Huckabee wins W.Va. GOP convention

Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee won 18 delegates Tuesday as backers of rival John McCain threw him their support to prevent Mitt Romney from capturing the winner-take-all GOP state convention vote.

In the first contest decided on Super Tuesday, Huckabee, the former Arkansas governor, bested Romney on the second ballot with 51.5 percent of the 1,133 delegates attending the state GOP's first presidential nominating convention. Romney was backed by 47.4 percent.

Romney, a former Massachusetts governor who poses the biggest threat nationally to front-runner McCain, had entered the event with the largest pledged bloc of delegates and attracted the largest vote — 41 percent — on the first ballot. Huckabee captured 33 percent on the first tally; McCain, 15 percent and Texas congressman Ron Paul, 10 percent.

Because no candidate had a majority, Paul, the last-place finisher, was eliminated for the second vote. The defection by McCain's delegates to Huckabee allowed Huckabee to prevail over Romney.

Paul's supporters claimed Tuesday evening that Huckabee's campaign bought their support with the promise of three West Virginia delegates.

"That's not true," said Huckabee spokeswoman Alice Stewart in Little Rock, Ark.

But John Tate, Paul's national political director, insisted there was a deal even after learning of Stewart's denial.

Romney, Huckabee and Paul made personal appeals to the convention before the vote for the state's 18 at-large GOP national convention delegates.

Another nine GOP national convention delegates from West Virginia will be distributed based upon the outcome of a May 13 Republican primary. The winner in each of the state's three congressional districts will get three delegates. Of the three Republican National Committee members from West Virginia who each have a vote at the national convention, only one has declared a preference — for Romney.