The numbers your seeing out of Illinois tonight reflect whom Illinois Republicans want to be their nominee, but they don’t have much bearing on the delegate race — which is to say, on the nomination.
What’s really going on in Illinois tonight are 18 separate elections — one per congressional district — for delegates to the Republican National Convention. Voters in each district vote for 2, 3, or 4 delegates, depending on how Republican that district has voted recently. The ballots indicate which candidates the delegates support.
It’s possible for candidates to split the delegates in a congressional district, but not too likely — that would require many voters voting for, say, only two of three Romney delegates.
So here’s where we stand, right now, at 9:50 pm, Eastern.
The AP has called 7 of the congressional districts, and Romney has won all 19 delegates in those districts.
The rest of the districts are too close to call, but by current count, Romney would pick up another 23 delegates while Santorum would get 12. Total, if this count held: 42 – 12.
