Mitt Romney won New Hampshire’s first in the nation primary on Tuesday and was gaining delegates and ‘likes’ on Facebook at rate that will be hard to stop before next week’s South Carolina primary. But even with the decisive win, Romney’s competitors vowed to keep pushing forward.
Although the final numbers were still being calculated, Romney beat his closest competitors, Rep. Ron Paul and former Gov. Jon Huntsman, by almost 15 percent. And on Facebook Romney was—as he always has been—leagues ahead of his Republican competition. According to Socialbakers.com, Romney had more than 1,299,000 fans on Jan. 8; two days later, as candidates made their closing remarks of the night, Romney had more than 1,307,500.
Meanwhile, coming in second and third place on Tuesday night were Paul and Huntsman, both of whom were making slight gains on social media. On Jan. 8, Paul had more than 705,800 fans and ended Tuesday with 713,800 fans. Huntsman, who was making a strong, but late surge in the polls this week, had more than 34,000 on Monday and 24 hours later gained almost 3,000 new fans to end the day with 36,900 “likes.” It was a big jump for the former governor and ambassador who before this weekend was only gaining 100 or so fans a day, but in the last two days was gaining about 1,000 every day.
But the clear winner Tuesday was Romney, who was going into the South Carolina’s primary with unprecedented back-to-back wins in Iowa and New Hampshire: “This Granite State moment is one we will always remember. Tonight, we celebrate. Tomorrow, we go back to work,” his campaign wrote Tuesday night on Facebook.
And some people were suggesting that the primary was coming to a close. “That was a fun #GOP primary. Welcome @MittRmoney and onto the general,” wrote Zach Green of 140elect.com.
Photo by Gage Skidmore