by Dylan Nonaka, Partner, The Kahua Group LLC, www.kahuagroup.com

Tonight's Presidential Caucuses was a historic night for Hawaii Republicans in several ways. I wanted to share some numbers and takeaways with you that may not be in the news stories covering it. These are based of off the unofficial counts released tonight but the overall outcomes are not expected to change much with the official results.

The first impressive number was the total turnout of 10,239. Many including myself expected this number to be significantly lower and I have never been happier to be wrong. This is a clear sign of a motivated party base that will be critical to the party's grassroots efforts in 2012.

In contrast to the turnout tonight, 1,358 Democrats turned out to their caucuses last week. Democrats did not have a competitive race on their ballot but in a state where they clearly out number Republicans this disparity is a significant sign of motivation in the base.

Here was the vote breakdown by candidate:

• Mitt Romney - 4,250 45%
• Rick Santorum - 2,369 25%
• Ron Paul - 1,712 18%
• Newt Gingrich - 1,034- 11%

The Romney campaign was clearly the most organized and the results reflect that. In full disclosure I was working on the campaign and am very happy about the results. The campaign was full of volunteers who worked for months to identify voters and their hard work paid off in a big win tonight.

The most important numbers of the night is the number of delegates allocated at a result of these caucuses. My unofficial calculation of the delegate allocation is:

• Mitt Romney - 9
• Rick Santorum - 5
• Ron Paul - 3
• Newt Gingrich - 0

The delegate results make Hawaii significantly important in the national discussion this news cycle. Although Romney did not win in the 2 states that got the most attention the last few days but he is going to win the most number of delegates awarded today as a result of Hawaii and American Samoa's caucuses.

I look forward to looking at the district by district numbers and sharing more about the results when they are available. This was an exciting night and a great way to start this years election season.

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