Romney rivals brush off losses in Nevada

“I get energized because I know there’s a large number of people who are looking for another option,” he said.

The campaign overall has taken a decidedly angry turn in the past month, with Mr. Romney and Mr. Gingrich increasingly sniping at each other via interview sound bites and political ads.

The Nevada campaigning did little to cool the rhetoric. Mr. Gingrich said Mr. Romney’s repeated verbal gaffes make the case for others to stay in the race.

He pointed to Mr. Romney’s comment last week that the “very poor” don’t concern him. Mr. Romney later said the remark was a mistake, but Mr. Gingrich said it will be a problem for the former Massachusetts governor going forward.

Disorganized in Nevada

Another story this week is just how chaotic Nevada’s caucuses turned out. As of 5 a.m. Sunday, the state party still had not reported results in nearly 30 percent of precincts.

At the local level, things were just as disjointed.

At Green Valley High School in Henderson, a regional cheerleader competition began on one side of the school while voters were checking in on the other side, sending off hundreds of middle-aged voters to roam the school’s hallways searching for their caucus rooms like freshmen on the first day of class.

“No, it’s worse than that. We forgot to wear pants and we studied for the wrong exam,” said one man who was in the middle of his second circuit without finding his room. “Welcome to the Nevada Republican Party.”

In Classroom 800, precincts 7405 and 7730 were scheduled to meet at the same time because the school wouldn’t open any more rooms.

Voters in one of the precincts challenged the way the election of delegates to the county convention came before the presidential selection poll. In the other precinct, voters and volunteers struggled to figure out whether the delegates would be bound to vote for whomever the precincts selected.

Then, when the time came for speeches, a woman on one side of the room was touting Mr. Romney to her precinct while 10 feet away a man was speaking on behalf of Mr. Paul.

The results were dramatically different.

Mr. Paul won Precinct 7405 with 16 votes, topping Mr. Romney with 10, six for Mr. Gingrich and one for Mr. Santorum. But in Precinct 7730, Mr. Romney steamrolled his rivals, winning 34 votes. Mr. Santorum won two votes, Mr. Paul won one and Mr. Gingrich didn’t win any supporters.

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