Clean Sweep: Rick Santorum Defeats Mitt Romney In Three States

Former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum (R)
Start your day with TPM.
Sign up for the Morning Memo newsletter

Rick Santorum is the projected winner in the Minnesota, Colorado, and Missouri Republican contests, a surprising revival for a candidate whose campaign has flagged since winning Iowa in January.

“Conservatism is alive and well in Missouri and Minnesota,” an exuberant Santorum told Missouri supporters in his victory speech.

Romney congratulated his rival in his own address in Colorado, calling it a “good night” for the candidate. But he mostly stuck to his usual stump speech from there, criticizing President Obama for his handling of the economy and casting the race as a battle to save “the soul of America.”

While Missouri’s circumstances are odd enough to allow Romney some leeway in spinning the results, Santorum’s victories in Minnesota and Colorado are unambiguous setbacks for the nominal frontrunner. Romney won Colorado big in 2008, taking more than 60% of the vote, and won Minnesota with 41% of the vote the same year. Especially in Minnesota, Romney seemed poised for a repeat success: the state’s last governor, Tim Pawlenty, is Romney’s national campaign chair and has served as his most prominent surrogate since ending his own presidential run last August. But in 2012, his supporters apparently abandoned him en masse: in Minnesota he finished third with just 17% of the vote behind Ron Paul’s 27% and Santorum’s 45%. In Colorado, he took second with about 35% to Santorum’s 40%. Gingrich finished with just under 13% and Paul with just under 12%.

Missouri occupied a strange place in the race — because of a quirk in the scheduling, its primary doesn’t actually count towards determining its delegates and turnout was reportedly low. In addition, Newt Gingrich was not on the ballot. Gingrich told CNN on Tuesday that he didn’t take Missouri’s results seriously and was turning his attention to states like Ohio next.

“This is entirely a beauty contest and has no effect at all,” Gingrich said.

Nonetheless, Santorum’s success in the three states shines a spotlight on continued concerns among Republican voters about Romney’s candidacy. It also presents a challenge to Gingrich, who was hoping his South Carolina victory last month would put him on the path to consolidating the anti-Romney vote. Both Romney rivals have made the case that there is a conservative majority prepared to unite against the former governor if the field is narrowed to one alternative option — Missouri may be the purest test case yet for that theory. And Santorum won it with a staggering 57% of the vote to Romney’s 26%.

“Ladies and gentlemen, I don’t stand here to claim to be the conservative alternative to Mitt Romney,” Santorum said in his speech. “I stand here to be the conservative alternative to Barack Obama.”

Santorum still contrasted himself strongly with Romney, saying his rival held the “same position” as Obama on health care, cap and trade, and Wall Street bailouts. In a jab at Romney’s campaign tactics, he noted that Romney has fared worse in states where he hasn’t been able to blanket the airwaves with big money negative ads. Santorum will almost surely face a barrage of these attacks in the next states as Romney looks to regain his footing.

Indeed, one of the earliest signs of Santorum’s momentum this week came via the Romney campaign. While public polling was limited, Romney’s staff abruptly shifted its focus from Newt Gingrich to Santorum this week, who they attacked in press releases, robocalls, and interviews, mostly over his support for earmarks as a Congressman and Senator. The last-minute offensive recalled the final days before the South Carolina primary, where the Romney campaign realized too late that Gingrich was surging and couldn’t bring him down quickly enough to win the state.

In another move that raised eyebrows, the Romney campaign released a lengthy memo on Tuesday downplaying both the importance of the three races on Tuesday as well as Romney’s chances in them. According to Romney political director, the results should be disregarded in Missouri, since it does not determine the state’s delegates, while the other two states aren’t relevant to the delegate count because they’re caucus states that allocate their delegates later in the year. Of course, the same could have been said of the Iowa caucus, where the Romney campaign was happy to take credit for their near-victory.

Looking beyond the immediate race, there are signs that Romney’s problems in Missouri may reflect deeper troubles beyond his primary fight. The state has never warmed to Obama, going for John McCain in 2008 even while he lost virtually every other battleground, but a recent poll by PPP found Romney in an unexpected tie with the president.

Latest Election 2012
Comments
Masthead Masthead
Founder & Editor-in-Chief:
Executive Editor:
Managing Editor:
Associate Editor:
Editor at Large:
General Counsel:
Publisher:
Head of Product:
Director of Technology:
Associate Publisher:
Front End Developer:
Senior Designer: