How Romney did in Minnesota in 2008

Posted at 10:10 AM on February 1, 2012 by Paul Tosto
Filed under: Politics

It's hard to remember, but Mitt Romney did great in Minnesota's 2008 Republican caucuses, winning 41 percent of the vote and trouncing John McCain, Mike Huckabee and Ron Paul.

Here are the caucus results:

The trend bodes well for Romney in 2012.

Minnesotans, faced with no incumbent Republican in '08, overwhelmingly chose the perceived moderate Romney over McCain, small government advocate Ron Paul and social conservative Mike Huckabee.

By geography, Huckabee and McCain won big swaths of southern and northwest Minnesota. But Romney dominated in the Twin Cities and other vote-heavy counties.

McCain won the nationwide contest to be the Republican nominee that year and then lost the general election to Barack Obama.

Despite a poll last week showing Newt Gingrich leading Romney in Minnesota's Republican contest, the 2008 race shows Romney with a lot of muscle here. McCain's backing of Romney this time makes it even tougher for Romney's challengers for the nomination.

Here's a graphic from uselections.org showing the distribution of votes for candidates in the 2008 Republican caucuses. (Click here for an interactive map.)