Rick Santorum speaking in Lafayette Louisiana after learning of his victory in AL and later MS - image: Reuters
Former Pennsylvania Senator, Rick Santorum won two key states in the GOP primary yesterdaytaking Mississippi and Alabama to the win column, this after the Drudge Report posted a Romney win in MS before the polls closed. Santorum continues to rack up wins in States desperately needed by the GOP to win in the general election.
Romney finished third in both states and Newt Gingrich, former Speaker of the House, finished 2nd, in two states where, theoretically and according to pundits, Romney would have taken the “moderate” Mississippi, and Gingrich, should have taken Alabama, the State which borders his home state of Georgia. It was noted, by Gingrich, during his speech to supporters after the results were in, that both he and Santorum were besting Romney in each state by a margin of 3 to 1. Which, when one looks at the results in states such as Michigan and Ohio, where Romney eked out wins, that is the case. The problem the Speaker faces is that he has yet to win a state outside of SC and GA (his home state), while Romney is picking away at delegates as his path to the nomination (Ron Paul)
According to the AP, Romney has won Hawaii, and American Samoa.
The half-way mark in the primary will be the State of Louisiana, where Santorum gave a rousing speech last night following the Alabama results, noting he sent his daughter Elizabeth to campaign for him in Hawaii, while he will be heading to Puerto Rico and then onto Illinois, another blue collar state. The man whom the Romney campaign insisted was “desperate” and in the last stages of his campaign, apparently is the one whom Romney now has to best in order to win the nomination. Romney must do this with the remaining states favoring Santorum, especially Texas, where he leads in the polls by doubt digits and California where he is in a statistical tie with Mitt Romney. The premise that Gingrich will continue to amass one third of the vote in each of the upcoming states may be a pipe dream for both the Romney and Gingrich campaigns, as the momentum is clearly on Santorum’s side. Hypothetically and Mathematically, Santorum, should he win a majority of the remaining states, can clinch the nomination in delegates without taking the process (as Gingrich would have one believe) to the Convection.
Romney has outspent his rivals by a large margin, and his Super PAC is already running ads in Illinois, but to what avail – the negatives apparently are no longer working, and his ability to win in large urban areas against Santorum did not play out in last night’s southern primaries, where Santorum suddenly was holding his own in the urban areas, that were previously considered “Romneys". As to low voter turnout, that can be attributed to the drum beat of an “inevitable Romney victory” a theme that is hammered home by every media outlet, regardless of who wins - this is despite the fact that Romney is still holding under 50% of the delegates required to clinch the nomination. On the face of it, Romney and Gingrich, unlike Santorum, have no ground game – Santorum is busy doing retail politics, while Romney and Gingrich have PACS running negative ads, and little to no grassroots activists on their teams. This gives Santorum the decided edge in the remaining half of the states.
The delegate Count according to the AP (includes super delegates to Romney (i.e. 3 members of the National GOP committee for example) : “The partial allocation of delegates from Tuesday's voting states left Romney with 485 in The Associated Press count, out of the 1,144 needed to win the nomination. Santorum had 246, Gingrich 131 and Paul 47.
The total available delegates: 2286 (for the convention in Tampa, 2012). These include hard and soft delegate. Soft delegates are those that are not “pledged to a delegate”, while “hard delegates” are formally allocated to a candidate (source: The Green Papers). Therefore, with 2286 delegates available, for the Romney Camp to assume (or project) that the nomination is “inevitable” is nothing more han hubris or as the Santorum campaign suggests "fuzzy math".
Next up: Missouri, Louisiana, Puerto Rico and Illinois, closing out the March 2012 GOP Nomination Process.
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