“We did it again,” Rick Santorum declared after taking the stage to celebrate his strong showing tonight — and he was right. Once again, Santorum outperformed expectations by sweeping Alabama and Mississippi, slowing Mitt Romney’s march toward the nomination.
As I wrote yesterday, Mitt Romney was unlikely to win in either Alabama or Mississippi, given that the electorate was dominated by evangelical voters who have been the voting block that’s been most resistant to his candidacy. Despite exit polls suggesting Romney was gaining some ground among evangelicals, ultimately that wasn’t enough, and he’s looking at a third place finish in both states. To be clear, Romney is still the overwhelming favorite to win the Republican nomination given his lead in delegates, but tonight he lost another chance to put the final nail in the coffin of his opponents by proving he could win on unfriendly turf.
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Santorum’s twin victories in the deep south, which was supposed to be Newt Gingrich’s territory, strengthens his argument that it’s a two man race between himself and Romney, with him playing the role of the first choice of conservatives. At this point, it’s hard to see any justification for Gingrich remaining in the race. The only primary he’s won since South Carolina in late January was his home state of Georgia and he couldn’t even win tonight in his strongest region. Yet because it’s Gingrich, in his speech tonight, he crafted an utterly delusional scenario under which Romney is denied a majority of delegates after all the nominating contests are over, and he somehow emerges as the nominee despite being far behind in delegates having won just two states.
The bottom line is that tonight’s results reinforce the fact that it’s going to be a long slog toward the nomination for Romney and this race isn’t going to be over anytime soon.
