| Congratulations to Mitt Romney for his decisive victory in yesterday's Montana Republican caucus. The final numbers:
Alan Keyes: 2
Mike Huckabee: 245
John McCain: 358
Ron Paul: 400
Mitt Romney: 625
The caucus seemed to be won in the larger counties, which went strongly for Romney (and Paul, to a lesser degree), and not at all for McCain. To wit:
Yellowstone: Romney 47, Paul 36, McCain 12
Gallatin: Romney 47, Paul 28, McCain 14
Missoula: Romney 42, Paul 45, McCain 7
Lewis and Clark: Romney 36, Paul 16, McCain 15
Flathead: Romney 36, Paul 25, McCain 9
Ravalli: Romney 32, Paul 4, McCain 8
Lake: Romney 14, Paul 18, McCain 8
Of the five biggest counties, Romney won 44.5% of the votes, Paul 32.1%, and McCain 12.2%. Compare that to the rest of the state: Romney 35.9%, Paul 21.5%, McCain 25.9%. If you take out the sixth-largest county's -- Ravalli -- 32 votes for Romney, he pulled only 34.2% of the statewide vote.
What seems clear is that Romney won his votes from the larger, urban areas of the state; McCain from the rural counties. (Check out the Gazette's report on the Treasure county caucus for a color story on McCain's supporters.)
For its part, Romney's camp is attributing its win to its organizational efforts:
Romney's Montana state campaign director, Chuck Denowh, attributed the victory to a strong grass-roots effort and the former Massachusetts governor's compelling message.
"We worked here really hard to win Montana, and we didn't come in here two weeks ago and expect to win," Denowh said, referring to McCain's late bid. "We've been working for five months."
Given the demographics of the results, that sounds about right.
In an open election, turnout is indicative of a candidate's support among the general population. In a closed caucus of party stalwarts, it's a little hard to say. Do Romney's 36 (of 48) Ravalli county votes represent a deep passion for the Massachusetts governor south of Missoula? Or does it represent the party machine quickly organizing its members? In a closed caucus, it's probably the latter, as Romney's camp is claiming.
John McCain performed well in a July 2007 poll, in which 62 percent of those polled said they would consider voting for him if he was his party's candidate. (Thirty-eight percent said they would not.) Romney finished behind Giuliani, Thompson, Obama, Richardson, Huckabee, Biden, Bloomberg, and Edwards with 49/51. A November 2007 MSU-B poll (of dubious accuracy) showed McCain with the best favorable/unfavorable rating among the general population at 44/40. Romney lagged far behind at 24/38.
So the general population of Montana obviously prefers McCain to all other candidates, Democratic or Republican, and definitely feels some antipathy for Romney. But how do they fare among Republicans?
A January 2008 poll showed that Huckabee led among self-described Republicans with 16 percent support from those polled, followed by Giuliani (15%), Romney (13%), Thompson (12%), McCain (5%), and Paul (4%). ("Not sure" won with 23%.) Still, McCain had the highest favorable rating among Republicans (40%).
Given the results of the January poll, then, Huckabee was the big loser in Montana's caucus. The top three winners of last night's contest - Romney, McCain, and Paul - were, as of a month ago - not the top choices of self-identified Republican voters.
So how does that inform our understanding of the caucus results? A good question. I'd posit that Romney's and Paul's votes were probably the result of their campaigns organizing followers to participate in the caucus. Romney's organization was probably top-down (Denowh, Romney's state chair, is the former head of the MT GOP), Paul's bottom-up (a result of the Paul-bearers' typical enthusiasm). McCain's votes likely came out of his broad base of support in the state. Where campaign organization is naturally less effective - in rural areas - McCain supporters filled the gaps. Huckabee was never present in Montana - maybe a mistake, given the pre-caucus poll results - which may explain his lackluster fourth-place finish.
Given McCain's front-runner status and likely nomination, Montana's caucus results in the end likely will be meaningless. General election voters will get their preferred candidate - despite the state GOP's efforts towards a different outcome - and the sting of getting shut out of the closed caucus will fade.
I also think it's unlikely the state party will see much help from Ron Paul's supporters in the general election: those that adore Paul's no-nonsense old-school conservatism will likely find it hard to swallow either McCain's neo-conservatism, or Romney's corporate conservatism and situational values. Paul's campaign represents a break with the big government/big business characteristics of contemporary conservatism; don't count on them choosing party over ideals, especially if that means fighting for a nominee that embodies the status quo. |
