Nevada results thread: Clinton wins, Romney triumphs

7:35pm: The Obama camp is going further than that delegate count to try and disturb Clinton's win. Here is a statement put out by the campaign: "We currently have reports of over 200 separate incidents of trouble at caucus sites... These kinds of Clinton campaign tactics were part of an entire week’s worth of false, divisive, attacks designed to mislead caucus-goers and discredit the caucus itself." (Read the full statement here).
Two other important news: (1) Clinton won 7 of the 9 at-large precincts. (2) Among Republicans, the big story out of Nevada: Ron Paul seems to have beaten McCain for second place.

7:10pm: There is some confusion as to whether Clinton or Obama got the more DNC convention delegates out of Nevada. The delegate allocation is not firmly proportional and depends on the percentages in congressional districts. The AP calculates 13 delegates for Clinton and 12 for Obama, and the Obama campaign is calculating that the inverse is true and using that to claim victory. Not that it would seem to really matter, since Nevada matters for momentum-setting rather than delegate count consider that it is a smallish state. (NBC confirms that Obama has one more delegate, but once again this claim by Obama's camp is unlikely to succeed given that all papers will title "Clinton wins" tomorrow and that no one believes that these small early-states matter because of delegate count. After all, actual delegates won't be voted on until end of April -- and the same is true in Iowa.)

5:30pm: The second round of entrance polls have been released by CNN (the previous numbers I had blogged were based on early interviews) has Clinton up by 13% among women and trailing by 2% among men. The entrance numbers look to be 48% Clinton to 41% Obama, with Edwards at 8.5%. The rest of the numbers aren't changed much: Obama still crushes Clinton among the black vote (he gets 83%). And one big factor in the results is the small number of young voters (13% of the electorate was under 29, 32% was under 44 -- a smaller number than the 60+ voting group that massively voted for Clinton). And in actual results, it's 50.77% Clinton to 45.13% with 90% of the precincts reporting.

5:20pm: We finally got some updates on the GOP side. With 78% reporting, Romney is holding above 50%, with 52.6%. Ron Paul is second with 13%, but that's only 34 votes above John McCain so the battle for second is still being waged. Fourth is Thompson who is at 7.7% and 23 votes above Huckabee. And then comes Giuliani who with 4.5% is still closer to Duncan Hunter (1.7%) than to fifth-place.
Turnout is also a very interesting story. More than 100,000 Democrats are reported to have voted, which looks to be more than double the Republican turnout in a state that is tied up at the national level.

4:35pm: With 84% reporting, Clinton gets 50.47% to Obama's 45.35%. This is a difference of about 500 delegates (if anyone knows why the GOP results have been stuck at 38% reporting for more than an hour, please let me know). The New York Times description of voting in a Las Vegas casino gives us many clues to what happened in Nevada. For one, voters were confused and apparently some of them asked to leave once an hour had passed (since they had taken an hour off their shift to come and participate). Second, the NYT points to the Clinton corner being dominated by women -- one indication of how Clinton managed to overcome the disadvantage of not having the Culinary's support (and Clinton won the caucus site at the casino the NYT was reporting from). Many female workers picked gender over union-affiliation, and as I already pointed out the entrance polls show Clinton led by 22% among women (and by 4% among men). Ben Smith adds that Clinton was particularly strong at these casinos among Hispanic women.

4:10pm: Nevada is being called for CLINTON (by CBS among others). Hillary gets her second win in a row and the results are unlikely to tighten given that most of the votes will be coming in from Clark which is Clinton's strongest area. And early reports indicate that Clinton won the at-large precincts, as the Culinary seems to have done a bad job at getting its voters to the polls, organizing them and not making the caucuses seem very confusing.

4:05pm: Results are coming in fast and furious now and with 65% of the precincts accounted for, Clinton is up 50.2% to 45% (a 350 delegate lead). Clinton will surely claim a huge victory if she stays above 50% and considering that there still are a lot of votes to be counted in Clark (60% in), it looks very good for Hillary.

3:50pm: With 45% of the vote in, Clinton has increased her lead to 50% to 44.5% (a delegate spread of 230, with Clark County only in 44%, so there still are a lot of votes to be counted). Edwards is at 5%, so he clearly bled a lot of support in the realignment phase.

3:35pm: CNN just posted its entrance polls and they indeed have Clinton up big with about 48% of the vote versus about 34% for Barack. Clinton crushes Obama among the female vote (52-33) but leads by only 4% among men. Edwards gets 12% in the entrance poll, which means that a lot of his supporters will have to realign. If Clinton does wins, Obama can blame the lack of turnout among the youth: Only 27% of the electorate are under 44%, says the entrance poll, and 39% are 60 and older. He can also blame poor indie participation: registered Democrats constitute 83% of voters (and have Clinton up big). Among minorities, Clinton gets the Latino vote (65-20) and Obama crushes her among blacks (76-18).
Meanwhile with 22% of the vote in, Clinton is up 49% to 44%. Her 751 to 684 delegate lead comes mostly from Clark County (Las Vegas), where she has a 140 delegate lead! Obama's stronghold is Washoe, where he gets 53% to Clinton's 34%. Both Washoe and Clark are coming in at the same rhythm, but Clark attributes a lot more precincts.
3:25pm: CNN's exit polls claim that 25% of the GOP electorate was Mormon, and that 94% of them voted for Romney. We knew that Mormons are a strong force in Nevada, but this is beyond expectations and accounts for Romney's fantastic lead. With 19% reporting, Romney is ahead with 55%. McCain and Paul are battling for second at 12%, separated by 45 votes. (For all it's worth, the entrance polls have Paul coming in second).

3pm: It looks like Clinton is ahead in the entrance polls. From MSNBC's First Read: "Based on early entrance polls, Clinton has a significant lead in the initial preference for the Democratic Nevada caucuses." Of course, if Edwards fails to be unviable and his supporters go to Obama, that could offset the entrance numbers -- but there is only so much ground Obama can make up with that.
With 3% in, Obama is ahead with 35 delegates to 33 delegates (remember that the raw votes totals will not be released). Edwards has only gotten two for now, confirming that he is having trouble meeting viability and that his results could be low. Reporting for now are the smaller precincts in which voting is quick.

2:50pm: With 10% reporting, we are starting to get a better idea of the (massive) size of Romney's victory. He is ahead with 51,1% of the vote right now, with everyone else very far behind. Romney could get some big buzz if he manages to stay above 50%, as the media would have a hard time not covering that. In a battle for second are John McCain at 12.8%, Ron Paul at 11.9%, Mike Huckabee at 10.3%, and Fred Thompson at 8.4%. With 4.2%, Rudy Giuliani seems condemned to be sixth once again and is closer to Duncan Hunter than to Thompson.

Original post: The AP has already called Nevada for Mitt Romney. This happened so quickly that I did not have time to put up a proper results thread. The caucuses closed at 10am PT, so 25 minutes ago and the results appear to have been reported strikingly fast. No word yet on the exact results, however, nor on the order of the other contenders.

While we wait for the (more significant) Democratic results as well the actual GOP results, you can check the guidelines of what to expect in today's elections and what Romney's win could win for his candidacy.