With powerful Wisconsin natives Budget Committee Chairman Rep. Paul Ryan and Tea Party Sen. Ron Johnson behind him, the Badger State likely will be the jewel in the crown for Mitt Romney tomorrow night.
The Wisconsin GOP is focused on defending Gov. Scott Walker from the Democrats’ recall effort, which observers say has united the state party from getting involved in a Romney-Santorum civil war.
“The party as a whole is more united behind Scott Walker than it’s been for anything it’s ever done,” said Mark Graul, a Green Bay GOP operative, told Politico. “There’s no Santorum-Romney civil war going on within the party.”
A Rasmussen Reports poll shows Romney with a commanding 10-point lead over rival Sen. Rick Santorum at 45 percent to the latter’s 34 percent. Newt Gingrich and Ron Paul each are polling in the single digits.
Rival Sen. Rick Santorum, who has been campaigning hard in the state for over two weeks, has announced that he will be nowhere to be found when the tally is counted.
And Santorum’s lag in the delegate count by a 558 to 273 margin is fueling calls for the former Senator to drop out of the race, which he said that he would not do unless the former Massachusetts governor reaches the 1,444 delegates needed to clinch the nomination.
“The longer it goes the better it is for the party,” Mr. Santorum told reporters at a campaign event today, according to The Wall Street Journal. “If I thought that prolonging this race was a detrimental thing for our chances to win in the fall. I may take a different course … I would argue even if it ends up in a convention, that’s a positive thing for the Republican Party, that’s a positive thing for activating and energizing our folks heading into this fall election.”
But party leaders like Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., are saying that the race for the GOP nomination is in its final phase.
“The chances are overwhelming that he will be our nominee,” McConnell said in an interview on CNN’s “State of the Union” Sunday. “We’re in the final phase of wrapping up this nomination.”
If Romney wins Wisconsin, Maryland and the District of Columbia tomorrow, it will put him well past the halfway mark to amassing enough delegates to win the Republican nomination.
“A sweep means Romney is guaranteed to have a terrific April. Santorum only has a good shot in Pa., and he might do poorly in the delegate haul even there. Romney is trying to KO Santorum in April before he can do well again in better territory innMay (such as Texas, Ark., Ky., W.V., Ind., and N.C. — where Santorum has a fighting chance,” Dr. Larry Sabato, director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia, told Red Alert Politics.
