On February 5, 2008, Huckabee won the first contest of "Super Tuesday" by winning the West Virginia GOP state convention by winning 52% of the electorate to Mitt Romney's 47%. Backers of rival John McCain threw him their support to prevent Mitt Romney from capturing the winner-take-all GOP state convention vote. He also registered victories in Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia and Tennessee on Super Tuesday, bringing his delegate count up to 156, a distant third compared to 689 for Republican Party front-runner John McCain and Mitt Romney's 286, according to the 2008 Republican presidential primaries and caucuses.