Precinct-Level Data for IA, ME, MN, NV and NH

So far in this primary season, we have seen caucuses in Iowa, Nevada, Minnesota, Colorado and Maine. There have been primaries in New Hampshire, South Carolina, Florida and Missouri. Because these events are organized and run by each state's Republican Party leadership, there is an incredible amount of heterogeneity between the different states.

This makes things difficult for someone who wants to obtain precinct-level data for every single precinct in each of those 9 states, but that is my task. After some painstaking googling, and a decent quantity of repetitive keystrokes and mouse-clicks, I am now confident that I have ALL of the publicly available precinct-level data for Iowa, Maine, Minnesota, Nevada and New Hampshire. Finally! And yes, I know that Maine's results should be adjusted after the Feb 18 caucuses.

Okay, so I can't confirm or deny (yet) the claims of the poster at Daily Paul regarding South Carolina, but I can look at some other states and see if there's a similar trend. In other words, as precinct size increases, does Dr. Paul fare increasingly worse or Mr. Romney fare increasingly better? That is the only question I am asking for now.

Because each state has a unique set of considerations, I think it's best if I consider the results from each state separately, and I won't be able to do that until later this weekend. However, I must give a teaser: the early results appear to be VERY interesting!

For example, about 43% of the 6520 precincts from these 5 states had 20 or fewer votes. Dr. Paul won 20.5% of those precincts, while Mr. Romney only won 19.3% and Mr. Santorum won 27.2% (Mr. Gingrich won 6.7%). These precincts represent a total of 25,324 voters, or 5.5%.

Now let's consider the 10.5% of precincts with more than 100 voters. Dr. Paul won 20.1% of these precincts, Mr. Romney took a whopping 56.9%, Mr. Santorum dropped to 20.7% and Mr. Gingrich captured a paltry 1.5%. These precincts represent an incredible 318,741 voters, or 69.9%.

Hmm ... just a guess, but I think that the Santorum camp may find this preliminary data to be fairly interesting.

My first state-specific post will deal with New Hampshire, and the graph below is certainly intriguing. It shows the relationship between vote percentage and precinct size for both Dr. Paul and Mr. Romney in New Hampshire.