Super Tuesday Marathon Live Blog

Back-of-the-Envelope Tally:

On Super Tuesday
McCain: 587 delegates, 9 wins (CT, NY, NJ, IL, DE, OK, MO, AZ, CA)
Romney: 232 delegates, 6 wins (MA, UT, ND, MT, MN, CO)
Huckabee: 162 delegates, 5 wins (AL, AR, GA, WV, TN)
(Remaining: 26 delegates, 1 state - Alaska)

Cumulative
McCain: 684 delegates, 12 wins (CT, NY, NJ, IL, DE, OK, MO, AZ, CA, NH, SC, FL)
Romney: 324 delegates, 10 wins (MA, UT, ND, MT, MN, CO, WY, MI, NV, ME)
Huckabee: 191 delegates, 6 wins (AL, AR, GA, WV, TN, IA)

Delegates needed: 1,191
Delegates remaining (including AK): 1,134

% of Remaining Delegates Needed To Assure Nomination
McCain: 53%
Romney: 83%
Huckabee: 91%

Again, when I've had to make educated guesses about allocations, I've tended to err against Romney, so consider that 83% a high-side estimate of his post-Super Tuesday burden (similarly, McCain's 53% burden is a low-side estimate).

It looks to have been a disappointing night for the Romney campaign, having almost surely collected less than 400 delegates to-date (though it could've been worse if Huckabee hadn't crowded McCain out of a couple of those southern states).  Both Romney and Huckabee were insistent they'd stay in the race, which is probably a reasonably card to play tonight, each in hopes that the other might shortly withdraw, leaving him to gather up the non-McCain vote that Romney seemed (according to recent polling) to be having some success doing going into today.

That mini Romney surge didn't enable him keep keep pace with McCain on Tuesday, but if the race continues at all, Romney still has a stronger claim than Huckabee to being able to sustain a non-McCain candidacy.  But if both Romney and Huckabee remain in the race, it's hard to see any outcome in which McCain doesn't win the nomination.  Similarly, if both drop out, McCain will win.

Mitt and Huck are thus left with a genuine prisoner's dilemma.  Both candidates are individually better off by competing (i.e. both staying in the race), in every circumstance, no matter what the other does.  But the two candidates would do better to cooperate (i.e. both dropping out), compared with both staying in.  The best case for either candidate is to stay in, while the other drops out; the worst case is to drop out while the other stays in.

Unfortunately (or fortunately, if you're a Democrat), a prisoner's dilemma with only one round of play will usually result in both players competing (staying in), yielding the worst collective outcome.

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Update [12:15 am]: Fox News calls California for McCain. We've only got 15% of the vote in, but so far, McCain leads Romney 44-25.  California is winner-take-all by Congressional district, so it will be a while before we get a reliable delegate count.  If McCain's winning by a large margin statewide, he's likely to win a solid majority of districts and a solid majority of delegates.  Assuming McCain takes 75% of the 170 delegate pot and Romney takes the rest, that enables McCain to widen his lead to roughly 350 points.

Update [12:05 am]:  There are just two states left to settle (California with 170 delegates and Alaska with 26).  Alaska's results may be available around 12:30 am Eastern, when polls close.  But based on the reported mass confusion in California, we may not be getting reliable results out of that state until tomorrow (if then).

Meanwhile, Geraghty updates us on the Democrats.  Obama (who just concluded a speech, the long-windedness of which was only surpassed by its emptiness) has won 11 states (AL, CT, CO, DE, GA, ID, IL, KS, MN, ND, UT), to Hillary's 6 (AR, MA, NJ, NY, OK, TN).  AZ, CA, MO, and NM remain in doubt.

Update [11:54]:  It's official McCain has held his newfound lead in Missouri  As we now move all 58 delegates out of the Huck column and over to Mitt, the peculiar net effect is to widen the gap between McCain and Romney (bad for Mitt), yet catapult Romney over Huckabee into the #2 slot in delegate count (good for Mitt).  He currently lags McCain by 273 Super Tuesday delegates.

Update [11:45]:  With 91% reporting, McCain has slipped into the lead in Missouri (which we've been counting in the Huckabee column).  If McCain nabs those 58 winner-take-all delegates, it'll open up a wider lead and darken this night for Romney supporters. 

Update [11:35]:  No call yet, but Romney looks uncatchable in Colorado (54-22 over McCain with 20% reporting), which brings his number of wins to 6, in line with Huckabee and just one behind McCain.  CO's 46 delegates will be allocated... somehow.

Update [11:17]:  Fox isn't mentioning it yet, but CNN calls Minnesota for Romney.  Geraghty notes that there's no way to tell exactly how that state will divide up their 38 delegates, so let's allocate proportionally, acknowledging that this will, if anything, tend to understate Romney's actual total.

Update [11:10]:  Romney wins Montana, 37-24 over McCain.  Geraghty says it's "effectively winner-take-all" which would give Mitt another 25 delegates.
 

Update [11:01]:  Missouri looks like it might still be in play, after all, as McCain has caught Huckabee at 33% each.  Per my thesis below about how all 3 GOP candidates might survive the night, Romney supporters want Huckabee to hang on to those 58 winner-take-all delegates.

Polls just clsoed in California.  The race is "too close to call" on both sides, but we haven't seen any hard numbers yet.  The exit poll shows McCain leading Romney by a point and a half, 38.3% to 36.8%.

Update [10:57]:  Give me a break.

Hillary: "The Republicans won't give up the White House without a fight.. But we won't let anyone swift boat this country's future!"

Update [10:40]:  Huzzah - Fox calls North Dakota for Mitt Romney.  The 38 delegates will be allocated proportionally, so it's not a huge win in the overall count (depending on ND's vote share threshold below which you don't get any delegate), but it's another state in his column.  He beat out McCain soundly 37-23.  Ron Paul took third at 21%, while Huckabee brought up the rear with 19%.

Along with that dollop of good news comes a big thwack of bad news - Fox calls Arizona (50 delegates, winner-take-all) for McCain.

Updated BotE:
McCain: 382 (CT, NY, NJ, IL, DE, OK, GA)
Huckabee: 210 (AL, AR, GA, MO, WV, TN)
Romney: 114 (MA, UT, ND)
(Remaining: 342)

(Georgia and Tennessee are also now called for Huckabbe, which are both included in the above tally.)

Close inspection of the above tally will reveal that Huckabee now has (according to my fallible estimates and calculations) more than 200 delegates!

Again, this isn't all bad news for Romney, so long as Mitt leapfrogs past Huckabee out west.  If Mitt winds up in 2nd place, Huckabee's massive haul will have served primarily to narrow the gap between McCain and Romney.  A pesky side effect is that Huckabee will likely stay in the race a while longer.  But his big showing tonight may indeed also serve to buy Romney a ticket to the next round, which is better than the alternative of McCain effectively running the table tonight.

Update [10:11]:  Zzz.  "This old razorback" is still basking.  Feel free to take this opportunity to check in with the liveblogging going on at National Review's Campaign Spot, Hot Air, and Michelle Malkin.

Update [10:07]:  Huckabee's taken the stage in Arkansas to bask in his wins using various biblical metaphors.

Update [9:55]:  Fox calls Oklahoma (38 delegates, with significant bonus to the winner) for McCain.

The networks still aren't ready to call either Missouri or Georgia, but I'm now putting them both tentatively in the Huckabee column, where they appear to belong.

The update BotE for the evening-to-date is a little ugly, so brace yourself:

McCain: 309 (CT, NY, NJ, IL, DE, OK, GA)
Huckabee: 176 (AL, AR, GA, MO, WV)
Romney: 91 (MA, UT)
(Remaining: 472)

Hang in there, Romney fans - this isn't all bad news.  Huckabee's time to shine is just about up, as these total incorporate just about all the states he was competitive in.  We've got a lot of western and caucus states coming up where Romney's total should begin to rise.  The best news here is that McCain has failed to hit the numbers he was expected to hit mid-way through the night.  The bad news is that it's Huckabee who bled those delegates from McCain, not Romney.  But as the western states begin to come into focus and Romney's total begins to rise, the net effect of this ought to be to shrink the delegate gap between McCain and Romney, which ought to be the primary variable affecting Romney viability tomorrow morning.

Winning either Georgia or Missouri would've been a great boost for Romney, but with Huckabee winning them rather than McCain, Mitt can survive without them if things go well out west.

Update [9:30]:  Fox says Missouri, Tennessee, and Oklahoma are all too close to call.  Romney is running third in all three.  Huck leads in Missouri, Mac in the other two.

Update [9:20]:  I think they're going to have to call Georgia fairly soon and it continues to look very likely to go to Huckabee (another unintended consequence of the tacit Mac-Huck alliance).  Georgia's 69 delegates allocated tonight are not winner-take-all, but there's a significant bonus for the winner.  Huckabee's 35% vote share would probably net him about 44 delegates (with 11-13 going to both McCain and Romney).  That would be enough to shift Huck into the #2 spot in the running total.

Update [9:15]:  Fox calls New York for McCain.  Shocker.  Honestly, I'm shocked that they hadn't called it until now.  NY's 101 delegates are already included in the 275 I most recently estimated McCain to have captured so far tonight.

Update [9:00]:  Arizona is still too close to call.  Missouri also looks close, but Romney no longer appears to be in that hunt.  It appears likely that Huckabee will win Georgia, but the distribution is even enough that those 69 delegates may split 3-ways.

Update [8:48]:  A slight break in the action until the 9:00 polls close in another 9 states.  You'll notice I'm not updating the Democrat results - just too to wrap my brain and keyboard around at once.  Jim Geraghty is keeping on top of though and notes that a total of 5 states have been called at this hour: 

Clinton: AR, OK, TN
Obama: IL, GA

On FNC, Laura Ingraham wonders if Huckabee will wind up serving as more of a McCain spoiler than a Romney spoiler.  With wins already notched up in Alabama, Arkansas, and West Virginia, she may be on to something.  Most of the southern states are proportional, so any friendly-fire injuries McCain takes from Huckabee's outperformance will be limited, but could very well exceed what Huck hath wrought on Romney.

Update [8:30]:  Fox News calls Huckabee the winner in Arkansas (31 delegates, allocated proportionally) and Delaware for McCain (15 delegates, winner-take all).

Updated back-of-the-envelope:
McCain:  275
Romney: 79
Huckabee: 58
(Remaining: 636)

Update [8:15]:  Back of the envelope delegate estimates among the settled (and nearly settled) races:

McCain:  249
Romney: 79
Huckabee: 38

That includes CT, NY, NJ, IL, MA, UT, AL, and WV.  Results from TN and OK are starting to trickle in now.

Not a superb showing for Romney in the early going, but he could win Missouri (58 delegates, winner-take-all) and/or Arizona (50 delegates, winner-take-all, and an opportunity to shame McCain in his back yard), which could drastically change the game board.  Arizona polls will close at 9:00.

Arkansas polls close in 1 minute.

Update [8:00]:  Been away from the helm for a few hours.  Back now for the remainder of the evening.

The polls in 8 or 9 states have just closed and several states reliably settled, based on media projections and insurmountable leads.

McCain:
Connecticut (27 delegates)
New York (101 delegates)
New Jersey (52 delegates)
Illinois (majority of 57 delegates)

Romney:
Massachusetts (majority of 43 delegates)
Utah (36 delegates)

Huckabee:
Alabama (majority of 45 delegates)

Latest exit polling and partial results from some other states:

Arizona (50 delegates)
McCain: 36, Romney: 36

California (170 delegates):
McCain: 40, Romney: 35

Missouri (58 delegates, winner-take-all):
McCain: 33, Romney: 30

Georgia (69 delegates):
Huckabee: 37, McCain: 34, Romney: 25

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Weather Check [3:30]:  Missouri: Light rain, snow later; Georgia: Cloudy, t-storms later; Massachusetts: Cloudy, showers later. 

Predominantly Mitt-friendly conditions in most key GOP states, excluding California, where it's gorgeous all day. 

Update [2:30]:  Huckabee wins the West Virginia caucus/ convention with 52% of the vote.  Romney pulls a close second with 47% and McCain barely registers with 1%.  Romney won the first round of balloting, but nearly all of the McCain voters rushed to Huckabee in the second round, following McCain's third place finish.  Huckabee will take all 18 delegates tied to today's contest.

Well spoiled, Governor Huckabee.

[S]ources say that representatives for John McCain called many of his reps in WV and asked them to vote for Huckabee...in order to thwart Romney on the second ballot.

Let's check in with campaign correspondent Naomi Watts for a reaction to the news out of West Virginia .
[Language warning]

Update:  Freakonomics: Probability that Romney leads in California = 93%.

Update:  HamNation brings us our first pre-game tidbit.  And it's a video tidbit, to boot - the unaired "Maverick for President" campaign commercial.

"Actually, I've only done this twice... Crashed and burned on the first one. It wasn't pretty."

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We won't begin to get election returns until shortly after 7 pm, so that's when the real time festivities will officially kick off, but I figured I'd go ahead and put the tent up now.  This thread will also serve as a repository for any additional pre-game tidbits that pop up in the mean time.

Once we kick off, we'll plunge straight on through to the California poll closures and beyond, probably wrapping up some time between midnight and 1.

While we're waiting for those early results, feel free to peruse some recent days' selected ruminations:

• 2/5:  Fresh Evidence Of a Romney Surge In California
• 2/4:  Super Tuesday Forecast: Beautifully Inclement
• 2/3:  GOP Primary Scoreboard - Maine Edition
• 1/31: 4th Quarter Presidential Campaign Finance Disclosures

I'll also take this opportunity to lay down an official GOP delegate prediction.  If he does as well in California as polls would suggest, I'd look for Romney to hit roughly 420 for the day, boosting his total above 500.  (McCain ought to grab between 550 and 600, bringing his total to 650-700, with Huckabee scrounging the leftovers.)

Using our handy Romney Delegate Burden quick reference, 420 today (roughly a 40% haul) suggests he'll the need just over 60% of the remaining delegates to capture the nomination (below the arbitrary 2/3 burden I suggested might be the breaking point for post-Super Tuesday viability).

Others are... not so optimistic.

Feel free to add your own predictions (about either party's contests) in the comments.