Mitt Romney won the Republican nomination in his home state of Massachusetts. But that momentum didn’t translate to New York voters.
Romney lost the New York State primary Tuesday. He received about 30 percent of the votes. Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) won the primary with more than 50 percent of votes. Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee came in third with 11 percent of votes. News 10 Now reported those results at 10:40 p.m.
Still, Romney said he would keep the fight alive.
“One thing that’s clear is this campaign is going on. Some people thought it was all done tonight, but it’s not,” he said Tuesday night. “We’re going to keep battling and we’re going to get into the White House.”
By 10:30 p.m., the results of Super Tuesday elections in 24 states were not all tallied. But in many states Romney trailed McCain early on.
In New York’s primary, the polling place at the Erwin First United Methodist Church in the Westcott neighborhood was Democrat territory. But McCain still won praise from some voters.
“Even though I voted for Obama, I think McCain will take it because he is seen as a moderate,” said Michael Barthel, a Syracuse University graduate student.
McCain picked up some New York support Romney after former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani dropped out of the race last week and endorsed McCain.
Nick Pirro Jr., 40, was a Giuliani supporter, but now supports McCain. He said McCain had been “dead in the water,” but came back as front-runner. “That shows something in a candidate,” he said.
Despite an intense year of campaigning and spending more than $40 million dollars of his own money, Romney lost the first four major races: Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Florida.
In efforts to try to win votes in major states like California, Romney flew from Georgia to Long Beach on Monday to give press conferences. He then took a red-eye flight to appear in West Virginia this morning.
A candidate has to receive 1,191 delegates to win the Republican presidential nomination in Minneapolis this summer.
(Koren Temple is a graduate student in magazine-newspaper-online journalism.)
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