This early, CNMI Republican Party bet and incumbent Gov. Eloy S. Inos and his running mate, Senate President Ralph Torres (R-Saipan), are already courting the support of losing gubernatorial candidates in Tuesday\u2019s general elections.<\/p>\n
With the Inos\/Torres tandem looking at a runoff race with independent candidate Heinz Hofschneider and his running mate, former Senate floor leader Ray Yumul, the CNMI GOP standard bearer said they will be reaching out to the camps of independent Juan N. Babauta and Juan S. Torres and CNMI Democratic Party bets Edward \u201cTofila\u201d M. Deleon Guerrero and Daniel O. Quitugua.<\/p>\n
\u201cRalph and I are humbled by the turnout and the confidence of the community in us in continuing to move forward with progress. We will do just that. I do want to thank the camps of [former] governor Babauta and Ed Deleon Guerrero for a hard-fought campaign and we do ask for their support to the team of Inos-Torres in the runoff elections,\u201d he said in an interview with Saipan Tribune shortly after noon yesterday.<\/p>\n
CNMI GOP president James Ada said the party will be meeting to plan their strategy in the runoff polls and that they will definitely ask for the support of Babauta and Deleon Guerrero.<\/p>\n
Inos volunteered that he already had an inkling he and Torres were going to get the lion\u2019s share of the votes following the counting of the early votes.<\/p>\n
\u201cAfter the advance voting, that\u2019s a large chunk already. I was looking at the trend and I said if that continued we would be in the position to make the runoff and at least lead it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The governor also winced at the missed opportunity of winning the race outright. Inos\/Torres got only 46.6 percent of the total votes cast, just about 4 percentage points less than the required 50-percent-plus-one.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was so close. I was hoping we could get a sufficient number from the remaining ballots so we didn\u2019t have to go to a runoff. But it\u2019s OK and we\u2019re prepared for the runoff,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
Torres attributed their team\u2019s win to sticking to the issues on hand and not resorting to dirty politics.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe ran a very clean campaign and we never accused anyone of anything. At the end of the day, we knew that it\u2019s our people who make the decisions. Like I said from the beginning, one thing\u2019s for sure is that we work hard even at my age and the governor\u2019s health for that matter,\u201d Torres said. \u201cHe\u2019s done a tremendous job the past 20 months. He\u2019s addressed a lot of issues.\u201d<\/p>\n
The 35-year-old lawmaker also said the GOP team\u2019s success in the polls could partly be a result of young voters flocking in large numbers to have their voices heard through the ballot box.<\/p>\n
\u201cWith regards to my age, it shows that our young voters went out to vote. I continue to emphasize that and ask that we don\u2019t use age anymore. More so we should encourage and embrace the youth. When the time comes, step up and allow them, give them the opportunity to grow. Every teenager, every young voter, should be allowed to get experience. I hope running as a lieutenant governor is an opportunity to show the youth that the community can embrace you despite your age.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
This early, CNMI Republican Party bet and incumbent Gov. Eloy S. Inos and his running…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[900,4],"tags":[152,309,315,38],"class_list":["post-184164","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-featured","category-local-news","tag-deleon-guerrero","tag-ok","tag-ray-yumul","tag-saipan-tribune"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/184164","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=184164"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/184164\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=184164"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=184164"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=184164"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}