Nevada Caucus Results: A Big Win for Romney, but What Does it Mean?

Mitt Romney

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Romney is still the clear front-runner, having won three of five contests so far and placed second in the other two. But since everyone knew he was going to win Nevada, "he's not going to get much credit" in terms of momentum, said Ted Jelen, a political scientist at the University of Nevada at Las Vegas (UNLV).

If Romney had passed the critical 50 percent threshold -- or if he does so when the remaining precincts report -- it would be a different story. An outright majority in a field of four candidates would allow him "to talk about 'electability' and 'inevitability' with more confidence," said Eric Herzik, a political scientist at the University of Nevada at Reno (UNR).

But as it stands, given Romney's high expectations going into Nevada -- two polls conducted in the past week found him with 45 and 50 percent of the vote, respectively -- 40 percent is "a disappointment," Jelen said. 

Romney can brush off the disappointment to some extent, though, thanks to his opponents' equally disappointing performances. He failed to change the game the way he had hoped to, but no one else was able to change it, either -- so it remains as it was after Florida, which is to say, "Advantage, Romney."

Newt Gingrich

While Romney didn't manage a blowout, he is still more than 15 points ahead of his nearest competitor, Gingrich. More significant, he got more votes than Gingrich and Santorum combined, which -- coupled with the same feat in Florida -- deals a serious blow to Gingrich's argument that conservatives could win handily if they only united around a single anti-Romney candidate.

If Gingrich's second-place finish holds, he will have dodged a bullet, because if Paul surpassed him, it would cast doubt on whether Gingrich even was a viable anti-Romney candidate to begin with.

"He's pretty much said, 'It's a two-person race, and I'm the anti-Romney candidate," said David Paleologos, director of the Political Research Center at Suffolk University in Boston. "Ron Paul edging him out or Santorum edging him out -- either of those scenarios potentially damages Gingrich further than he's already been damaged. I think the observers looking at it would say, 'I don't think you're the anti-Romney candidate.'"

Gingrich would try to spin it, naturally, as, "'Well, I didn't have the support, I didn't have the infrastructure, those guys have been campaigning there for four years,'" said David Damore, a political scientist at UNLV. But, in reality, he said, it shows "that South Carolina was just a one-time sort of bump thing."