Tonight, Mitt Romney gained the delegates needed to secure the Republican nomination. With 98% of the primary vote counted in Texas, Romney has 69% of the vote, which translates into enough delegates to know what we have known for a while: Mitt Romney will be the nominee of the Republican Party for the Presidency.
Texas had an interesting tale this year. Because congressional redistricting was not completed, being still in a legal limbo brought on by challenges from various groups. It was originally scheduled to be on April 18th. It is ironic that the state that gave Romney his final victory would have been, according to its original plan, a major stumbling block for him. If it had been at its original time, and Rick Santorum or Ron Paul could have pulled off good numbers, it would have prolonged the race much longer.
But the Could've Been King and his army of Meanwhiles and Never-were's don't get to run in the Republican Primary.
One thing that is interesting about the later phases of the primary is not just that Romney has pulled ahead, but that his performance has evened out. It would make sense that if Romney is getting 70% of the vote in Dallas, he should be getting substantially less in the panhandle. But his performance seems to be well uniformly across the state. I am somewhat disappointed that the eight primary voters in Loving County didn't get together and decide to all vote for Michele Bachman. Ron Paul did well in the area around his congressional district of Galveston, but not substantially so.
The truth is, whatever the Republican Party's qualms about Romney, they have something to rally against. And when faced with a member of the coastal liberal establishment who supports abortion and gay rights, who went to Harvard, who practices a form of Christianity that they are unsure of, and who wants to mandate health insurance, any candidate they find will earn their support.