Romney Wins AZ Primary Big And Squeaks By With Home State Win In MI By 3%

By Susan Duclos

Mitt Romney was declared the winner Arizona immediately after the polls closed, no big surprise since he was leading in the polls consistently in the weeks leading up to the contest. With 82 percent reporting Romney has a 47-to-27 margin win.

All eyes were turned to Michigan which Romney was expected to win handily since it was his home state and his father was a popular governor for most of the 1960's, but polling leading up to it showed Santorum momentum and lead, then Romney took a small lead this past week and as of the night before the primaries, Santorum started getting momentum again but it was too little too late and Santorum was outspent in campaign ads by 2-to1 resulting in a win that is described by MSNBC as "ugly.".

CNN shows that with 95 percent reporting Romney won with a 3 percent, 41 to 38 percent.

As with Romney's Florida win, where he took the state but won less counties than Newt Gingrich did, the same happened in Michigan with Rick Santorum winning more counties than Romney, but Romney took the larger metro areas as the map below shows.



Romney cannot seem to close the deal with conservative voters and while he is the front runner and is positioned well, Super Tuesday is around the corner (March 6, 2012) and 10 states hold their primaries/caucuses, many of which are larger and have not been penalized with a loss of delegates for moving the date of their contests forward against RNC rules.

To obtain the Republican nomination a candidate must hit the magic number of 1,144 delegates, and after Super Tuesday's contests, conservative voters and pundits will be better positioned to know if that magic numbers can be reached by Mitt Romney.

As of now, according to Real Clear Politics, Romney has 142, Santorum 59, Gingrich 32 and Paul 20.

Examples: Santorum leads in the polls for Ohio and Ohio has 66 delegates. Gingrich has a massive lead in Georgia polls (his home state) and Georgia has 76 delegates. Romney is ahead in polling in Massachusetts, where he was Governor, but that state only has 41 delegates.

Before Super Tuesday is one last contest, in Washington on March 3, 2012, where Rick Santorum holds a double digit lead over Mitt Romney.

In the end it is all going to come down to delegates and if any GOP candidate in this race can obtain the 1,144 by the end of the primary/caucus schedule.

Barring any candidate dropping out before Super Tuesday, which looks highly unlikely, the delegate strategy both Ron Paul and Newt Gingrich have been implementing may keep any of the GOP candidates from hitting the 1,144 mark by June, which holds the last contest.

Which increases the odds of a brokered convention.

Only Paul And Romney Qualify For VA Primary Ballot

By Susan Duclos

[Update] According to Virginia Politics, Gingrich and Perry, after verification, did not meet the reuirement, so only Paul and Romney actually qualify. Headline has been changed to reflect the new report.

Former House speaker Newt Gingrich and Texas Gov. Rick Perry failed to submit enough valid signatures to qualify for the Virginia primary ballot, state GOP officials said Friday evening and early Saturday.

The Republican Party of Virginia announced early Saturday that Gingrich and Perry failed to submit 10,000 signatures of registered voters required to get their names on the ballot for the March 6 primary.

“After verification, RPV has determined that Newt Gingrich did not submit required 10k signatures and has not qualified for the VA primary,” the party announced on Twitter.

The rejection is a significant setback for the Gingrich campaign since he is leading the polls in Virginia among likely Republican voters and is seen as a strong contender for the nomination.

Perry’s campaign told state election officials it had submitted 11,911 signatures, and Gingrich’s campaign said it submitted 11,050 signatures. State party officials spent Friday night validating the signatures.

Original post below:

The Richmond Times-Dispatch reports that only four GOP presidential candidates met the qualifications to have their name on the Virginia March 6, 2012, primary ballot.

Four Republican presidential candidates – Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich, Rick Perry and Ron Paul -- submitted paper work in time to qualify for Virginia's March 6 primary ballot.

No other GOP contender will be on the Virginia ballot. Rep. Michele Bachmann, former Sen. Rick Santorum and former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman did not submit signatures with Virginia's State Board of Elections by today's 5 p.m. deadline.

According to the Green Papers, from information available and updated if changes are made, Virginia has 49 delegates.

I have to agree with AllahPundit atHot Air, for Bachmann, Huntsman, and Santorum to simply forfeit 49 delegates in this manner by not meeting the qualifications to put their name on the Virginia ballot, is an epic failure.

Also from the Green Papers, preliminary estimates show a Republican candidate needs 1,144 out of the available 2,286, to obtain the GOP nomination to become the candidate that face off against Barack Obama in the November 2012 presidential election.

The NYT has the Primary Calendar with all the dates the primaries and caucuses are scheduled.

(Updates and changes have been added to this post and headline to reflect new information.)