Former Illinois Republican Governor Says GOP Presidential Race Should End Now That Illinois Has Voted

Who was looking forward to an actual contested Republican presidential race by the time Indiana's May 8th primary rolled around? It hasn't happened in 36 years so I guess we shouldn't expect this year to be any different. Former Illinois Gov. Jim Edgar declared that the Republican presidential race should come to an end after his state's voters lined up behind Mitt Romney yesterday. Romney captured 46.7% of the Republican primary vote compared to 35% won by Santorum. Ron Paul and Newt Gingrich split 17% of the remaining vote. Edgar told the Chicago Tribune that "a long primary vote might not matter to Republican voters, but he says there are a lot of independent voters watching the race."

The key word here is "watching." Independent voters stayed home in droves yesterday. Fewer than one million voters even bothered to show up and vote in the contested GOP presidential primary election in Illinois. While Santorum trounced Romney in about two-thirds of Illinois' 102 counties, all the urban and suburban counties where the lion's share of the votes are cast went handily to Romney. The Chicago suburbs voted overwhelmingly for Romney. Even worse for Santorum, his 12-point loss to Romney in the popular vote doesn't translate near as well in the delegate count. He will pick up about 12 delegates at best in Illinois, while Romney is assured of picking up well north of 50 delegates.

Of interest to Indiana, every Illinois county adjoining Indiana outside of Da Region voted for Santorum. That mirrors what happened to the east in the recent Ohio primary where all the counties along the Indiana border, except those in the Cincinnati area, voted for Santorum. At the rate things are going, however, it doesn't look like how Indiana Republican primary voters' vote on May 8th will make any difference as usual.