Perry makes serious strategy mistake in Virginia, will miss primary

A probable election error by the Perry campaign has turned into a definite faux pas – Perry is off the primary ballot in Virginia due to his inability to secure the needed number of valid signatures.

From bad debate prep, to questionable advertisements, Perry has been at the helm of a flawed campaign nearly since the beginning. Although having raised millions of dollars, he’s made a mistake that money could easily have fixed. Why did he not have more people on the ground collection twice the number of needed signatures? Why wasn’t his own staff checking the validity of their own signatures and removing the duplicates or obvious fakes.

Rick Perry’s campaign delivered 11,191 signatures to place his name on the ballot – 1,191 more than he needed. That means that a substantial number were invalidated by election officials.

The election tragedy gets worse. According to Virginia state GOP officials Newt Gingrich turned in 800 fewer signatures than Perry which means that it is highly likely that Gingrich’s name will not make the ballot if he has near the same number of invalid signatures.

The deadline to collect and present signatures has passed and only Romney and Paul have enough signatures to see their names on the Virginia ballot – they will be the only two candidates in the Virginia primary.

Virginia is a proportional delegate state meaning that candidates take a fraction of Virginia’s 49 delegates directly proportional to the % of the vote they take in the primary.

With only 475 total delegates up for grabs nationwide, Virginia represents a large portion of the number of delegates needed to win the preliminary election. With Newt and Perry missing out on Virginia, the two horse race may consist of a different two horses than previously thought.