Huckabee FTW! (or not?)

As results from the only two states in the country that don't use the Multistate Bar Exam continue to trickle in...

With 37% of the precincts reporting in Washington state, Huckabee has the lead!!! It's Huck 26.9%, McCain 23.2%, Paul 20.6%, Romney 18.3%, Uncommitted 10.9%. (Seriously, the high level of support for Mitt, who dropped out two days ago, is somewhat bizarre, no?)

Huckabee's also up in Louisiana, 48% to 38% with 40 percent reporting. Can you say "Huck-a-sweep"?

The New York Times's Washington and Louisiana results pages are your best bets for the latest results.

UPDATE: CNN's John King points out that Louisiana's primary is a "beauty contest" unless somebody gets a majority, and based on their projections, "we are certain that no candidate will pass 50%." So even if Huckabee wins, he gets bragging rights, but little else.

UPDATE, 11:30 PM: With 78% reporting in Washington, McCain has taken a slim lead, 25.7% to 24.0%. Ron Paul is within striking distance, too, at 21.4%. Romney's at 16.2%, and Uncommitted is a strong 12.7%. What a weird result.

Meanwhile, Huck's lead in Louisiana has narrowed to 44.6% to 41.0%, with 82% reporting. And Orleans Parish, which McCain is winning overwhelmingly (60-22), is only half in. Also, East Baton Rouge Parish, where McCain leads 48-31 (and which has a lot more GOP votes than Orleans), is only 19% in. If those trends hold, methinks McCain may pull this one out.

UPDATE, 12:18 AM: 97% reporting now in Louisiana, and Huckabee is still barely ahead, 43.4% to 41.9%. More to the point, he's up by 2,276 votes. Orleans is 90% in, and East Baton Rouge 83% in. This is going to be very close -- and, of course, utterly meaningless.

Comments

[Mad Max, Esquire]

That would really be something if McCain ends up losing the nomination due to conservative backlash. The Republicans do realize that Huckabee will be their McGovern, right?

[CD]

Western WA, most importantly, King County not in on R side yet. Huck's lead premature to announce. We have two very different states over here: East of the Mountains and West of the Mountains. Most of the population and most of the D's and moderates are west of the mountains (we like to call it the wrong half of the state and the left half of the state).

[Alec]

Further to CD's comment, McCain has just overtaken Huckabee in WA. I can't seem to access the county-by-county results at the moment (not sure why), but I strongly suspect that McCain's surge is the result of more precincts reporting in western counties like King and Pierce.

[Alec]

On the basis of my very crude calculations:

(a) There's about another 15,000 or so votes to be reported in LA as a whole.

(b) There's probably another 7,500 McCain votes to be reported in Orleans and East Baton Rouge parishes.

So your 11.30 prediction looks pretty good to me Brendan.

[Jay Johnson]

But a win in Louisiana without a majority means less than nothing.

[Brendan Loy]

Of course it means something: Huck-mentum!

;)

[Brendan Loy]

Or, um, Mac-mentum, I guess.

[Alec]

Yeah, it is meaningless. But there's always joy to be found in the horse race.

I'm perplexed by CNN calling LA at this stage. Guess that they must know something we don't. (Or perhaps I got my sums wrong.....).

[CD]

State party says McCain to win WA. What surprised me was the number who remained uncommitted and the number who went Romney still. That was definitely a statement or warning or what have you to McCain. The Ron Paul does not surprise me too much... I am beseiged by his supporters all over the place, and he is particularly popular East of the Mountains.

I predict that McCain will take the Feb 19 primary more handily given the different nature and numbers of voters who participate in that kind of process over a caucus.

As a side note, I heard several Dems at the caucus saying they were going to send in their Feb 19 primary ballot for Huckabee since he would be 'easier to beat in November' and since the Dem ballot doesn't mean anything. I sincerely hope that they actually read that pledge that they signed at the caucus today, however, as well as the one they sign on the ballot, which states that you have not and will not participate in the nomination process of any other party... if they try to do this, both votes will be invalidated. I have no idea how many people will have this thought looking at the primary ballot and realizing that only the Republican ticket has any meaning so why not 'get two votes' if you will.

[Jim Hu]

Absentee ballots explain the votes for Mitt, guys.

[Brendan Loy]

Absentee ballots at a caucus? In a state that also has a primary? I guess I assumed there was no absentee voting under the circumstances.

[CD]

No such thing as absentee ballots at a caucus. You have to be there in person, at one exact time or your vote does not count.

The primary ballots have been out for over a week so there you will see some of that.

[Jim Hu]

Oops! I thought Washington was a primary. Was it a primary in the past. I thought I had googled before posting.

[Wobbly H]

Washington has both a primary and the caususes--the Democratic delegates are completely awarded by the caucuses, and the Republican delegates are assigned based on both the caucuses and the primary. As they said above, by definition there is no such thing as an absentee caucus voter.

[CD]

Nope, we have always been caucus driven. The Seattle Times ran an informative article on the caucus vs primary history in WA if you are interested: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2004148965_caucusprimary28m.html

Here is an excerpt:

For nearly a century, Washington's political parties relied solely on precinct caucuses — small gatherings held in homes, schools, churches and firehouses — to allocate delegates to the national nominating conventions.

But that all changed after the 1988 election. That was the year televangelist Pat Robertson and his so-called "invisible army" of Christian conservative voters dominated the state Republican caucuses and conventions.

The next year, the Legislature adopted a citizen initiative calling for a presidential primary. The measure said the party caucus systems were "unnecessarily restrictive" and discriminated against the elderly, disabled and other people unable to attend the gatherings.

But Washington's presidential primary has had a tortured history.

The Republican Party used the first primary, in 1992, to allocate all of its delegates to the national convention. But it hardly mattered because then-President George H.W. Bush already had a lock on the nomination.

The Republicans then switched to a hybrid approach, using the primary to allocate half its delegates in 1996 and a third in 2000.

The state Democratic Party, meanwhile, has never relied on the primary and instead divvies up all of its delegates through the caucus and convention process.

The presidential primary eventually became so meaningless that the Legislature canceled it in 2004. Lawmakers argued it would be a waste of money, given that the Democrats were ignoring the primary and President George W. Bush had no serious challenger on the Republican ticket.

But the primary was revived for 2008. Hoping to give it more impact nationally, a panel of party leaders and state lawmakers agreed last summer to move the primary up by three months, to Feb. 19.

Once again, however, the Democrats are not using it to select delegates. And the Republican Party will use the primary results to allocate only 19 of its 40 delegates to the GOP national convention.

The state estimates the election will cost about $10 million. So, for those keeping score, that works out to about $526,000 per delegate that will actually be determined by the primary.

People who vote in the primary will have to choose between a Democratic or Republican ballot and will have to sign an oath promising that they haven't participated in the other party's nominating process.

Unlike 1996 and 2000, voters will not have the option of using an "unaffiliated" ballot. Though a large percentage of voters in those elections cast unaffiliated ballots, their votes were never counted by either party. So the state decided to scrap that option.