Puerto Rico
Mitt Romney scored an overwhelming win last weekend in Puerto Rico's Republican presidential primary, trouncing rival Rick Santorum. He won all the 20 delegates to the national convention at stake because he prevailed with more than 50 percent of the vote.
The race was primarily focused on the issue of statehood, and Mitt Romney claimed that he would support statehood for Puerto Ricans, while Santorum said English would have to be the official language of the island if it were to join the United States. Clearly, these comments hurt Santorum's prospects in the Caribbean Island. Leading up to the primaries, Oreste Ramos, former state senator, resigned from a list of delegates backing Santorum following his comments.
Illinois
Mitt Romney comfortably won the Illinois Republican presidential primary securing 47% of the votes. Rick Santorum finished second, but the gap between Romney and Santorum was the real deal. Santorum could manage only 35% of the votes, a gap of more than 12%!
And Rick Santorum has more to worry about, as exit polls released by CNN revealed that Romney edged him among Protestant and Catholic voters, (45-38 and 53-30), reflecting the impact of the former Massachusetts Governor $3 million week-long ad blitz on Santorum’s core support demographics.
Ron Paul edged past Newt Gingrich (9% to 8%) to come in third.
The result of the open primary will see Romney acquiring another 41 new delegates, taking his total tally of delegates to 563, 300 more than Santorum’s 263. Compounding the double-digit popular-vote loss, Santorum was already running at a disadvantage even before voting began after his campaign’s failure to register his candidacy in four of the state’s Congre
ssional districts, an advance loss of ten delegates.
The Maths
Romney now leads Santorum 563 delegates to 263 delegates. Romney is now almost exactly halfway to the 1,144 delegates he would need to clinch the nomination. He needs to win about 46 percent of the available delegates in the remaining two dozen contests.
On the other hand, Santorum, who is 300 delegates behind Romney, would have to win more than two-thirds of the remaining delegates to clinch the nomination. The climb to Mt.1144 just got steeper for Santorum after his defeat in Illinois and Puerto Rico.
The Game
After being routed by Romney in the Illinois primary earlier this week, the Santorum campaign would like to revive itself in the state of Louisiana.However, The Romney campaign will now begin to make noises about the fact that now is the time for Santorum to step aside, 'for the sake of the party'.
Romney's thumping victory may also possibly increase the pressure on Newt Gingrich to withdraw from the race. His campaign coffers are now running a deficit, and his last-place finish in Illinois will certainly not trigger a sudden spike in contributions. However, Newt Gingrich must be banking on the Louisiana primary this Saturday to rescue his rapidly waning campaign. Polls show that both Santorum and Newt are leading Romney in the state.
For Romney, both the Illinois and Puerto Rico primaries have given him a breather after Super Tuesday, and has placed him in a commanding position to clinch the candidacy over the next three months. Although its a race too early to call, but Romney seems to have rejuvenated his campaign and the spark, which was missing for some time, seems to be back!
P.S. - Illinois might well have been the primary where Mitt Romney emerged from his own shadow.
Mohit Dayal
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