Aside from Missouri on Saturday, this weekend also gave us the Puerto Rico GOP primary on Sunday which was handily won by Mitt Romney with over 80% of the vote.
| Puerto Rico Republican primary, March 18 2012 | ||
|---|---|---|
| Candidate | Votes | Percentage |
| Mitt Romney | 98,375 | 82.88% |
| Rick Santorum | 9,524 | 8.02% |
| Buddy Roemer | 2,622 | 2.21% |
| Others | 2,590 | 2.18% |
| Newt Gingrich | 2,431 | 2.05% |
| Fred Karger | 1,702 | 1.43% |
| Ron Paul | 1,452 | 1.22% |
Report from the Washington Post:
Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney won Puerto Rico’s Republican primary on Sunday.
With about 83 percent of ballots counted, Romney took an overwhelming 83 percent of the vote. By getting more than 50 percent of total votes, Romney will take all 20 of the territory’s delegates.
Despite spending time campaigning on the island on Wednesday and Thursday, former senator Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania fell far behind Romney, taking about 8 percent of the vote.
Romney probably got a boost from his unqualified support for Puerto Rican statehood, the top issue in the race. Santorum, on the other hand, faced a backlash after suggesting that statehood be contingent on Puerto Rico making English its main language. (Former House speaker Newt Gingrich and Texas Rep. Ron Paul largely ignored the territory and took a very small share of the vote.).
Romney also had the support of most of the state establishment, including Gov. Luis Fortuno (R).
In 2008 the state GOP held a caucus; only 208 people participated.
Twenty delegates is a good amount especially given the tight nature of the race up to this point. Romney keeps taking the small amounts from the territorial caucuses which are beginning to add up significantly.
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