Keeping up with the Republican Primaries

Guest blogger: anonymous1

In 2008, Arizona Senator John McCain was quickly chosen as the Republican candidate due to the “winner-take all” system, in which candidates receive all state delegate votes for a primary that they have won. However, new rules that discard this system in many states have caused the Republican primaries for this coming election to drag out.

This year’s Republican primaries have been characterized by a vicious feud between Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum. The two engaged in a heated debate in February on CNN in their attempts to gain support before two very important primaries in Michigan and Arizona:

Since Michigan is the state which Romney grew up, he expected to easily win its primary (as well as Arizona’s). However, Santorum interfered by taking advantage of the fact that Michigan was holding an open primary, in which anyone (Republican or Democrat) could vote. By urging Democrats to come to the polls and vote against Romney, Santorum was predicted to get a large amount of Michigan’s votes. Santorum’s campaign, in calling on the Democrats, stated that, “Romney supported the bailouts for his Wall Street billionaire buddies but opposed the auto bailouts. That was a slap in the face to every Michigan worker, and we’re not going to let Romney get away with it.” Romney ended up pulling away with both Michigan and Arizona (although Arizona was extremely close).

Super Tuesday, which occurred on March 6th, was important in that it included 10 states and a total of 437 delegates. Mitt Romney won Virginia, Vermont, Ohio, Massachusetts, Alaska, and Idaho with a total of 212 delegates. Rick Santorum pulled away with Oklahoma, Tennessee, and North Dakota, a total of 86 delegates. This left Georgia to Newt Gingrich with 47 delegates. Since then, Romney has won Wyoming, Hawaii, Illinois, while Santorum scooped up Kansas, Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana. Primaries in D.C., Wisconsin, and Maryland take place today.

Use the Washington Post’s primary tracker, Postpolitics, to keep updated on the Republican primaries:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special/politics/primary-tracker/

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