Posted on 04/25/2012 6:01:29 PM PDT by Jet Jaguar
Mitt Romney set a record with at least two of Tuesday's primary wins, but it's an achievement the presumptive Republican nominee probably won't be bragging about. The former Massachusetts governor won Delaware with 56 percent of the vote and Pennsylvania with 58 percent. According to University of Minnesota political scientist Eric Ostermeier, that marks the first time that a presumptive GOP nominee has failed to reach the 60 percent mark in a contest conducted after his last major challenger exited the race.
"While Romney avoided the embarrassment of winning with a mere plurality, never has a presumptive nominee won a primary contest with such a low level of support at this stage of the race with his chief challenger no longer actively campaigning," Ostermeier writes at Smart Politics, the university's political site. Smart Politics reviewed Republican primary election data since 1972.
While the Romney campaign insists a win is a win, Romney's below-60-percent victories in Delaware and Pennsylvania come after months of questions about whether the ex-governor will be able to unite Republicans around his candidacy.
At the same time, Romney's somewhat lackluster showings came in states where his GOP rivals made their last campaign pushes. Newt Gingrich made Delaware the last stand of his 2012 bid—ultimately scoring 27 percent. In Pennsylvania, 41 percent of voters opted to cast ballots for other candidates: 18 percent voted for native son Rick Santorum, who dropped out earlier this month; 13 percent supported Ron Paul; and 10 percent voted for Newt Gingrich.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
Ping.
Leftist "news" organization pushing leftist lies as news.
How did Yahoo and the good commie professor determine that Newt was not a "major challenger"?
I voted for Ron Paul as a protest vote.
But I will crawl across broken glass to vote for Romney in November.....but heck, I would crawl across broken glass to vote for a monkey over obama!
Newt wasn’t on your ballot?
I am not a Newtophile. Not. At. All.
The couch thing with Pelosi killed it for me.
Ron Paul is about as Pro-Constitution as they come. He may be ridiculed by many here, but his ideas are closest to the framers. People claim he is kooky on foreign policy.....but where has our interventionist foreign policy gotten us? Iran has nukes, Pakistan has nukes, North Korea has nukes.....not sure how he could fail compared with what the feds are already doing?
Guy isn't any different than Obama ~
And the deceived bought the lie and acted accordingly to make it come to pass. Can't blame the lefty news for conservatives bowing to deception. They own it now. NEWT has been a candidate all along, fought hard against every evil dart aimed at him, and they snubbed him.
Then your love of America is VERY WEAK if a 'theory' could have that affect on you!
How many couches that mitt sat on to design his plan for 'same sex marriage', 'baby killing at $50 a clip', during 'his design for ROMNYCARE', his appointment of liberal judges had THAT SAME AFFECT??
What you didn't see any? Why not? He sat somewhere with many liberals during these times? BTW, they weren't even a theory but NOW LAW!!
I voted for newt and in my ward There we more votes for republican committeeman than for presidential candidates.
I did also but they had four presidential candidates. A waste of paper and ink, IMO. ;) One dropped out, one is a libertarian, and one a liberal who doesn’t belong on the ticket AT ALL and ONLY ONE who has the qualifications, background and a WeThePeople candidate.
McCain didn’t do very well in 2008 until after the last serious candidate officially dropped out; I expect Romney will do better once Newt officially drops out.
They make the mistake of pretending that GIngrich was no longer a candidate, when Gingrich was still actively campaigning, like Huckabee was in 2008.
For example, McCain only won 50.4% of the vote in Virginia in 2008, and won a lower percent in Pennsylvania than Romney did.
I was impressed by how well Santorum did, given he dropped out over a week ago.
As much as I like Newt, he was not a major challenger. I don't think the assumption of story is off base.
On the other hand, Romney is way off his party base. That is the reason for his poor showing as reported.
Let's not let this forum get into blind cheer leading just because we don't like what is being reported. There are plenty of times it is legitimate to blast the media. I don't think this is it.
Houston, we have a problem.
You’re right about Santorum. His showing tells you that the GOP voter isn’t accepting Romney. The powers got Santorum out and Newt as well. Their calculus is that a protracted primary fight only helps Obama.
I don't know what thumb screws the Repubstapo used on Santorum, but it must have been excruciating to cause him to drop out when he was doing decently. If Santorum had stayed in the race, I belief he could have unseated Romney's lead, seeing how relatively unpopular the liar Mittens is.
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