Perry knocked off Va. primary ballot

Rick Perry has been knocked off the Virginia GOP primary ballot, a key bar for candidate credibility past the early states — and a surprising state of affairs for the only campaign other than Mitt Romney's that has had the resources with which to organize.

The party acknowledged it on its Twitter feed, saying, "After verification, RPV has determined that Rick Perry did not submit the required 10k signatures and has not qualified for the VA primary."

There's more here and here.

This is a rough moment for Perry, who is currently making Iowa his last stand in his troubled bid for the White House.

The only two candidates certified so far for the ballot are Mitt Romney and Ron Paul. Michele Bachmann, Rick Santorum and Jon Huntsman failed to submit the signatures.

That leaves Newt Gingrich as the remaining question mark — and as Jonathan Martin reported earlier, he still is not a lock for the ballot, given that he also only cleared the 10,000 signature by over 1,000.

UPDATE: A Perry spokesman sends over this statement, suggesting they may not accept this as the final word:

Despite aggressive efforts collecting thousands of Virginia signatures after Governor Perry's mid-August entry into the race, we were notified this evening of apparently falling short of the 10,000 voter signatures needed to qualify. We will closely review the facts and law to determine whether an appeal or challenge is warranted. This is an isolated situation and does not impact Governor Perry qualifying for the ballot in every other state. Gov Perry has the utmost respect for the strong place Virginia holds in our nation's economic and military strength and in American history He will continue to work hard to build strong support in Virginia and earn the trust of conservative-minded voters there.

Maggie Haberman is senior political reporter for Politico.