The first warning flags that Mitt Romney may not be the strong general election candidate the Republican Party establishment sold him as were spotted on March 6th, otherwise known as Super Tuesday.
Though numerous states held contests that day, it was Ohio that was considered the big prize. Rick Santorum had almost defeated Romney in Michigan, one of his home states (it was so close they essentially split the delegates). With Santorum surging in Oklahoma and Tennessee, Newt Gingrich poised to win his home state of Georgia, and Virginia written off after most Republican candidates failed to qualify for the ballot, all eyes were on the Buckeye state.
Especially since no Republican has ever won the White House without winning Ohio.
With an army of nationally-known conservative leaders lining up behind him, and several conservative southern states still to come on the primary calendar, Ohio was Santorum’s shot to upset the party establishment’s best laid plans if he could win the crucial battleground state.
And he almost did.
Despite being out-spent in the state 10-to-1, Santorum lost Ohio by just 10,288 votes in a primary with more than 1.2 million voters. Why was that election so close, and how was Romney able to win?
The state of Ohio has 88 counties, but Romney only won 19 of them on primary night. Romney won the Ohio primary although he won just 22% of the counties in the state. It’s where Romney won that tells the tale.
Romney won Cuyahoga County by 16,029 votes. Romney won Hamilton County by 15,653 votes. In other words, Romney’s margin of victory in those two counties was over 50% higher than his overall margin for victory in the whole state. If you were to remove those two counties from the total tally, Santorum would’ve won Ohio by over 21,000 votes—or twice what Romney actually won the state by. And had Santorum won Ohio, Romney might not be the nominee today.
- Topics:
- 2012 Election
- Mitt Romney
- Ohio
- Barack Obama
Steve Deace
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Steve Deace is nationally distributed each weeknight from 9-Midnight EST by the Salem Radio Network. His radio program has been featured in major media such as Fox News, CBS News, ABC News, CNN, MSNBC, The Washington Post, The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, Politico, The Weekly Standard, and National Review among others. He has been a columnist for World Net Daily and the Washington Times, and is now a contributor for Town Hall.com.
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