In the last several days, the polls have been all over the place. Romney wins. Romney loses. Romney ties.

But now the only poll that counts has been taken -- ROMNEY WINS BIG!

Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney resoundingly won the Michigan presidential primary Tuesday, seizing his first big victory in the Republican competition and blunting the momentum of his chief rival, Sen. John McCain (Ariz.).

Romney's triumph in the state where he was born and where his father served as governor further scrambles a GOP field in which no candidate has been able to win more than one major contest. McCain captured first place in the New Hampshire primary Jan. 8 and former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee topped the Iowa field five days earlier.

The race now shifts to South Carolina, where a tough three-way contest is expected in the first Southern state to vote this primary season. McCain and Huckabee flew to the Palmetto State before the voting in Michigan ended, and Romney will head there Wednesday for a bus tour through the state.

With 89 percent counted, Romney had won 39 percent of the vote to McCain's 30 percent. Huckabee trailed with 16 percent.

What this means, of course, is that the Republican race is wide-open for at least the next three weeks. South Carolina will be a truly interesting contest, with Romney a factor again now that he is seen as able to win somewhere. The momentum boost could derail either John McCain or Mike Huckabee -- especially since Romney did surprisingly well among Michigan's large bloc of evangelical voters, who he split evenly with Mike Huckabee.

Indeed, that performance by Huckabee should lead folks to ask a critical question -- does Mike Huckabee have significant support outside the evangelical community? Michigan's evangelical voters make up roughly 40% of the GOP base -- and Huckabee got roughly 31% of those evangelical votes according to exit polling data I saw last night. His total take of the votes was 16% -- which means that he received the support of only 6% of the non-evangelical vote. How can he win in November with numbers like that? Romney, on the other hand, did well with all GOP demographic groups, while McCain prevailed among independents.

Posted by: Greg at 10:44 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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