Nevada gives new perspective on Paul's youth-centered campaign

Well, these caucuses have been an absolute mess.

In Iowa, full ballot boxes went missing and a week after the voting was over we found out that it was Rick Santorum, not Mitt Romney who was victorious.

As for last night's Nevada caucus, we're still missing 25 percent of the vote.

But with the votes we've got counted as of earlier this morning, a few things are clear. Mitt Romney met expectations, easily soaring to victory in a state he won convincingly in 2008. Meanwhile, Newt Gingrich actually outperformed expectations, at least for now. Once all of the Clark County votes are counted, we could still see Gingrich fall into third place.

For now, the most disappointing night was for Ron Paul, who was banking on a strong showing in the western caucus states to propel his delegate-driven strategy. As of the latest count, he earned 18 percent of the vote, improvement from the 14 percent he brought in during the 2008 primary.

Again, without a complete breakdown of the numbers it's impossible to speculate too much about what these results mean. One thing worth noting, specifically with the Paul performance, is that it most likely did not come on the back of young voters, who make up a laughably small portion of the Nevada electorate.

As ABC News reports:

Ron Paul, who pushed to do well in Nevada this year, may suffer from a deficit of self-identified independent voters, a group in which he’s tended to do better. They account for just about two in 10 caucus-goers in Nevada today, better than their share in 2008, but still heavily outnumbered by mainline Republicans. Paul’s also done well among young voters; today the entrance poll indicates that they make up barely one in 10 caucus-goers.

Does an all-around solid performance (18 percent isn't too shabby) despite a small number of young voters give the Paul campaign hope that it has found a way to expand its base?