(Host) Vermont turned out to be friendly territory for Mitt Romney, who spent four years as governor of neighboring Massachusetts.
But as VPR’s Ross Sneyd reports, Romney fell short of sweeping Vermont’s delegates.
(Sneyd) Romney’s win was widely expected. He’s very familiar to Vermont Republicans. And he was the only candidate who campaigned in the state.
So he easily won the support of better than a third of GOP voters.
That included Marilyn Allard of Burlington, who thought about casting a ballot for Rick Santorum. But she says she was persuaded by Romney’s campaign message.
(Allard) "I like the fact that he has an idea about the business end of it and he’s got a direction that he feels he needs to go in to get this country back to where it needs to be."
(Sneyd) Santorum and Ron Paul each ended up with about 25 percent of the vote.
Because they held Romney below 50 percent, it means that Vermont’s 17 delegates will be divided almost proportionally among the three candidates.
For VPR News, I’m Ross Sneyd.