Republicans in the southern U.S. state of Louisiana have started voting in Saturday's presidential primary election, with Rick Santorum the favorite, ahead of front-runner Mitt Romney.
Romney, who once worked as a venture capitalist, won the Illinois primary Tuesday. He now has more than 550 delegates. Santorum, a former U.S. senator from Pennsylvania, holds about 250 of the 1,144 needed to clinch the Republican presidential nomination. A total of 46 delegates to the party's national convention this summer are eventually at stake in Louisiana, with 20 of them decided Saturday and the rest at a state convention in June.
In recent days, Romney secured the support of more high-profile Republicans. Many of them want the primary race to end without more intra-party political attacks that may weaken Republican chances of defeating U.S. President Barack Obama, a Democrat, in November.
Santorum's campaign has vowed to fight for more delegates up until the Republican party's convention in August if Romney is not able to win the necessary majority of delegates to clinch the nomination. The party's nominee will be decided at the convention if no candidate gets enough delegates by then.
The two other candidates in the Republican presidential race, former House of Representatives Speaker Newt Gingrich and Texas Congressman Ron Paul, have fewer delegates combined than Santorum's second place total.
Some information for this report was provided by AP and AFP.
No comments:
Post a Comment