Romney wins Hawaii 45-25 over Ricky

[WI_DEM]

Romney Wins Hawaii Caucuses
Mitt Romney won Hawaii's first-ever Republican presidential caucus Tuesday, taking 45% of the vote, the Honolulu Star Advertiser reports.

Romney was followed by Rick Santorum at 25%, Ron Paul at 19% and Newt Gingrich at 11%. The four were competing for 17 of the state's 20 delegates to the Republican National Convention in Tampa.

[Chipper Chat]

1. Lots of Mormons in Hawaii.

And Romney IS HAWAIIAN - didn't cha know? He's also Chinese-American and eats Saimen everday.

[Mr.Turnip]

2. It actually was largely Mormons that gave Romney the win.

Santorum was trailing by around 3 or 4 and gaining before Mormonland reported in and gave Romney around 1000 net votes.

Romney might have actually lost HI if not for the Mormons.

[FreeState]

3. Actually only 2% of Hawaii is LDS - your giving them too much credit

http://www.ldschurchnews.com/articles/58697/United-States-information-Hawaii.html

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

Jan. 1, 2009: Est. population, 304,060,000; Members, 5,974,041; Stakes, 1,438; Wards, 11,289; Branches, 2,074; Districts, 12; Missions, 106;Temples in use, 62; under construction or announced, 7; Percent LDS, 2, or one in 51.

[ellisonz]

4. Nope. He's correct.

Turnout was kinda low otherwise compared to turnout in Laie where BYU-Hawaii is located. They turned 1,000 net votes for him out there and that blew the lid off.

[LisaL]

5. Well then Romney got out the vote. I am not sure what is being argued about here.

Isn't that how one wins?

[ellisonz]

6. Romney won because of religious allegiance...

...and the under-performance of other voting sectors. One should not take this as a sign of his general popularity with Republicans.

[FreeState]

7. That is just wrong on many levels - turn out was higher than expected

http://www.hawaiireporter.com/romney-wins-hawaiis-gop-caucus-with-high-hawaii-turnout-that-overwhelmed-organizers/123

Romney Wins Hawaii's GOP Caucus with High Turnout That Overwhelmed Organizers
HONOLULU, HAWAII - Early Wednesday morning, the Hawaii GOP reported that with 100 percent of the votes counted at its first-ever presidential caucus on Tuesday, Mitt Romney had 45 percent of the vote, followed by Rick Santorum at 25 percent, Ron Paul at 18 percent, and Newt Gingrich at 11 percent.

The caucus held the evening of March 13 across the state to determine the number of delegates for each presidential candidate was a smashing success – so much so, party volunteers and organizers were totally unprepared for the nearly 10,239 people who turned out to vote for their favorite candidate.

At Kalani High School in East Oahu, Republicans lined up before the doors opened at 6 p.m. and continued to flood the school cafeteria until the doors were supposed to close at 8 p.m. They didn’t close on time because of the crowd, and more people continued to straggle in.
Russell McGuire, a Ron Paul supporter who volunteered as a poll watcher at Kalani High School, helped organize voters as they arrived. There were just five Republican volunteers on site to help check in nearly 600 people, he said, which was not nearly enough.

....snip...

Part of the problem - people were not aware they were supposed to bring their party card or postcard from the GOP, so they had to re-register with the Republican Party of Hawaii. That – and a much bigger turnout than expected – led to precincts such as Kalani High School temporarily running out of party cards and even voter registration forms. Some people waited more than an hour for the cards to arrive from party headquarters.

Higher than expected, but somehow Mormons who total two percent decided it. That's one powerful Church there, never mind that of that two percent only about 80% of them are GOP. Never mind that the two percent represents children and non registered voters.

[ellisonz]

8. For starters - I'm not sure Hawaii has had a competative GOP caucus election really before...

...2008 was a different process: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawaii_Republican_caucuses,_2008

10,239 people voted - I can't find votes by precinct from the GOP webpage- but I can tell you that there were 3531 votes in CD1 but 5834 votes in CD2 per the Associated Press, this despite the 1st District having 606,718 people with a Cook PV D+11 political rating and the 2nd District having 604,819 people and a Cook PV D+14. Thus the 2nd District is actually more Democratic than the 1st with the former having never elected a Republican Congressman and the latter having elected one just four years ago.

What explains the roughly 2300 vote difference in turnout - Mormon voters in Laie coming out for Romney, the wealthy transplants on Kauai turning out for Romney, and to a lesser extent conservative Christian voters in Kailua/Kaneohe coming out for Santorum. Mormons might total only 2% of the population, but they were probably about 15% of the Republican caucus goers, which I would hazard is the biggest ratio outside of Utah. So yes, the Mormons really did help swing this for Romney otherwise it's a much closer race of about 800 votes.

I know what I'm talking about - I've been an observer of Hawaii politics for quite a number of years.