LIVE: Pennsylvania GOP Primary Results, Who Won?

Impact

A few weeks ago, Pennsylvania was to be the battle ground of all battle ground states in the 2012 GOP primaries. It was even thought that former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum — a social conservative who surged in the polls — would battle Mitt Romney all the way to the Republican convention in Tampa.

Now, Pennsylvania is an after-thought in the wider GOP primaries. As PolicyMic pundit Richard Matthews explain, less than 20% of registered voters will participate in the Tuesday election.

Romney is expected to dominate, but some people still wonder if Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) could capitalize.

Weather should not play a factor, as feared. Today's forcast really cleared up.

Live Updates: 9:01 Romney Wins. With 5% reporting, Romney crusies to a 57% to 14% win over Paul. Sorry Ron Paul Nation.

8:59 PM With 2% reporting, Romney leads Paul 57% to 15%.

8:35 PM Finally: With 1% of polls reporting, Romney leads Paul 47% to 17%.

8:30 PM Still waiting for results....

8:21 PM Polls have closed but still no reports from polling stations.

4:40 PM PolicyMic Pundit Karen von Winbush explains: “Pennsylvania is a swing state in the 2012 Presidential election. Philadelphia and Pittsburgh can turn the state from red to blue and back again because of their dens populations. Heavy voter turn-out from either political party are aware of this fact. Yet, there were no overflow of political aids, posters or calls from volunteers from either party. And interestingly, from a personal view, no one is really talking about the election. There were no long lines for either the Republicans or Democrats. No discussions about the issues concerning our country at present.

"Today is a lovely day in Philadelphia. Perfect for voting. No rain or snow or other act of nature to stall people from voting.  The news and the cable networks note where the respective candidates are traveling. According to the cable networks, the president is traveling to states and event sites with high college student populations, a voting base significant in the 2008 election.  It is interesting, and perhaps I heard incorrectly on the news, but Romney is not in Philadelphia today, but New Hampshire. He did spend time here in Philadelphia with Senator Mark Rubio (R-Fla.) and the buzz was whether or not he was under consideration for the vice president."

3:00 PM Romney Will Win Pennsylvania in the primaries, but will he win in the general election?

According to Yahoo! News:

"A recent Quinnipiac University poll of likely voters in the state found President Barack Obama leading Romney by just 3 points, 45% to 42% (a result barely outside the poll's margin of error of plus or minus 2.8 percentage points).According to Quinnipiac, 50% of likely voters in Pennsylvania disapprove of the job Obama is doing as president—a number higher than Obama's disapproval rating nationally. Asked if the president deserves a second term in office, half of those polled say no—another number that has been substantially higher than the national polling average."

11:00 AM Super Low Turnout Expected: PolicyMic Pundit Richard Matthews explains: “The poll workers are expecting less than 20% of registered voters will participate today. Think about that fact for a minute. Less than 1 in 5 are likely to vote in the primary. By extension little more than 1 in 10 will decide who represents either party in the coming general election for president, Senate, House seats and of course all state and local contests.”

Editor's Note: This story has been updated to properly cite language that was originally used without attribution to Yahoo! News. We apologize to our readers for this violation of our basic editorial standards. Mic has put in place new mechanisms, including plagiarism detection software, to ensure that this does not happen in the future.