Ron Paul's Super Tuesday Becomes a Sour Wednesday
Presidential candidate Ron Paul had a weak showing in all the contests he competed in on Super Tuesday.
"We always win," Paul told supporters in North Dakota Tuesday night.
Paul, though, is the only candidate left in the race that has not won a single state. That streak was left unbroken after Super Tuesday.
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Paul continued his campaign strategy of focusing on small caucus states by campaigning in three of the 10 Super Tuesday states – Alaska, Idaho and North Dakota, but lost all three of those races.
Paul came in third place, behind Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum, in Idaho and Alaska with only 18.1 and 24 percent of the vote, respectively. In North Dakota he finished second, about 12 percentage points behind Santorum. He managed a second place finish behind Romney in Vermont and Virginia, where he was one of only two candidates on the ballot. He came in third in Massachusetts, Romney's home state, with less than 10 percent of the vote. In the remaining four Super Tuesday states, he came in last with less than 10 percent of the vote.
In interviews and stump speeches to supporters, Paul says that getting delegates to the convention is what is important. But on Tuesday, he only picked up an additional 21 delegates, according to Real Clear Politics calculations. He is in last place in the total delegate count with only 61, far behind front-runner Mitt Romney's 404 delegates.
After Paul's disappointing results on Tuesday, the super-PAC supporting him, Endorse Liberty, said it will be reassessing the degree to which it will support him in future races.
Paul's base of support has tended to come from young voters, independents, libertarians and some Democratic cross-over voters. He is most distinguishable from the other candidates on his foreign policy views. As president, he would withdraw troops that are stationed overseas and greatly reduce the size of the military. He reminded supporters of this on Tuesday night.
"If you look at the candidates today there is very little difference except for one. The rest of the candidates support the status quo, foreign policies doesn't change, monetary policy doesn't change," Paul said.
According to the Real Clear Politics average of three separate polls, Paul has the support of about 12 percent of Republican primary or caucus voters nationally. The next contest will be Saturday, March 10, in Kansas.
