Michigan primary results 2012
Mitt Romney will win the Michigan Republican primary, FOX News Channel projected Tuesday night.
The victory is a badly-needed win for Romney – who needed to quell doubts within the Republican Party about his ability to compete against President Barack Obama in the fall general election.
With 71 percent of precincts reporting, Romney was ahead with 41 percent of the primary vote and Rick Santorum was close behind with 37 percent.
Texas Rep. Ron Paul and Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich – who did not campaign aggressively in Michigan in order to focus on future contests, trailed with 12 percent and seven percent respectively.
In Michigan, the state’s 30 delegates are allocated proportionally, with two going to the winner of each of the state’s 14 congressional districts while another two are awarded based on the statewide popular vote.
In Arizona, meanwhile, the other state voting Tuesday, Romney scored an easy victory, with FOX News Channel calling the race shortly after the state’s polls closed at 9:00pm ET. Romney’s triumph meant he secured all 29 of the state’s delegates.
But Michigan was expected to be the true test of Romney’s campaign strength – determining whether the former Massachusetts governor would continue on to Super Tuesday next week as the presumed nominee, or whether a loss would fatally damage the GOP’s confidence in his ability to compete against President Barack Obama.
Before Santorum’s latest surge this month, Romney was widely expected to coast to an easy victory in Michigan, the state where he grew up and where his father served as a popular governor in the 1960′s.
Mitt Romney.
Seeking fresh momentum going into the Super Tuesday round of presidential contests, Republican contenders Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum were battling for advantage in crucial primary elections in Michigan and Arizona on Tuesday.
Polls closed in all but four Michigan counties at 5 p.m. Pacific time, with the rest to close an hour later. Santorum led Romney 42 % to 37 % in the first fraction of votes counted.
For Romney, anything less than a solid win in his native Michigan, which he won easily four years ago, was expected to deepen doubts about the potency of his appeal to GOP voters and the strength of his claim to the frontrunner mantle.
Santorum, his popularity slipping in national polls, hoped to gain badly needed validation of his status as the leading conservative in the party. Preliminary reports from Michigan suggested that election day turnout was low, repeating a pattern seen in other states this year. It was not immediately clear which candidate would benefit.
Santorum drew enthusiastic crowds in the closing days of the campaign and was thought to have the most devoted supporters. But Romney began election day with a potentially crucial advantage – a solid lead among those who cast absentee ballots. Opinion surveys suggested that he might have gained as much as a 50.000-vote lead among those who voted early.
The caustic race in Michigan, fueled by millions of dollars’ worth of negative ads sponsored by wealthy supporters of both men, ended in a bitter round of name-calling on election day. Romney, speaking to volunteers at a campaign office, described Santorum as an “economic lightweight” and invoked Newt Gingrich’s criticism of him as a “big-labor Republican.”
Santorum, campaigning in Grand Rapids, shot back that Romney “is a lightweight on conservative accomplishments, which happens to be more important than how much success and how much money you’ve made in business.”
Just 302 votes kept Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney from winning Genesee County in Tuesday’s Michigan primary contest, an area that history shows will be all but impossible for him to win in a general election should he become the GOP nominee.
Romney won his home state Tuesday while losing the heavily Democratic Genesee County to Rick Santorum. Santorum got 12,833 votes here, or 39 percent, to Romney’s 12.581 votes, or 38 percent, according to preliminary results.
Those county results show 46.502 of 338.776 registered voters – or 14 percent – cast ballots here. That’s down from 16 percent in the 2008 presidential primary.
Romney’s loss here comes despite his winning other industrial, blue-collar counties like Wayne, Saginaw and Bay.
Romney’s Michigan primary win, even if by only a few percentage points, “really gives him some renewed hope for Super Tuesday” – said Bill Ballenger, editor of the Inside Michigan Politics newsletter.
“You can sit around and scoff at the idea that he didn’t run up a huge margin. … Based on everything he went through. … I think it was huge” – Ballenger said.
Losing his home state would have been a huge blow to Romney’s campaign and secured Santorum’s place as a serious threat heading into super Tuesday March 6, when 10 states vote and 419 delegates are up for grabs.
Ballenger, a Flint native, said he isn’t surprised Santorum did well in Genesee County. Many outside the county misunderstand the area – he said.
“They look at Michigan and they look at these industrial areas, heavily Democratic areas, and they figure, well, that means the Republicans in that area are probably more moderate. … That’s not necessarily true” – Ballenger said.
Many wondered how Romney’s vocal opposition to the auto industry bailouts would resonate with voters in counties with ties to domestic auto companies.
Likely the bailout talk didn’t have a huge effect Tuesday, because all the Republican candidates opposed the bailouts, Ballenger said.
“If you’re an auto worker in the auto industry and you’re mad at someone who didn’t support the bailouts, how does Rick Santorum make you feel any better? I don’t think he does” – Ballenger said.
The bailouts, and their success, will likely be more trouble for the Republican nominee in the general election.
Clayton Township resident Clint Jahr voted for Santorum.
“I think he’s a good man, a godly man, a trustworthy man” – 68-year-old Jahr said.