Republican presidential contender Rick Santorum may have one last chance to overtake front-runner Mitt Romney. It’ll come next Tuesday in Ohio.
Santorum missed his chance to deliver a devastating blow to Romney’s campaign in Tuesday’s primaries in Arizona and, particularly, Michigan, the state in which Romney was born and where his father was once governor. Defeating Romney there would have helped propel Santorum in the upcoming 10-state Super Tuesday contests, but Romney overcame Santorum’s lead, narrowly beating him in Michigan while coasting to an easy victory in Arizona.
Santorum has threatened Romney’s lead several times since the former Pennsylvania senator belatedly won Iowa caucuses on Jan. 3, but he has never been able to deliver a knockout blow. He now has one more chance.
Ohio is traditionally a hotly contested primary state in part because of its 66 convention delegates but also because it’s considered a key battleground in the general election in the fall and often a barometer of a candidate’s support among swing voters.
“If Santorum did win Ohio, it would really shake things up,” said Ohio State University political science professor Paul Beck. “Ohio is a real prize and if I were Romney, I’d be putting every dollar I have into it. If Romney loses Ohio, he loses Super Tuesday.”
Political strategists believe that despite Santorum’s loss in Michigan, he has a solid chance of beating Romney in neighboring Ohio, which borders Santorum’s home state of Pennsylvania. Ohio has many of the same blue-collar, unionized conservative voters who helped Santorum nearly upset Romney in Michigan.
Santorum is ahead of Romney by about 8 percentage points in Ohio polls, but Romney is expected to regain ground in the coming days thanks to his twin wins in Michigan and Arizona.
Romney made a beeline to Ohio after delivering a victory speech in Michigan Tuesday night, campaigning in Toledo Wednesday morning and stopping in Bexley, a suburb that is home to the kind of affluent voters who helped Romney overcome Santortum’s surge.
Santorum, meanwhile, headed to Tennessee, one of four Southern states up for grabs next Tuesday. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, meanwhile, is expected to focus on his home state of Georgia, which also votes Tuesday.
“You have to give Santorum an edge in Tennessee, but with the wins Tuesday night by Romney and a lot of unknowns, it could still end up being close,” said Vanderbilt University political science professor John Geer.
Neither Santorum nor Gingrich qualified for the ballot in Virginia, where Romney is favored to defeat the only other candidate on the ballot, Rep. Ron Paul of Texas.
In his quest for convention delegates, Santorum also has his eye on Washington state, which holds a caucus on March 3. He’ll campaign there Thursday.
Ohio’s primary is open only to registered Republicans, but several other Super Tuesday states allow anyone to participate in the Republican primary. Santorum actually recruited Democrats to vote for him in Michigan and exit polls showed that Democrats made up nearly 10 percent of the Republican primary vote.
Anticipating a similar action by Santorum next week, Romney came out with a new ad titled “Liberal Democrats for Santorum” featuring interviews with Michigan Democrats who said they voted for Santorum because they believe he is a weaker candidate who would lose to President Obama in the fall.
