Mitt Romney Captures Victory in Nevada Republican Caucus

Politics   |   Steven Ertelt   |   Feb 5, 2012   |   1:33PM   |   Carson City, NV

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney won another victory Saturday night by capturing a win in the Nevada caucuses by a substantial double-digit margin over three other GOP candidates.

With votes from 71 percent of the precinct caucuses tallied, Romney had 48 percent, Newt Gingrich 23 percent, Ron Paul 19 percent and Rick Santorum 11 percent. Romney won a majority of “very conservative” voters (51%). He defeated Newt Gingrich (40-31%) among strong Tea Party voters. He won 48% of the vote among evangelicals (48 – 27%) over Newt Gingrich.

Like Florida, Mitt Romney won handily among voters who said electability was the most important quality in a candidate and he won handily among voters who said the economy is the top issue.

Now the candidates head to Colorado, Minnesota and Maine as the race for the Republican nomination and the right to face pro-abortion President Barack Obama continues. With back-to-back victories following a win in Florida, Romney has put himself in the position to become the frontrunner. Colorado and Minnesota both hold caucuses Tuesday and Maine follows on Saturday.

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich finished in second place and now says his goal is to “find a series of victories which by the end of the Texas primary will leave us at parity” with Romney by early April — but that will be a tough task following his South Carolina victory.

Meanwhile, Santorum, the former Pennsylvania senator, told Fox News Sunday the other candidates had a “natural advantage” in the first five primary states after campaigning there in 2008 and the next states will help him get back on track.

“The first five states were sort of cast in stone,” Santorum said. “Now we’re getting to the states where people don’t have the natural advantage… We’ve got three states coming up on Tuesday (where) I think we’re going to show that this race is moving again in a very different direction. This race is a long, long way from being over.

Looking ahead to Colorado, Romney has a lead as a PPP survey finds Romney leads with 40%, followed by Rick Santorum at 26%, Newt Gingrich at 18% and Ron Paul at 12%. In Minnesota, Santorum holds a small edge over Mitt Romney, 29% to 27%, with Newt Gingrich at 22% and Ron Paul at 19%.

Romney now has a total of 97 Republican National Convention delegates Gingrich has 30, Santorum 16 and Paul seven — and the candidates need 1,144 delegates to win the Republican nomination.

All in all, the Republican candidates are campaigning as pro-life advocates and would be monumentally better than pro-abortion President Barack Obama. No matter which GOP hopeful you support, they all would very likely implement a host of pro-life policies, appoint pro-life people to key administrative and court positions, and give unborn children the hope they don’t enjoy currently when it comes to any chance of gaining legal protection from abortion.

Throughout this campaign, LifeNews has endeavored to report fairly, accurately, and thoroughly on all of the pro-life candidates for president and we will continue to do so. We have not endorsed or opposed any particular candidate but urge the pro-life community to unite together to defeat Obama in November.