Rick Santorum won the Kansas caucuses in a rout on Saturday and Mitt Romney showed strength in Wyoming, the latest contests in the grinding campaign for the Republican presidential nomination. Returns from 61 percent of Kansas precincts showed Santorum with 53 percent support, far outpacing Romney, who had 17 percent. Newt Gingrich had 16 percent and Ron Paul trailed with 13 percent.
Santorum's triumph, coupled with Romney's early advantage in Wyoming, were prelude to twin primaries in Alabama and Mississippi on Tuesday that loom as unexpectedly pivotal in the race to pick an opponent to President Barack Obama in the fall. A total of 52 delegates to the Republican National Convention was at stake, 40 in Kansas and a dozen in Wyoming.
Romney, the front-runner by far in the delegate competition, padded his lead overnight when he won all nine delegates on the island of Guam and an equal number in the Northern Mariana Islands. Romney began the day with delegates in the AP's count, more than all his rivals combined. Santorum had , Gingrich and Paul had Please enter email address to continue.
Please enter valid email address to continue. Chrome Safari Continue. Be the first to know. And as the Republican nominating contest becomes as much a battle for delegates as it is for momentum, Santorum's difficulties in Ohio offer another window into the organizational challenges his campaign has faced throughout the primary season. Santorum is not on the ballot in Virginia, which also holds a primary on Super Tuesday and where each candidate was required to submit 10, signatures, including from each of the state's 11 congressional districts.
The eligibility requirements in Ohio were comparatively easier, but at the time Santorum's rivals were putting together their delegate slates in December, Santorum was crisscrossing Iowa in a pickup truck ahead of the caucuses, which he ended up winning by a hair.
The deadline for submitting the slates in Ohio was the last week of December. There are a total of 63 delegates up for grabs in Ohio on Tuesday, 48 of them are awarded proportionally based on who wins the popular vote in each Congressional district - three per district - and 15 will be awarded to the candidate who wins a majority of votes in the state.
However, if no candidate surpasses 50 percent of the vote, the "at-large" delegates are awarded proportionally to each candidate who received more than 20 percent of the statewide vote. Three additional party leaders will act as unbound delegates at the Republican National Convention, but they will not be awarded on Tuesday.
The Romney and Santorum campaigns offered vastly different takes on the delegate situation in Ohio. Who are we? Fight the Fake. Romney was showing strength In Wyoming, where some counties caucused earlier in the week, Romney had five of the 12 delegates at stake, Santorum had two, Paul had one, and one was uncommitted. Three more remained to be determined in party meetings later Saturday. Romney, the front-runner by far in the delegate competition, padded his lead overnight when he won all nine delegates on the island of Guam and an equal number in the Northern Mariana Islands.
Romney did not campaign in Kansas. Santorum and Paul, a Texas congressman, both made stops in the state in the days leading to the caucuses. Gingrich canceled a scheduled trip to Kansas late in the week to concentrate on the primaries in Alabama and Mississippi, which the former speaker of the House of Representatives considers friendlier territory.
Santorum hopes that a poor showing by Gingrich in these southern contests will drive the former Georgia congressman from the race and enable him to establish himself as the sole conservative alternative to Romney.
0コメント