Tipsheet

Super Tuesday: Mitt Romney Wins Virginia

Electorally, Virginia is a somewhat strange, purplish sort of state -- Virginians voted for Obama in 2008, but helped the Republicans regain the House in 2010. For a moment there on Super Tuesday evening, Virginia almost got even stranger -- pundits and pollsters alike were predicting the state would be a lockout for Mitt Romney, especially since Ron Paul was the only other candidate on the ballot (Gingrich and Santorum failed to comply with the Old Dominion's registration rules). When the polls closed, the networks reported that the results weren't distinct enough to call the race immediately -- it appears that there were plenty of Santorum/Gingrich supporters frustrated enough with the situation to vote for Ron Paul just to deny the delegates to Mitt Romney. Fortunately for Romney, however, his supporters took the majority, and therefore most of the delegates -- check out Townhall's election tracker for the exact numbers as they come in.

Update: I've now corrected my previous error above saying Romney took all of Virginia's delegates (it's been a late night!) -- Virginia's delegates are not winner-take-all; with Romney taking 59 percent of the vote and 10 of the state's 11 districts, he'll have 43 of the 46 RNC delegates, while Ron Paul will take three. It's also worth noting that Virginia's voter turnout was quite low -- only 5 percent of the state's voters turned up to participate.