In this Monday, March 12, 2012, photo, Republican presidential candidate, former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum campaign in Montgomery, Ala. Santorum won the Republican presidential primary Tuesday, March 13, in Alabama (AP Photo/Eric Gay)Former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum demonstrated once again on Tuesday his strength with conservative voters, defeating former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney in primaries in Alabama and Mississippi.
Romney, the presumed Republican front-runner, limped to third-place finishes in both states, and Texas Congressman Ron Paul was a distant fourth.
Romney took some comfort in winning the Hawaii caucuses and the lone caucus in American Samoa — though the latter was a hollow victory at most, with only 70 people attending the caucus, which was held in a bar.
Romney still leads in the delegate count, but the question now becomes whether Santorum can build momentum with his string of victories across the South, in addition to his earlier wins in Midwestern and Western states.
Romney had hoped to break through in the South with a win or at least a solid finish in Alabama or Mississippi. But it wasn’t to be. In fact, the only Southern states he has won are Florida, which is not nearly as conservative as most other states in the South, and Virginia, where he benefited from the fact that Santorum and Gingrich were not on the ballot and the badly trailing Paul was his only opponent.