And Santorum surges on…

After his resounding win at Kansas, Santorum arrived at the mini Super-Tuesday (13^th March, 2012) with a lot of hope and confidence. Three states -- Alabama, Mississippi, Hawaii -- and American Samoa went to polls that day, and they had a combined total of 119 delegates: Alabama (50), American Samoa (9), Hawaii (20) and Mississippi (40). But it was not the numbers that mattered anymore, at least not for the Santorum camp. The wins mattered, and they mattered a lot.

"Republicans, why y u no vote for Mitt 

Romney like my ads say you should?"

The polls in Mississippi showed a tight race between the top-three contenders. It was an important race for all the three candidates – Mitt Romney wanted to show he can carry the Southern States in the general elections, Santorum wanted to prove that he is the only viable conservative candidate in fray, and Gingrich wanted to show he can still win outside his home-turf states of South Carolina and Georgia. In the end, it was a close race, in which Santorum came out on top with 33% of the votes, followed by Gingrich and Romney at 31% each. Ron Paul came a distant 4^th with just 4% of the votes. However, the delegates were evenly divided between the top-three candidates, thereby neutralizing the effect of the win for Santorum. The result in Alabama was no less different, with Santorum winning the state with 35% of the votes, followed by Gingrich and Romney at 29% each, Paul coming a distant 4^th at 5%. The delegate share was more skewed that the one in Mississippi though.

The results in American Samoa and Hawaii went on expected lines, with Mitt Romney winning both by a comfortable margin. With that, the current delegate count (as per our estimates) happens to be:

	Delegates so far	AL	MS	AS	HI	Total Delegates
Mitt Romney	412	11	12	6	9	450
Rick Santorum	182	18	13	0	3	216
Newt Gingrich	110	12	12	0	0	134
Ron Paul	45	0	0	0	3	48
UP/EO/UC*	38*	9	3	3	3	56

* Unpledged/Ex-Officio/Uncommitted

What these results (and the ones in Kansas) did was to change the tone of Mitt Romney’s campaign. So far, the Romney campaign has emphasized on three factors regarding their candidate: 1) Electability and 2) Winning streak and 3) Appeal among the larger Republican base. With 2) and 3) being ripped apart to shreds by Santorum’s surge (and also the possibility of Gingrich taking away his votes), the Romney camp has shifted to “he can win the required number of delegates” stance, which is highly defensive in nature. Santorum has managed to snatch many victories in the states he was expected to win well, but each state has its own way of allotting delegates, and this puts a dent in his winning count.

A few more states are up for election next week. Meanwhile, we shall try to see why Gingrich is not giving up that easily, and also on some of the issues that these candidates differ in.

Varun Reddy.