With Rick Santorum besting him in Alabama and Mississippi tonight, Newt Gingrich lost even a regional claim for strength in the nominating process. You might have expected him to bow out. But he remains defiant.
“When the primaries are over, and it’s clear no one person has won,” Gingrich said, convention delegates would ask themselves, “who would do the best job?”
Gingrich added a swipe at Romney, who was left in third place in both states. “If you’re the front-runner, and you keep coming in third,” Gingrich said, “you’re not much of a front-runner.”
It’s true. Mitt Romney came in third tonight in the two big contests. With wins in Hawai’i and American Samoa later tonight, he may wind up with the most delegates, but he still showed that the southern base of the Republican Party has little use for him. He’s still the frontrunner but, as Gingrich says, he’s not much of a frontrunner. That being said, Romney is going to have enough delegates to win the nomination outright unless either Santorum or Gingrich start beating him by wide margins in the near future.
I think it is getting to the point that it may be too late for Gingrich to help Santorum by dropping out. Can Santorun win a one-on-one race against Romney in Illinois and Wisconsin? I think that might be possible. But can he win in the winner-take-all states of California, New Jersey, and Utah?
If Santorum can’t win in New Jersey or California, he’ll need to amass a significant delegate lead before those elections or Romney will win the nomination on the first ballot. And I don’t think Santorum can pull that off.
I think the nomination is close to decided, but Santorum can prevent Romney from winning it if he wins the majority of the upcoming contests (especially in Illinois and Texas) and wins California’s winner-take-all contest in June.
That’s a pretty tall order.
