Rick Santorum delivered another sharp shock to Mitt Romney’s campaign Tuesday night, claiming victory in the Alabama and Mississippi presidential primaries and reinforcing — yet again — conservative hesitations about the GOP front-runner.
Late Tuesday night, The Associated Press and multiple television networks called both states for Santorum. In Alabama, the former Pennsylvania senator had 35 percent of the vote to Newt Gingrich’s 30 percent and Romney’s 28 percent. With 85 percent of precincts reporting in Mississippi, Santorum was taking 33 percent of the vote to Gingrich’s 31 percent and Romney’s 30 percent.
Santorum’s narrow wins — and Romney’s inability to draw a third of the vote in either state — add up to another vote of no confidence in Romney from the conservative, evangelical base of the Republican Party. Whether they might shake up the GOP primary fight enough to rattle Romney’s comfortable delegate advantage is unclear.
Speaking to supporters in Louisiana — another upcoming primary state — Santorum declared that yet another political comeback is under way, citing his victory in the Kansas caucuses last weekend as well as Tuesday night’s results.
“We did it again,” he told the crowd, thanking them for taking on “all the establishment” forces in Romney’s corner to back “the grandson of a coal miner who comes from a steel town in western Pennsylvania.”
The former senator pushed back against the growing consensus among political analysts that Romney’s rivals cannot overtake him in the delegate count but may be able to trigger a contested convention by blocking him from gathering the 1,144 delegates he’d need to clinch the nomination.
“We are going to win this nomination before that convention,” Santorum said.
Even before the results were all in, there were overt signs of pessimism from the Romney camp. The former Massachusetts governor did not have plans to speak on election night and senior adviser Eric Fehrnstrom emphasized in a CNN interview that his candidate had faced long odds in the South’s core.
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8 Responses
Romney is still way ahead in the what counts…the number of committed delegates. And his strongest states like New York, New Jersey, Illinois and California are still ahead. Maybe its time for Santroum and and his anti-woman agenda to drop out so Romney can focus on beating Obama rather than wasting money putting Santroum and Ginrich out of their misery.
Actually Santorum may be able to beat Obama, something I doubt Romney can do.
ant-woman agenda? you obviously dont follow politics much.
Santorum WILL bezras hashem to beat Obama
They’ll get to keep us entertained for another month or two. No big deal. Except for people who follow politics like sports, a distinct minority, no one really cares about the primaries. The real campaign begins after Labor Day (some say, after the World Series).
Santorum and Romney are all nice reputable goyim with good personal lives, sound principles, and a proven (even when they deny it) record of working “across the aisle” when necessary to get things accomplished.
And so the people who get to vote in April (and later) will actually have their votes matter for once.
Time for Gingrich to mae a deal with Santorum: I will drop out in YOUR FAVOR, when you are elected I want to be the Secretary of State. DEAL!!!!!!!!!!!
ravizzy,
I think that would be a good idea.
Funny how a gadul (#1) doesn’t know his left from his right. I will give you a hint, he IS left!