Rick Santorum wins the state of North Dakota.  The gap between Mitt and Rick in Ohio is now down to 1%.  Some insiders say the bigger counties have not come in yet and they should fall to Mitt.  If it remains at 1% gap the state rules of Ohio mandates a recount.

What does winning mean?

A lot of pundits are flapping their gums about Santorum’s big surge tonight.  So lets be clear on some things.  Before tonight the delegate count stood like so  Mitt: 173  Rick: 63  Newt:29  Ron: 20  So if you want to know who the real winner is tonight check those numbers again tomorrow.  The winner of tonight will be the guy with more delegates.

There are actually two elections on a primary night.  The popular vote (total votes cast in the state) and the delegate count (awarded to winner of each county with-in that state).  The popular vote is how the networks decide who to “call” that particular state for.  So in Santorum’s situation he won the popular vote in Tennessee so technically he won the state.   Likewise Romney is winning in Wyoming but he may well lose the delegate count because the counties he won had more people so he got more total votes where Santorum’s votes were spread throughout the lower populated counties.  The counties Santorum is winning have fewer people so the total vote is lower.  Romney won only a few counties but they were densely populated so his total vote count is higher.

All that to say, if your particular candidate is “losing” in a certain state where they award delegates proportionally, wait for the delegate count to be reported from that state, it may tell a different story.  Check the link, GOP Delegate Count, on the right hand side of Frank’s Place for up to the minute delegate results.

One number matters – 1144.  That’s how many delegates it takes to become the nominee for the republican party.  The guy who gets that number first wins, no matter how many states he may have won or lost.