Preliminary results from today’s Texas primary indicate that Mitt Romney now has enough delegates to win the Republican Party’s presidential nomination. Only two months ago, it seemed plausible that Romney might not reach the 1,144 delegate threshold until later this summer.

CBS News estimates that Romney “will have at least 1,198 delegates as a result of his victory in Texas.” With about two-thirds of the votes counted, he leads Representative Ron Paul by 71 percent to 11 percent.

Paul stopped actively campaigning earlier this month, but confirmed that his supporters will “continue to work in the state convention process,” trying to win delegates to the Republican National Convention. Those efforts have been successful in Iowa and several other states.

Former presidential candidates Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum have not yet released their delegates to support Romney at the convention. However, they have both encouraged their supporters to vote for Romney against President Barack Obama in November.

Unfortunately for Romney in my opinion, news of him officially securing the GOP nomination will likely be overshadowed by Donald Trump’s return to center stage as America’s leading “birther.” CNN anchor Wolf Blitzer stepped out of character for a moment today, telling Trump during an interview, “You sound a little ridiculous.”

Any comments about the presidential election are welcome in this thread. I was surprised to see this finding from a new Rasmussen poll: “Democrats are a lot more excited about their [presidential] candidate than Republicans are about theirs.” I know some big Obama fans, but I doubt that most Democrats are “excited” about voting for him again.