Romney favored in D.C. GOP primary

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney (Blade file photo by Michael Key)

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney is considered the favorite to win 16 delegates in D.C.’s winner-take-all Republican presidential primary on April 3.

Romney is competing in the D.C. primary against GOP presidential contenders Newt Gingrich and Ron Paul and former GOP presidential candidate Jon Huntsman, whose name has remained on the D.C. ballot even though he dropped out of the race months ago.

GOP presidential candidate Rick Santorum did not file papers to run in the D.C. primary.

In a little-noticed development, lesbian Republican activist Rachel Hoff is among the 16 delegate candidates included in Romney’s D.C. delegate slate that are expected to go to the Republican National Convention in August if Romney wins the D.C. primary.

At least two D.C. gay Republicans – Jose Cunningham and David Trebing – are slated as Romney alternate delegate candidates.

R. Clarke Cooper, president of the national gay GOP group Log Cabin Republicans, is slated as an alternate delegate candidate for Huntsman.

Under rules established by the D.C. Republican Party, all presidential candidates running in the primary must name 16 delegate candidates and another 16 alternate delegate candidates on a slate linked to their names in order to be placed on the ballot in the April 3 primary.

D.C. gay GOP activist Marc Morgan is slated as a delegate candidate committed to Gingrich. Local gay Republican activist Timothy Day, who is running in a special election in May for the city’s vacant Ward 5 City Council seat, is slated as a Gingrich alternate delegate.

President Barack Obama is running unopposed on the D.C. primary ballot as a Democrat.

In a separate Republican contest, Robert Kabel, the gay chair of the D.C. Republican Party, is running in the April 3 primary as a candidate for Republican National Committeeman from the district. Kabel, an attorney in private practice, is a former board chair of Log Cabin and is a supporter of same-sex marriage.

He is being challenged by conservative Republican activist Jordan Gehrke, who worked on the campaign of former presidential candidate Herman Cain and raised money for the 2006 Republican opponent of gay U.S. Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.).