2008 New York Republican primary race before the primary 2008 New York Republican primary New York held its state presidential primary on February 5, 2008 (Super Tuesday). There were 101 delegates up for grabs for the candidates. The delegates were awarded on a winner-take-all basis, which means the winner, Arizona Senator John McCain, received all 101 delegates for the 2008 Republican National Convention. On February 2, McCain had held a fairly large lead in the polls above the competition with 35% as opposed to the next candidate Rudy Giuliani with 22.5%, who had announced a withdrawal from the race on January 30, 2008. <nowiki>*</nowiki> Candidate
Rudy Giuliani of 47,080 votes out of 1,899,845 votes cast, in the closest election in New York City's history. The closeness of the race was particularly noteworthy considering the small percentage of New York City residents who are registered Republicans and resulted in Giuliani being the presumptive nominee for a re-match with Dinkins at the next election. Four years after he was beaten by Dinkins, Giuliani again ran for mayor. Once again, Giuliani also ran on the Liberal Party line but not the Conservative Party line, which ran activist George Marlin. The city was suffering from a spike in unemployment associated with