Romney picks up Kentucky, Arkansas – Obama struggles in both

As expected, Mitt Romney picked up more delegates and more support Tuesday from Arkansas and Kentucky primary voters. President Obama has been on the Democratic primary ballot in most states but is typically unopposed. Similar to West Virginia earlier this month, the President lost a significant amount of support to a Democrat challenger in Arkansas and lost the same amount to the “Uncommitted” option in Kentucky.

Complete Results: CNN Election Center

First, the report on Romney’s victories from Bloomberg:

Mitt Romney moved closer to capturing the number of delegates required to win the Republican presidential nomination with victories in yesterday’s Arkansas and Kentucky primaries.

After capturing the 75 delegates at stake in those two states, Romney has 1,067 of the 1,144 delegates needed for the nomination, according to an Associated Press tally. The nomination will be formally conferred at the Republican National Convention Aug. 27-30 in Tampa, Florida.

The 65-year-old former Massachusetts governor may surpass the required number on May 29, when 152 delegates will be awarded in the Texas primary. The primaries end June 26 when Utah votes.

Romney had 68 percent of the vote in Arkansas with all precincts reporting, according to the AP. Representative Ron Paul of Texas and former Senator Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania each had 13 percent and former U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich of Georgia had almost 5 percent.

In Kentucky, Romney had 67 percent of the vote with all precincts reporting, according to the AP. Paul, whose son Rand Paul was elected to the Senate from the state in 2010, had almost 13 percent, followed by Santorum with 9 percent and Gingrich with 6 percent; another 6 percent were uncommitted.

Here’s the scoop on President Obama’s primary results, also from Bloomberg:

Results in the Democratic primaries in Arkansas and Kentucky underscored the political difficulties President Barack Obama faces in each state.

In Arkansas, with all precincts reporting, Obama had 58 percent of the vote to almost 42 percent for John Wolfe, a Tennessee lawyer who qualified for the ballot.

In Kentucky, with all precincts reporting, Obama had 58 percent of the vote to 42 percent for an uncommitted slate of delegates.

Obama lost both states to Republican John McCain in 2008, Arkansas by 20 percentage points and Kentucky by 16 percentage points.

This is fairly embarrassing for the President to have anything less than near-unanimous support at this point on the Democratic side. That being said, you cannot often compare southern Democrat voters to those in say, Massachusetts. More conservative values tend to win in the south regardless of the party affiliation.