LIVE: Kansas Caucus Results, Rick Santorum Wins
Rick Santorum has won the Kansas Caucus, and he will take home the majority of the delegates. Here's how it went down live (Live Wyoming Caucus Results Here):
Sunday 5:10 p.m. As mentioned yesterday, the Kansas Caucs rules allowed Santorum to come away with a large number of the delegates from yesterday's caucus.
Rick Santorum: 33 Mitt Romney: 7 Newt Gingrich : 0 Ron Paul: 0
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1:41 p.m. Santorum won all but one of the state's 105 counties. Late polls showed him trailing Romney in Mississippi, but Alabama is a toss-up between Santorum, Romney, and former House speaker Gingrich.
Saturday 7:38 p.m. After Rick Santorum's vicotry in the Kansas Caucus, he will take home the majority of the delegates. According to the Republican Party of Kansas, the Caucus Rules are designed to strip out candidates who received fewer than 20% of the vote in each disctrict. Therefore although Santorum came away with 51% of the vote, he will most likely gain substantially more than 20 of Kansas' 40 delegats.
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6:48 p.m. Rick Santorum wins Kansas Caucus decisively with 51% of the vote. There are 40 delegates at stake in Kansas. Here are the final results:
6:26 p.m. After winning the Kansas Caucus, Rick Santorum thanked his supporters with this Tweet:
5:46 p.m. Following his victory in Kansas, Rick Santorum announced that he had secured "the vast majority of delegates" in Kansas. Santorum will use the momentum gained from the win to pressure Gingrich to drop out. One of the most surprising aspects of Santorum's victory was how badly Ron Paul performed in the state. After campaigning hard in the state, Ron Paul still finished last.
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5:24 p.m. Rick Santorum wins with a majority of the vote.
3:35 p.m. RICK SANTORUM WINS: With 62% of polls reporting, Santorum won Kansas with 53% of the vote. Romney came in second with 17%, followed by Gingrich with 16% and Paul with 13%.
3:10 p.m. With nearly 50% of polls reporting, Santorum holds 54% of votes. Gingrich and Romney are both tied in second with 16.8% of the votes.
2:52 p.m. With 31% of polls reporting, Santorum leads With 52%. Gingrich and Romney are battling for second, with 18.3% and 18.2% respectively.
2:37 p.m. Santorum Will Win: With 20% of polls reporting, Santorum holds 51% of the vote, compared to closest rival Gingrich, who has 19%. Romney has 18%.
2:30 p.m. Santorum Crushing the Game: With 12% of polls reporting Santorum is leading far ahead of the pack, taking 50% of votes. Romney has 19%, Gingrich 18%, and Paul 12%
2:20 p.m. With 4% of polls reporting Santorum has 43% of the vote, Romney 22%, Gingrich 21%, and Paul 12%
1:50 p.m. Santorum Surging According to the Los Angeles Times, hundreds of Republicans turned out on a crisp, clear Saturday in the state's largest city, Wichita.
Santorm the Most Conservative in the Midwest? As the New York Times reports: Skipping entirely the social issues with which he has become identified, Santorum declared himself the one candidate whose conservative record on health care and energy would present a sharp contrast with President Obama.
He accused Romney of falsifying his past support for a national health insurance mandate similar to the one in Massachusetts.
“There’s only one thing worse than having bad policy, which he does have, and that’s not telling the truth to the American public,” Santorum said.
“We chased all the candidates out of Kansas!” Santorum said on Friday.
12:25 p.m. 0% reporting at 12:27 PM.
12:20 p.m. With Romney and Gingrich skipping Kansas entirely, CNN says Santorum is expected to win.
12:15 p.m. Ron Paul called Kansas "a fertile field" Friday, and told about 500 people at a downtown Topeka rally that he doesn't have a particular number of delegates in mind but "the more the merrier."
FYI: Polls Open in the Sunflower State at 10 a.m. Central time.
Friday 7:30 p.m. Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul said Friday he has no numeric goal in mind as he chases delegates. After a downtown Topeka rally with about 500 supporters, Paul said he just needs delegates in his bid for the GOP nomination. “I want to get some votes. I need some delegates and there’s a fertile field here,” Paul said. “I haven’t put a number to it. The more the merrier.”
Brownback Hasn't Picked a Candidate: Kansas Governor Sam Brownback joined Paul at the rally, according to the Texas congressman’s campaign.
"However, this doesn’t necessarily mean a Brownback endorsement of Paul," the Houston Chronicle reports. "Early on in the race, Brownback endorsed Paul’s fellow Texas Governor Rick Perry and has yet to endorse a new candidate. According to a tweet from Rick Santorum’s campaign, Brownback also attended a Santorum rally in Topeka an hour later."
3 p.m. Santorum Lashes Out Against Obama: Hoping to tap into deep distrust of Washington, Santorum suggested Friday that President Barack Obama and Romney share a top priority: to take away Americans' money and freedom so they can tell them how to live.
With sharp rhetoric, Santorum likened Romney to Obama and cast both as unacceptable for conservatives.
“We already have one president who doesn't tell the truth to the American people. We don't need another," Santorum said to cheers. "Gov. Romney reinvents himself for whatever the political occasion calls for.”
1 p.m. Kansas is Romney’s to Lose: Observers in Kansas predict Santorum will win the overall popular vote in the state. They say he will secure the state’s 1st and 4th congressional districts, which cover the state’s western area and Wichita, where he has a campaign office.
That means the former Pennsylvania senator will likely win the bulk of the 40 delegates up for grabs on Saturday.
“This is fertile soil for Santorum,” said Joe Aistrup, a political science professor at Kansas State University. “I think Santorum will rule the day.”
12:30 p.m. Ron Paul Stumps in Topeka: Paul says he has no numeric goal in mind as he chases delegates in Saturday's Kansas caucuses. Paul said he just needs delegates in his bid for the GOP nomination.
Everything you need to know about the Kansas Republican Caucus
Rick Santorum is favored in the Kansas Republican Caucus Saturday. Mitt Romney, the current GOP front-runner, has mostly left Kansas alone, allowing Santorum to woo socially conservative voters in the Midwestern state nearly unopposed.
Only Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) has campaigned heavily in Kansas. Paul — who has done well in other caucuses including Iowa, and more recently Idaho and North Dakota — barnstormed the state on Friday. Paul remains the only GOP candidate who has not won a state.
Romney and Newt Gingrich both opted to skip last-minute visits to Kansas and focus on Alabama and Mississippi, where primaries will be held on Tuesday.
Kansas has 40 delegates at stake in the caucus.
Caucusing begins at 10 a.m. Central time.
Kansas has four congressional districts. Each district has three delegates. The districts are winner-take-all; the candidate with the highest total wins them all. In the event of a tie (in vote count, not statistically), each candidate receives one delegate, and the third goes to the convention uncommitted.
The 25 remaining at-large delegates are assigned proportionally based on the statewide vote. Candidates that pass the 20% threshold are allocated delegates. If only one candidate passes the threshold, or no candidate does, then the threshold no longer applies to any candidate.
In Kansas, the three party leaders (State Republican Party chair, National Committeeman and Committeewoman) are bound at the convention to vote for the candidate with the highest statewide vote.
One quirk: All eight candidates who initially ran for the Republican nomination will appear on the ballot. Only four (Santorum, Romney, Paul, Gingrich) are, of course, still actively running.
Photo Credit: Gage Skidmore
Editor's Note: This story has been updated to properly cite language that was originally used without attribution to the Houston Chronicle. We apologize to our readers for this violation of our basic editorial standards. Mic has put in place new mechanisms, including plagiarism detection software, to ensure that this does not happen in the future.
