040
• Santorum: 12.9% | 620