I wondered who had gotten the most total votes in all of these Republican contests. It takes only a few minutes to do, since you don’t have to add the totals for Thompson or Giuliani. Adding the results from Iowa, New Hampshire, Michigan, Nevada, and South Carolina*–but not from Wyoming, where I didn’t have the raw numbers–I get:
Romney 528,265
McCain 530,758
Huckabee 339,832
I didn’t try too hard to find Wyoming data since it wouldn’t materially affect the rankings or even the distance between the candidates. When I was on a campaign press bus in New Hampshire two weeks ago, I overheard one reporter telling another that voters just don’t like Romney. Maybe not, but so far he has gotten more votes than any of the other candidates.
*The South Carolina numbers are still coming in, though, and could put McCain in the lead. I’ll update; these numbers are as of Monday morning, 1/21/08.