WASHINGTON – Mitt
Romney's opponents earned enough victories in Super Tuesday's stakes to
keep the GOP presidential primary race in flux – but Romney was able to
power through any nicks inflicted by Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich as
the front-runner increased his ever-expanding lead in the delegate
count.
Romney won six state contests on Tuesday, including Ohio. Santorum picked up three, and Gingrich picked up one.
While the victories by Santorum and Gingrich
keep the race going, Romney’s Super Tuesday wins brought him a big step
closer to the overriding goal of all four GOP candidates – amassing
1,144 delegates and clinching the nomination.
In the post-Super Tuesday phase, the race revolves not around gaining momentum but reaching for that delegate threshold.
The numbers show Romney building a
comfortable, albeit reversible, lead as the candidates head into Kansas
this weekend and back down South next week for contests in Mississippi
and Alabama.
Romney now leads with 415 delegates – the
number includes endorsements tallied by the Associated Press from
members of the Republican Party who can support any candidate.
In the same count, Santorum is in second with 176 delegates.
Gingrich has 105, and Ron Paul has 47.
Romney built his lead substantially with his
victories Tuesday in six states, including the headline-grabber of
Ohio. The wins afforded him a bump of more than 200 delegates.
In Ohio, Romney was projected the winner
shortly after midnight. With nearly all precincts reporting, Romney won
with 38 percent to Santorum's 37 percent -- barring any unforeseen vote
correction by Ohio officials. It was a major win for Romney in a state
where he trailed Santorum just days ago.
Romney also won contests in Alaska, Idaho,
Vermont, Virginia and Massachusetts, the state where he served as
governor. Virginia was perhaps the least suspenseful contest of the
night, as only he and Paul qualified for the ballot.
At his post-election rally in Boston, Romney
kept his focus trained on President Obama and expressed confidence in
the momentum of his delegate-amassing operation.
"I'm not going to let you down. I'm going to get this nomination," Romney assured the crowd.
But Santorum nevertheless notched important
victories in North Dakota, Tennessee and Oklahoma. The wins help
Santorum regain his footing after losing out to Romney in Michigan and
Arizona a week ago, and in Washington state over the weekend.
Santorum, striving to be seen as the lone
conservative alternative to Romney, sounded a confident tone as he
addressed supporters in Steubenville, Ohio.
"We can add to Iowa, Missouri, Minnesota,
Colorado -- now Oklahoma and Tennessee," Santorum said, ticking off his
primary and caucus victories to date. "We have won in the West, the
Midwest and the South, and we're ready to win across this country."
As he has before, Santorum said he's the
only Republican candidate who can go toe-to-toe with Obama on "the most
important issue of the day" -- the federal health care overhaul.
"I've never been for an individual mandate,
at a state or federal level," Santorum said, in an implicit jab at the
past support by Gingrich and Romney for an individual requirement to buy
health insurance.
Gingrich won the night's most valuable
contest in terms of sheer delegates. His victory in Georgia was also his
first since the South Carolina contest in January.
The former speaker rallied a crowd of
supporters in Atlanta Tuesday night, as he lambasted the media and the
"elite" for trying to "kill" his campaign earlier in the season. "I hope
the analysts in Washington and New York who spent June and July
explaining our campaign was dead will watch this tonight and learn a
little bit from this crowd and from this place," he said.
Gingrich used a lengthy speech to decry
Obama's energy policy and promote his own campaign promise to bring gas
prices down to $2.50 a gallon. Making clear his campaign will go on, he
claimed he is the only GOP candidate in the field who can debate Obama
"decisively" going into November.
"I'm the tortoise. I just take one step at a time," he said.
Gingrich's victory in Georgia, which he
represented in Congress for 20 years, gives the former House speaker a
much-needed boost after a rough six weeks on the campaign trail. Since
winning South Carolina, Gingrich's most frequent primary finish has been
fourth place, though he had a handful of second- and third-place
finishes. With two wins now under his belt, both in the South, Gingrich
can head into next week's contests in Alabama and Mississippi making the
argument that he is the candidate favored by voters in the deep South.
In total, 419 delegates were at stake on
Super Tuesday, more than the total number that has been awarded in all
the contests to date.
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