Super Tuesday results: Ohio | Tennessee | Oklahoma | Georgia | Virginia | Idaho | Massachusetts | North Dakota | Vermont | Alaska
• Romney can’t seal the deal on Super Tuesday
• Santorum rides blue-collar vote to photo finish in Ohio
Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney scored an easy victory in Virginia’s Republican primary Tuesday night, an impressive haul that nevertheless cast doubt on Romney’s ability to excite voters and win over conservatives in a critical battleground state.
With the rest of the nation focusing on competitive states like Ohio, Romney capitalized on a rare one-on-one face-off against Rep. Ron Paul of Texas, apparently netting 43 of the state’s 46 delegates available Tuesday to cushion a lead he’s still trying to protect from rival Rick Santorum, according to unofficial results.
But the race was closer than expected, with Romney pulling in 59 percent of the statewide vote to Paul’s 41 percent, giving credence to threats that some Republican voters would rather see anyone who’s more conservative than Romney, even if it jeopardizes their chances against President Obama in November. Paul appeared to picked up three delegates in the heavily Democratic 3rd Congressional District, which is anchored in Hampton Roads and Richmond and includes a high percentage of overseas military voters.
Republican voters protested the exclusion of Santorum and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich from the Virginia ballot by staying home, sparking abysmal turnout at the polls. At an unofficial 5 percent turnout, Tuesday’s lackluster showing in Virginia was about half of the 490,000 ballots cast in the 2008 Republican presidential primary.
Romney and Paul were the only Republicans to turn in the necessary 10,000 valid signatures to qualify for Virginia’s ballot, and the courts shunned legal attempts by Santorum and Gingrich to circumvent the restrictions.
That angered many Republican voters, and those who bothered to show up Tuesday chose to voice their displeasure by voting for Paul. Others cast blank ballots, said Cameron Quinn, general registrar for Fairfax County.
“People haven’t been over-the-top obnoxious, but they’re unhappy,” Quinn said.
In an exit poll that asked voters whom they’d support if all four candidates were on the ballot, Romney won but drew just 40 percent of the vote.
Still, Romney’s camp walked away Tuesday knowing his take helped the front-runner maintain a significant edge over the rest of the field, even though the 10-state nominating contest yielded mix results. Supporters said it will be detrimental to the party to continue the campaign all the way to the convention this summer, particularly in swing states like Virginia where President Obama is mobilizing strong ground forces to lay a path to re-election.
“Republicans are going to have to ask themselves a simple question: Do you want to beat President Obama or not?” said Lt. Gov. Bill Bolling, chairman of Romney’s Virginia campaign. “If we’re looking for the ideologically perfect candidate, we’ll be looking for a long, long time. There is no Superman.”
