Watching Rick Santorum’s election night speech, I get the sense that he knows this nomination race is over. He chose to speak before Fox News has called Wisconsin for Mitt Romney, but it has already called Maryland and D.C. for him and has shown exit poll numbers showing Romney leading Santorum narrowly in Wisconsin among white evangelicals—a group that has been one of Santorum’s best demographics in other states. Santorum evidently wanted to come out before a Wisconsin call, and perhaps to delay it. He began by noting that only half the delegates have been selected, that it’s half time and that he’s going to come out fighting in his home state of Pennsylvania three weeks from now. But the latest two Pennsylvania polls show Santorum leading Romney by just 2% and 6% and I have argued that it’s quite possible for heavy pro-Romney spending to turn those numbers around. Santorum wants us to think that this campaign is going on for three more weeks and then into May, when states which look like favorable ground for Romney will vote. But I’m wondering as I watch him whether he’ll get there.
UPDATE 9:25 Eastern: Fox News has just broken into Santorum’s speech to call Wisconsin for Romney.
