On April 3rd, Wisconsin voters headed to the polls to vote in the Presidential Preference primary and in various municipal and judicial elections. The final vote will not be certified for a couple of weeks, but unofficial returns show Mitt Romney as the winner in the Wisconsin Primary.

At stake in the Wisconsin presidential primary were 42 of the 1,144 delegates needed to win the Republican nomination. Romney will get 18 delegates as the statewide winner, and the remainder will be awarded winner-take-all based on the outcome in each of Wisconsin’s eight congressional districts.¹

National pundits are saying that Romney’s win in Wisconsin, in addition to same day wins in Maryland and the District of Columbia, ensures he will be the Republican nominee. If Romney does well in Pennsylvania, challenger Rick Santorum’s home state, three weeks from now, it will be mathematically impossible for anyone but Romney to secure the necessary number of delegates.

Despite all the national attention Wisconsin’s primary generated, the Government Accountability Board predicted only 35 percent of the population would turn out to vote.

¹The Legislative Reference Bureau recently published Wisconsin’s Role in Electing the President an interesting overview of Wisconsin’s current presidential selection process that details the awarding of Wisconsin’s delegates, and a treasure trove of historical data on Wisconsin voter preferences going back to 1848.