Romney Moves Closer To GOP Nomination

The GOP nominating process marches on, as Willard Mitt Romney won another 5 states last night. Here are the results from those states:

DELAWARE (99% reporting)
Mitt Romney...............16,057  (56.59%)
Newt Gingrich...............7,659  (26.99%)
Ron Paul...............2,984  (10.52%)
Rick Santorum...............1,676  (5.91%)
Others...............0  (0.00%)
TOTAL VOTES...............28,376

CONNECTICUT (96% reporting)
Mitt Romney...............36,690  (65.74%)
Ron Paul...............7,903  (14.16%)
Newt Gingrich...............6,034  (10.81%)
Rick Santorum...............4,035  (7.23%)
Others...............1,148  (2.06%)
TOTAL VOTES...............55,810

RHODE ISLAND (99% reporting)
Mitt Romney...............8,228  (63.31%)
Ron Paul...............3,088  (23.76%)
Newt Gingrich...............789  (6.07%)
Rick Santorum...............734  (5.65%)
Others...............157  (1,21%)
TOTAL VOTES...............12,996

PENNSYLVANIA (99% reporting)
Mitt Romney...............286,272  (56.90%)
Rick Santorum...............97,560  (19.39%)
Ron Paul...............66,053  (13.13%)
Newt Gingrich...............53,216  (10.58%)
Others...............0  (0.00%)
TOTAL VOTES...............503,101

NEW YORK (91% reporting)
Mitt Romney...............93,669  (62.22%)
Ron Paul...............23,787  (15.80%)
Newt Gingrich...............19,520  (12.97%)
Rick Santorum...............13,574  (9.02%)
Others...............0  (0.00%)
TOTAL VOTES...............150,550

As expected, Willard Mitt Romney (aka Wall Street Willie) swept all five states and took most of the delegates (but not quite all). That's not the interesting part. The interesting part is that even though no candidate can now keep Romney from winning the nomination (although it will likely take him another month to clinch it), there is still a strong anti-Romney segment of Republican voters out there. These voters are not yet ready to fall in line and accept Romney as their candidate.

The five states that voted yesterday were likely going to be Romney states -- even before Santorum suspended his campaign. And yet, 34.26% of Connecticut voters, 36.69% of Rhode Island voters, 43.10% of Pennsylvania voters, 43.41% of Delaware voters, and 37.78% of New York voters all voted against the presumptive GOP nominee.

MSNBC.com led with the headline last night that Romney had kicked off his general election campaign. That seems a little premature to me. It looks like he still has work to do in getting his own party behind him. I still think many of the anti-Romney voters could vote for a third party or just stay at home on election day in November.