resounding victory. next on tuesday comes minnesota, missouri, and colorado. but will the win last night in nevada help cement his frontrunner status in the race for the nomination? john roberts live in las vegas with the very latest. good morning, john. good morning to you, eric. certainly mitt romney is beginning to look like he s got it cemented in place, beginning to look more and more like the nominee. these are pictures from last night, that might add to the air of inevitability around mitt romney. he picked up secret service protection a couple days ago. take a look at this. he s shaking hands with the crowd at his victory party last night at the red rock casino. does that look like a guy who s the candidate? sure looks like a nominee at this point. 47.6% of the vote for mitt romney at this point, compared to 22.6 for newt gingrich, ron paul and rick santorum behind that, but vote problems in clark county, where we are in las vegas. only 50% of the vote has been counted. we re
lugar says attacks are unfair. how can you not legally own the house from which you re registered to vote, and shouldn t there be something done to clean up the election laws so we have honesty and integrity and transparency in our elections? eric, if you lived in indianapolis, you ll find the local media, all the local media, if you re rich and famous, on either side of the aisle, they ll never mention anything about this. they will surprise it. the fact that governor daniels i take exception to what he said about ethics or integrity about me in the paper on sunday. mitch daniels has voted incorrectly, according to the standards put on by me the last 10 straight elections under the constitution of the state of indiana and under the statue. he shall reside in marion county, claims his homestead, $3.8 million that he built with construction documents saying it was owned by leonard watson, the designer, and it was not. then he votes down at the governor s mansion, where everyone know
like that, and let him know it. not as volumable terms as he has when he dangled with reporters before, but he s still there ready to fight the ignorant question when he hears it. this means that obviously all the reporters will keep running toward newt gingrich and santorum, both staying in the race. well, yes. you know, i think that s very true, because he s better copy. one thing last night that stood out if you stayed up late enough, and that was the special caucus that they had for orthodox jews and seventh day adventists who because of the religious observance of sundown couldn t vote during the day, so they headed for them later. in the end, the people who were at this caucus went for ron paul, 183 votes, but the point is that many of them had the
four years ago, mitt romney did well in minnesota, with over 40% of the vote, mccain about 20%, huckabee about 20%. for this year, it s not as clear. that s minnesota politics. you re lucky in minnesota, with one of the lowest unemployment rates in the country, in december it was at 5.9%. nevada was double that. so is there a danger that romney s economic message that played so well in nevada to give him that big win may not play as well in minnesota? you know what, i think the difference may be i don t think that s the issue. i mean, again, minnesota, if you go back in history, we had a sitting republican governor, arnie carlson, who lost the endorsement for re-election at a convention, activist, went in another direction. won overwhelmingly when it went to the primary. we had gary bauer, when george w. bush was seeking the nomination in 1999, gary bauer won the state convention. you know, activists here can they like to have their voice
going on with the other 50%. in his victory speech last night, mitt romney not even mentioning his opponents taking square aim at president obama, all right looking like this is a race not against the other republican candidates, but against president obama. listen to what he said. america needs a president who can fix the economy because he understands the economy, and i do, and i will. this president began his presidency by apologizing for america. he should now be apologizing to america! [cheers and applause] mitt romney now headed off to colorado where he won back in 2008 with 60% of the vote. expected to do well there again this year. not as clear whether or not he s going to do that well in minnesota and missouri, which is where rick santorum s been spending a lot of his time, planning for a win there. what about newt gingrich? a battle for second place still going on with 50% of the vote