For much of the evening, it was too close to call between real estate tycoon Donald Trump and Ohio Gov. John Kasich. But shortly after midnight, the Associated Press declared that Trump would prevail.
There was a silver lining for Kasich. Because the margin was so minuscule, it appeared he would walk away with the same number of delegates as Trump: at least six apiece. Vermont awards 16 delegates to Republican candidates.
As of 12:35 a.m. Wednesday, Trump was leading Kasich 32.6 percent to 30.6 percent, with 91 percent of the state’s precincts reporting. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) took 19.3 percent of the vote, while Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson trailed with 9.7 percent and 4.2 percent respectively.
Trump prevailed in much of southern Vermont, Franklin County, Orange County and the Northeast Kingdom. Kasich cleaned up in populous Chittenden County and portions of central Vermont. Rubio won just a handful of small towns, including Marshfield, Westfield, Elmore and Waterford.
Though he didn’t manage to overtake Trump, Kasich certainly outperformed expectations in the state. A Castleton Polling Institute survey conducted last month for Vermont Public Radio showed him in a virtual tie with Cruz for third place. The poll found Trump leading with 32.4 percent and Rubio in second place with 16.9 percent.
Since then, Kasich was the only candidate to visit Vermont — twice in the final two weeks of the campaign. Trump appeared once in Burlington, in January, while Rubio held a fundraiser in the state last year.
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Phil Scott and those 30 Republican legislators should be so proud — their last minute endorsement of Rubio probably helped pull away enough votes to help Trump beat Kasich in the state.
But even with that, they couldn’t even get Rubio above the 20% required to win a single delegate in the state.
Congrats Republican “leaders”…. you successfully delivered Vermont to Trump!
Not a major point, but our likely voter estimate had Kasich tied with Rubio for second place, not third, and Kasich surged some after his showing in New Hampshire. Although Kasich’s final estimate far exceeded our polled estimate, when we were in the field, Jeb! and Christie were still in the race, and Kasich hadn’t yet poured resources (including the candidate’s time) into Vermont.
Rich — not to pick on Castleton, but doesn’t that point out a significant issue with your polling methodology?
Your poll was in the field for a full 2 weeks (Feb 3 to 17th). That time period was a very fluid situation in the nomination contest — NH, candidates dropping out, debates, shifting dynamics in the race.
Many pollsters use shorter polling periods of 3-4 days — enough time to allow call-backs, catch people with different schedules, etc — but less likely to be buffeted by external events taking place in the midst of polling.
I understand that there may be logistical/resource issues that make it more difficult to complete polling of adequate numbers of Vermonters for a sample, but wouldn’t your polling (especially in a dynamic period like an election) be strengthened by finding a way to be in the field for a much shorter period of time and being less vulnerable to changes caused by external events?