The bruising battle for delegates continues towards finding the Republican Party’s nominee for president to face incumbent President Barack Obama in November.
But with 93 percents of the precincts reporting here on Saturday, former Senator Rick Santorum captured an overwhelming 52 percent of the votes –although only about 14,500 people– beating his fellow Republican rivals to a first-place finish in Kansas.
Mitt Romney is in second with 21 percent, followed by Newt Gingrich with 14 percent and Ron Paul with 12 percent. Santorum stands to gain a substantial number of Kansas’ 40 delegates.
Santorum made clear he had to win Kansas in order to remain competitive in the race for his party’s presidential nomination.
“We have to do well here in Kansas,” Santorum said this week in Lenexa, Kan., a suburb of Kansas City, Mo. “No, we have to win here in Kansas, and win big.”
Romney and Gingrich largely skipped Kansas in favor of states voting next week. Gingrich canceled an all-day swing Friday in Kansas to campaign in Mississippi and Alabama, where voters head to the polls Tuesday. Romney also didn’t focus on the state, although he did win an endorsement from Bob Dole, the former Kansas senator and presidential candidate, in December.
But Romney has picked up 18 delegates elsewhere for himself on Saturday. In what might be a record for delegates per individual vote, Romney won nine delegates Saturday when 207 Republicans in Guam endorsed his presidential candidacy. And then he won another nine delegates by winning the Republican caucuses in the Northern Mariana Islands. The U.S. Virgin Islands is also holding its Republican presidential caucuses on Saturday, with nine delegates at stake.
Santorum and Paul were the most active campaigners in Kansas. Both drew Sam Brownback, the state’s governor, to rallies on Friday. Brownback, who had endorsed Rick Perry but is now neutral in the race, is one of many prominent social conservatives among the state’s Republican leaders.
Romney began the weekend in the lead with 339 delegates, compared to 107 for Gingrich, 95 for Santorum, and 22 for Ron Paul, according to the Republican National Committee. The RNC totals do not reflect any wins in states where delegates are not bound to the winning candidates.
In the 2008 Republican primary, Mike Huckabee carried Kansas with 60 percent of the vote. John McCain received 23.5 percent, Paul received 11 percent and Romney, who had already dropped out of the race, received 3 percent.
Additional reports courtesy of the Associated Press.