¿Podría Santorum llevarse todos los delegados de Kansas?

Para conseguirlo, tendría que ganar todos los distritos electorales y mantener a sus rivales por debajo del 20%. La clave la tendrá el voto suburbano del tercer distrito (Kansas City, Overland Park, Lenexa, Shawnee y Olathe).

Nate Silver nos lo explica:

Kansas’ Third Congressional District is different than the others; it features Kansas City, Kan., along with well-off suburbs like Overland Park that are socially moderate, and it narrowly voted for President Obama in 2008. The suburbs of the Third District have excellent schools and lots of upscale retail stores and are not altogether different from the nicer suburbs anywhere else in the Midwest, like in Oakland County, Mich., or the more well-to-do parts of Cuyahoga County, Ohio, places where Mitt Romney has done well so far.

The other three districts are conservative and solidly Republican. We’ll have more to come on Kansas’ political geography, but the basic takeaway is that Mitt Romney could fairly easily win the delegates in the Third District, while the other three districts and their nine delegates are likely to wind up in Rick Santorum’s hands.

Kansas’ remaining 25 delegates are allocated proportionately, although candidates are required to receive 20 percent of the vote statewide to qualify for their share. Mr. Santorum seems almost certain to meet that threshold and Mr. Romney will probably do so, although he did not meet that standard in the Minnesota caucuses, where he got just 17 percent of the vote; he also got just 25 percent of the vote in the Missouri “beauty contest” primary, despite Newt Gingrich not being on the ballot.

Ron Paul might be something of a toss-up to get his 20 percent of the vote. He got just 12 percent in the Missouri primary although he did much better in the Minnesota caucus, 27 percent.

One reasonable outcome could be something like Mr. Santorum with 45 percent of the vote, Mr. Romney 27 percent and Mr. Paul 18 percent, with Mr. Romney just barely edging out Mr. Santorum in the Third District but losing the other three. That would produce a fairly lopsided delegate allocation of 28 for Mr. Santourm and 12 for Mr. Romney, with Mr. Paul just missing the cut-off for being awarded proportional delegates.

(...) To repeat, Mr. Santorum looks like the favorite in Kansas, but there’s a wide range of outcomes, from Mr. Romney getting an extremely strong turnout in places like Overland Park and narrowly taking the state, to Mr. Santorum holding both Mr. Romney and Mr. Gingrich below 20 percent of the vote and sweeping all 40 delegates. I wish we did not have to equivocate so much, but prudence dictates that sort of caution given what we have seen in other caucus states.