After a seesaw battle for the Ohio primary that lasted into the wee hours of the morning, frontrunner Mitt Romney came out in front of Rick Santorum in a state that every Republican who has sat in the White House has taken in the general election.
The relatively small number of Republican voters in Athens County, however, supported the former Pennsylvania senator by a very slim margin.
According to the Athens County Board of Elections, the county gave Santorum 1,090 votes, or 34.47 percent; Mitt Romney 1,028 votes, accounting for 32.51 percent; Ron Paul 598 votes, or 18.91 percent; and Newt Gingrich 379 votes, equating to 11.99 percent.
Romney secured about 12,000 more of the 1.2 million votes cast in Ohio than Santorum, who has emerged as his primary rival.
“I feel extremely confident in Romney’s ability to run a presidential race against Obama. We have a very interesting year ahead of us,” said Allison Arnold, the communications chair for Ohio University College Republicans and a student trustee. Arnold emphasized that her views do not necessarily reflect those of the student trustees or College Republicans.
Democrats appear to be confident that Obama will beat whomever the GOP nominates to face the incumbent.
“There has to be a reason why high-profile Republicans like Mitch Daniels, the governor of Indiana, stayed out,” said Mike O’Brien, a delegate-elect to the 2008 Democratic Convention and longtime supporter of President Obama, who fell short in his own bid for a county commissioner seat. “My presumption is that it’s because Obama would be tough to beat.”
With only 3,162 votes cast in Athens despite the close race, Pete Couladis, the chairman of the Athens County Republican Party, said it is no easy task to be a Republican in an area that traditionally leans to the left.
“(Being a Republican in Athens) is not a lot of fun. This is not a tolerant community despite what the liberals say,” Couladis said.
Couladis added that people living in the rural areas around the city are much more receptive to GOP politics than those living within it.
“I don’t pay attention to red and blue. Outside the city, people are more reasonable and rational when it comes to political campaigns,” Couladis said.
While he is running under the banner of the Republican Party, Randy Mace, who will be running for county commissioner in November, said he is wary of each of the GOP’s presidential candidates.
“None of the candidates are strong candidates to me,” he said. “I wish we had somebody who had a more general appeal.”
Romney also won the Idaho and Alaska caucuses as well as the Massachusetts primary. The former Massachusetts governor also emerged victorious in Vermont and Virginia, two states where neither Santorum nor Gingrich was on the ballot.
Santorum won primaries in Oklahoma and Tennessee and the North Dakota caucus, while Gingrich won his home state of Georgia.
Romney picked up at least 183 of the 419 delegates available Tuesday, with Santorum snagging 64, Gingrich adding 52 and Paul earning 15. Roughly 100 more remained as of press time.
The former Massachusetts governor now has 386 delegates, while Santorum has 156, Gingrich 85 and Paul 40. It takes 1,144 delegates to ultimately win the nomination at the Republican National Convention.
The results of the primary election are not yet official.
— The Associated Press contributed to this article
ld311710@ohiou.edu
