Wednesday, March 07, 2012YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio – Mitt Romney eked out a narrow victory in Ohio, considered the big prize in the 10 Super Tuesday Republican primary contests, a win abetted by rival Rick Santorum’s failure to field delegates in several congressional districts, including districts that represent portions of the Mahoning Valley.
Romney, a former Massachusetts governor, won Ohio with 456,205 votes statewide, or 37.95% of the vote, besting Santorum, a former U.S. senator from Pennsylvania, who received 445,697 votes, or 37.07%. The margin of victory was nearly 11,000 votes, according to results posted on the Ohio Secretary of State's website. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich received 175,375 votes, or 14.59%, and Ron Paul, a congressman representing Texas, received 111,093 votes, or 9.24%. Texas Gov. Rick Perry and former Utah Gov. Job Huntsman, who both withdrew from the race, received nearly 14,000 votes combined.
Romney also won Massachusetts, Virginia, Idaho, Vermont and Alaska, while Santorum won North Dakota, Tennessee and Oklahoma, and Gingrich won his home state of Georgia.
Major news organizations such as CNN did not call Ohio until well past midnight eastern time.
Harming Santorum, who for much of Tuesday evening led in Ohio, was his inability to field a full slate of delegates -- or any delegates, in fact -- in some Ohio congressional districts. In Mahoning County, in the voting for at-large delegates and alternates, Romney received 5,545 votes, or 37.05% of the ballots cast, Santorum 5,171 votes (34.55%) and Gingrich 2,656 votes (17.74%), the Mahoning County Board of Elections reported.
However, in the Mahoning County portion of the new 13th congressional district, where Santorum did not appear on the ballot, Romney received 3,815 votes (44.13%) to 2,862 (33.11%) for Gingrich. In the Mahoning County portion of the new 6th District, where Santorum also did not appear, Romney got 2,258 votes, or 44.45% of the votes cast, and Gingrich 1,768, or 34.81%.
In Trumbull County, Romney also edged out Santorum in the at-large delegate race, with 5,440 votes (35.79%) to Santorum's 5,313 (34.95%) and 2,547 for Gingrich (16.76%). In the Trumbull portion of the 13th District, where Santorum was not on the ballot, Romney took 5,271 votes, or 44.34% of the ballots case, compared with 3,692 for Gingrich (31.06%).
Santorum bested Romney in Trumbull's portion of the 14th District, with 786 votes (39.26%) to Romney's 552 (27.57%), followed by Gingrich's 357 (17.93%).
Rience Priebus, Republican National Committee chairman, congratulated Romney on his Ohio win and "all candidates for their efforts to draw strong contrasts between President Obama’s failed leadership and the GOP’s solutions to turn our country around." Priebus predicted that Ohio would play "a pivotal role in the sending a new Republican president to the White House.”
The Ohio Republican Party issued a statement that pointed out 2012 primary turnout exceeded that of the 2008 primary, adding to "the list of reasons why Republicans have the momentum in Ohio heading into November."
The chairman of the Ohio Democratic Party, Chris Redfern, said Romney's "embarrassingly narrow victory ... came at an extremely high cost to his candidacy." Romney "constantly demonstrated that he is out-of-touch with our middle-class families by embracing an extreme, far-right agenda that does not reflect mainstream Ohio" and his "constant pandering to the most extreme elements of his party has wounded him among women, moderate and blue-collar voters, without whose support he simply cannot win Ohio in the general election."
Published by The Business Journal, Youngstown, Ohio.