Romney Runs the Score up the Eastern Seaboard

Mitt Romney has begun to run up the score with big wins on Tuesday, April 24 in states that could have voted to rebuke him if there were any real resistance to his becoming the Republican nominee.

Candidate	Delaware	Pennsylvania	New York	Connecticut	Rhode Island
Mitt Romney	56%	58%	63%	67%	63%
Rick Santorum	6%	18%	9%	7%	6%
Newt Gingrich	27%	10%	13%	10%	6%
Ron Paul	11%	13%	15%	13%	24%

Romney is closing in on the 1144 delegates to make it official, but looking at the primary schedule that will still take until at least May 22. The scoreboard:

# of delegates secured so far	NYT	WSJ	CNN	CBS	MSNBC	RCP
Mitt Romney	844	844	841	846	852	838
Rick Santorum	260	260	273	245	260	267
Newt Gingrich	137	137	141	129	138	141
Ron Paul	79	79	76	52	79	88
Jon Huntsman	1	1	0	2	0	0
Total	1321	1321	1331	1274	1329	1334
% of delegates secured so far
Mitt Romney	64%	64%	63%	66%	64%	63%
Rick Santorum	20%	20%	21%	19%	20%	20%
Newt Gingrich	10%	10%	11%	10%	10%	11%
Ron Paul	6%	6%	6%	4%	6%	7%
% of remaining needed to clinch:
Mitt Romney	31%	31%	32%	29%	31%	32%
Rick Santorum	92%	92%	91%	89%	92%	92%
Newt Gingrich	104%	104%	105%	100%	105%	105%
Ron Paul	110%	110%	112%	108%	111%	111%

Ron Paul and Newt Gingrich are still in the race but have now been mathematically eliminated on all scorecards. Their only theoretical path to victory is to win over Santorum delegates and prevent Romney from getting to 1144.

The delegate count for Santorum has actually fallen since he suspended his campaign two weeks ago. That's because while Rick Santorum appeared to win the Minnesota caucuses back on February 7, Ron Paul did a better job of lining up his people behind the scenes to get selected as delegates.