West Virginia, Explained

Mary Katharine Ham | February 05, 2008 1:10 PM

The Republican Party moved its convention up to today to have more of an impact, and Romney was there to court them:

The process for the allocation of the state’s delegates is a bit convoluted. County conventions were held across the state to select the 1,207 delegates for the state convention. These delegates in turn will vote today. The winner gets all 18 of the state’s 30 delegates at stake today—nine delegates will awarded based on the results of the state’s primary in the spring; three are at-large.
An interview with John McCutcheon, a state consultant for Mitt Romney, made clear why he is expected to win easily.

“We have had the only organizational presence in West Virginia to speak of,” said John McCutcheon, a state consultant for Mr. Romney. “It’s all Romney all the time.”

Huckabee and Ron Paul also spoke at the convention.

The first round of voting shows Romney leading, but not gaining a clear majority, so they're involved in a second round of voting now. It seems to me that if Romney can't win pretty clearly in West Virginia, where he was expected to win and had the only ground game to speak of, it doesn't bode well for the rest of the day. We'll see how the second round comes out.