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Rick Santorum: Santorum’s Kansas Victory

March 11, 2012 by · Comments Off on Rick Santorum: Santorum’s Kansas Victory 

Rick Santorum: Santorum’s Kansas Victory, Rick Santorum won the Kansas caucuses in a rout on Saturday and Republican presidential front-runner Mitt Romney showed strength in Wyoming, a weekend prelude to suddenly pivotal Southern showdowns in the week ahead.
“Things have an amazing way of working out,” Santorum told supporters in Missouri, where he traced his campaign through a series of highs and lows. He called his showing in Kansas a “comfortable win” that would give him the vast majority of the 40 delegates at stake.

Returns from 89 percent of the state’s precincts showed Santorum with 51 percent support, far outpacing Romney, who had 21 percent. Newt Gingrich had 14 percent and Ron Paul trailed with 13 percent.

Santorum picked up at least 32 of the state’s 40 delegates at stake, cutting slightly into Romney’s overwhelming advantage.

Santorum’s triumph, coupled with Romney’s early advantage in Wyoming, came as the candidates pointed toward Tuesday’s primaries in Alabama and Mississippi that loom as unexpectedly important in the race to pick an opponent to President Barack Obama in the fall. Polls show a close race in both states, particularly Alabama, and Romney, Gingrich, and Santorum all added to their television advertising overnight for the race’s final days.

Romney, the front-runner by far in the delegate competition, padded his lead overnight when he won all nine delegates on the island of Guam and then again in the Northern Mariana Islands.

Romney had 440 delegates in the AP’s count, more than all his rivals combined. Santorum had 213, while Gingrich had 107 and Paul had 46. A candidate must win 1,144 to clinch the Republican presidential nomination at the national convention in Tampa next August.

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