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Illinois Primary 2012

March 21, 2012 by · Comments Off on Illinois Primary 2012 

Illinois Primary 2012, Mitt Romney won Illinois’s Republican presidential primary and dramatically increased his chances to become his party’s 2012 nominee, largely due to the support of moderate conservatives and voters who thought he was the candidate with the best chance to beat President Barack Obama in November.
The former Massachusetts governor clinched his victory with a 12-point lead over Rick Santorum, the runner-up, in Obama’s home state. Romney won most of the 54 delegates up for grabs Tuesday and solidified his position as the front-runner in this year’s unusually long race for the Republican nomination.

With 99 percent of results in, Romney received 46.7 percent of votes in Illinois. Santorum was second with 35 percent, followed by Texas congressman Ron Paul (9.3 percent) and former House of Representatives speaker Newt Gingrich (8 percent).

Not all of the delegates had been officially awarded to the candidates as of late Tuesday, but the Associated Press reported that 40 delegates will support Romney and represent him in August at the Republican National Convention in Tampa, Fla. Additional delegates — Illinois has a total of 69 — will be chosen at a later time by party leaders.

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