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Tonight is the first multi-state night in the clown race we call the GOP nomination contest, with caucuses in Colorado and Minnesota, and a non-binding beauty contest in Missouri.
Results: CNN (CO, MO, MN) | Google (CO, MO, MN)
8:15 PM PT: Romney hasn't won a single county tonight in Minnesota or Missouri. And that county problem extends nationally:
Among the five states to have voted before tonight, plus the in-progress results from Minnesota and Missouri, Mr. Romney has won only 73 counties from among the 412 to have reported results in the Republican nomination race so far, giving him an 18 percent success rate.
8:18 PM PT (Steve Singiser): It looks like Colorado has decided to start tallying votes, after all. The number of votes has tripled (up to 3 percent reporting), and Rick Santorum still enjoys a wide lead here: he leads Romney 48-22. More important: with the snail's pace of the vote count in Colorado, he will be the beneficiary of the narrative tonight, even if Romney gets the win here some time on Wednesday.
8:22 PM PT: Goddam Ron Paul won't shut up. Ever.
8:23 PM PT (Steve Singiser): FYI: It is not showing up in the statewide numbers just yet on the Colorado GOP site, but they have tallied all the precincts in the Denver metro county of Adams County. Santorum carries the county by a 41-31 margin. Adams is the 5th largest county in the state. Thus, the overall margin is dominated by this result: Santorum 42, Romney 31.
8:25 PM PT (Steve Singiser): Whoa ... quick postscript to the Adams County results that just posted: our own David Jarman notes that Mitt Romney got 66 percent of the vote in Adams County in 2008. Tonight? Less than half. His night, clearly, is not getting any better.
8:29 PM PT (Jed Lewison): CNN's Jim Acosta reports Mitt Romney's election night "party" still has plenty of empty space—room not filled, even though it's in Denver. Maybe they should try an open bar next time.
8:30 PM PT (Steve Singiser): The following has to be considered a telling, and disturbing, statistic for Team Romney in Colorado. 17 counties have finished their tallies in the state. Rick Santorum has won 13 of them. Romney has won just one (Alamosa). Gingrich has won one (Bent). The other two counties (San Juan and Lake) were tied between Romney and Santorum.
8:32 PM PT (Jed Lewison): Tonight, Mitt Romney is finding out there's a hell of a lot more evangelicals in the GOP than Mormons
8:33 PM PT (Steve Singiser): Meanwhile, back in Missouri, a little extra indignity for Mitt: Barack Obama now leads him in actual votes: 64,019 to 63,489. Remember that Democrats really didn't even have a rationale for voting, since Obama is unopposed. That renders a "beauty contest" even more meaningless, and yet Obama is outpacing Romney there. The final margin, for what it's worth, looks like it will be 30 percent (Santorum 55, Romney 25).
8:34 PM PT (Jed Lewison): Mitt Romney is about to start speaking. He's going from a TelePrompter. Have you ever heard of a TelePrompter concession speech? Has that big shit eating grin that he often has when under stress.
8:35 PM PT (Jed Lewison): Mitt Romney congratulates Rick Santorum ... but says he still "expects" to be the nominee.
8:37 PM PT (Jed Lewison): Mitt Romney's sideburns are getting long. I get the feeling that he's hiding his seething anger about tonight's results in there. His speech so far is mostly focused on President Obama. I don't think he realizes that he needs to beat Rick Santorum first.
8:38 PM PT (Jed Lewison): Hahahaha: Mitt Romney just "borrowed" Newt Gingrich's food stamps attack. There's really nothing he won't say if he thinks it'll help him win.
8:39 PM PT (David Nir): The liveblogging continues in the next thread.