Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Santorum racks up 2 Deep South wins
Top rivals lag in Alabama, Mississippi
WASHINGTON — A resurgent Rick Santorum swept primaries Tuesday night in Alabama and Mississippi, upending the race for the Republican presidential nomination as he sought to push Newt Gingrich toward the sidelines.
Mitt Romney was running third in both states.
“We did it again,” Santorum told cheering supporters in Lafayette, La. He said it was time for conservatives to unite to defeat Romney, the former Massachusetts governor who is far and away the leader in the competition for Republican National Convention delegates.
Gingrich congratulated Santorum on his victories and poked at Romney. “If you’re the front- runner and you keep coming in third, you’re not much of a front-runner,” he said in Birmingham, Ala.
In Alabama, with 76 percent of the precincts counted, Santorum was pulling 35 per-
cent of the vote, Gingrich had 30 percent and Romney 28 percent.
Returns from 92 percent of Mississippi’s precincts showed Santorum with 33 percent, Gingrich 31 percent and Romney 30.
Rep. Ron Paul of Texas, the fourth contender, made little effort in the states on the day’s ballot.
There were 107 Republican National Convention delegates at stake — 47 in Alabama, 37 in Mississippi, 17 in Hawaii caucuses and six more in caucuses in American Samoa.
Evangelicals played an outsize role in both primary states, underscoring the challenge to Romney. In Mississippi and Alabama, 80 percent or more of voters leaving their polling places said they were born again Christians or evangelical. Those voters have been reluctant to rally to Romney’s side in the primaries and caucuses to date. Among them, Santorum bested Romney by 9 points in Alabama and 4 points in Mississippi.
More broadly, the exit polls showed a primary electorate that was conservative, determinedly Republican and profoundly unhappy about the government.
In Mississippi, more than eight in 10 voters said they were dissatisfied or angry with the federal government, while in Alabama, 80 percent said they would definitely vote for the Republican candidate against President Barack Obama in the fall, no matter who he is.
Santorum out-polled Romney, 39 percent to 23 percent among that group in Alabama. The two men tied among that group in Mississippi.
As has been true in earlier primaries, the economy was the most important issue to voters, and an ability to defeat Obama the most important quality when it came time to pick a candidate.
The exit polls were based on interviews with 1,552 voters as they left 30 randomly selected polling places around Alabama, and with 1,575 Mississippi voters from 30 sites. Each survey had a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 4 percentage points.
The Southern showdown came as new polling showed a decline in Obama’s approval ratings.
DELEGATE COUNT
Santorum’s two victories were worth at least 21 delegates. Gingrich won at least 17 and Romney at least 16. The split in Mississippi underscored the difficulty that Romney’s rivals face in overcoming his big lead. Each of the three leading contenders won 10 delegates there with seven still to be allocated.
The day began with Romney leading the delegate competition by far in The Associated Press count, with 454 of the 1,144 needed to win the nomination. Santorum had 217, Gingrich 107 and Paul 47.
That gave the former Massachusetts governor more delegates than his rivals combined. And while Santorum in particular challenges the mathematical projections, Romney is amassing delegates at a rate that puts him on track to clinch control of the nomination before the summer convention.
Romney, campaigning in Missouri, took exception to a television commercial airing in both Southern states and said Santorum “is at the desperate end of his campaign.” The commercial was backed by a super PAC that supports the former senator, not by him.
Santorum’s camp had earlier issued a memorandum that dismissed as fuzzy math Romney’s claim that he is on track to amass a delegate majority. “Simply put, time is on our side,” it said.
Gingrich’s aides issued a rebuttal of their own with the polls still open in the primary states. It said the primaries were not yet half over, and the former House speaker “is well positioned to win the GOP nomination.”
The large amount of television advertising was testimony to the importance the contenders and their allies attached to the primaries in Alabama and Mississippi.
All three candidates as well as super PACS supporting each of them ran television commercials. As has been the case all year, Restore Our Future, which backs Romney, spent more than any of the others. The group put down $1.3 million for television ads in Alabama, another $900,000 in Mississippi and more for radio on Christian and other radio stations as well as thousands of pieces of mail designed to help Romney.
OBAMA BASHED
Romney ignored his GOP presidential rivals Tuesday as he asked Missouri voters to help him secure the party nomination and take on Obama.
Romney told a St. Louis crowd of about 400 that Obama is content with high deficits and high gasoline prices. He repeated his promises to cut spending, create jobs and boost the military.
Romney did not refer directly or indirectly to his GOP rivals in his 15-minute speech under blue skies. He chose to spend the day in Missouri, which holds caucuses Saturday, rather than in Alabama and Mississippi.
At an appearance in Kansas City, Romney had said he hoped to do well in Alabama and Mississippi. “If the polls are anywhere near correct, we’ll end up with, I don’t know, a third of the delegates,” Romney told reporters traveling with him. “And if that’s the case, why that inches us closer to the magic number.”
“This is all about getting delegates,” he said.
Romney’s schedule called for him to spend much of today and Thursday raising money in New York before traveling Friday to Puerto Rico. Puerto Rico’s Republican primary is Sunday.
It was only in recent days that Romney seemed to sense a chance in Alabama and Mississippi, and he responded by increasing his television ad expenditures and his plans for campaigning in the states.
2-PRONGED ATTACK
Santorum campaigned against the president and Romney simultaneously as he sought the support of conservatives who have fueled his recent surge.
Santorum spent early Tuesday with his family at their home near Washington. He was to fly later to Louisiana, which has its contest on March 24, for a rally in Lafayette that he hopes will turn into a celebration of a pair of victories in the deeply conservative states where he has spent much of the past week.
Santorum advisers are looking to best Gingrich in Gingrich’s Southern stronghold and force him from the race so Santorum emerges as the chief opponent for frontrunner Romney.
“It’s very, very clear where this race is heading,” Santorum told supporters in Montgomery, Ala., before flying home to the Washington area.
Santorum argues that the race is not yet over and the party must not nominate a Republican with Romney’s record of policy shifts on issues such as abortion and gay rights.
“We already have a president who doesn’t tell the truth,” he said. “We don’t need to nominate someone else who has that same problem.”
GINGRICH’S ‘SMART’ PLAN
Gingrich spent Tuesday in Birmingham, where he addressed a Chamber of Commerce about his plans to modernize the federal government if elected president.
“The reason I stay in this race is it’s about more than right versus left. It’s about being smart, it’s about understanding the modern world,” he said.
Gingrich planned to be in Illinois today to campaign for the March 20 primary there.
Gingrich spent part of his time pushing back against suggestions — including from his own staff — that he might drop out if he didn’t notch a pair of Southern victories. His only two wins so far came in the South Carolina primary on Jan 21, and last week, when he won his political home state of Georgia.
Initial polls showed the former House speaker in a strong position in both states, but he abruptly canceled a campaign trip to Kansas in advance of the state’s caucuses late last week to remain in the South.
He used a recorded telephone message from Chuck Norris, the actor and martialarts champion, for a last-minute appeal to voters in Alabama. Information for this article was contributed from St. Louis by Charles Babington, from Birmingham, Ala., by Beth Fouhy and from Montgomery, Ala., by Philip Elliott of The Associated Press.