Romney Still Creeping Toward The Nomination

There were two more primaries last Tuesday -- in Nebraska (with 32 delegates) and in Oregon (with 25 delegates). Romney went into those primaries with 970 delegates according to RealClearPolitics, so even if he had won all those delegates he would still be short of the nomination (and he didn't win them all). Arkansas and Kentucky will vote on May 22nd, and they have another 81 delegates. But it's looking now like it will have to be Texas on May 29th that finally gives Romney enough delegates for the nomination.

Romney did win both the Nebraska and Oregon primaries fairly easily (as he should have since all of his opponents have suspended their campaigning, even Ron Paul). But for me, that's not the biggest story. I think the bigger story is that Romney got another black eye by losing a significant portion of the vote in both states. There's still about 30% of Republicans that stubbornly refuse to vote for him. Here are the numbers from the most recent primaries:

NEBRASKA
Mitt Romney...............129,548  (70.86%)
Rick Santorum...............25,537  (13.97%)
Ron Paul...............18,199  (9.96%)
Newt Gingrich...............9,523  (5.21%)
TOTAL VOTES...............182,807

OREGON
Mitt Romney...............196,460  (72.24%)
Ron Paul...............34,812  (12.80%)
Rick Santorum...............25,825  (9.50%)
Newt Gingrich...............14,856  (5.46%)
TOTAL VOTES...............271,953