Santorum grabs the lead in Alabama and Mississippi

Repub­li­can pres­i­den­tial can­di­date, for­mer Mass­a­chu­setts Gov. Mitt Rom­ney speaks dur­ing a cam­paign stop at William Jew­ell Col­lege on Tues­day, March 13, 2012 in Lib­erty, Mo. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

DAVID ESPO

AP Spe­cial Correspondent

WASHINGTON — Rick San­to­rum seized the lead in the Alabama pri­mary Tues­day night and edged ahead of Mitt Rom­ney and Newt Gin­grich in Mis­sis­sippi, deeply con­ser­v­a­tive South­ern cross­roads in the strug­gle for the Repub­li­can pres­i­den­tial nomination.

Cau­cuses in Hawaii were also on the cal­en­dar in the race to pick an oppo­nent to Pres­i­dent Barack Obama this fall.

There were 107 Repub­li­can National Con­ven­tion del­e­gates at stake, 47 in Alabama, 37 in Mis­sis­sippi, 17 in Hawaii and six more in cau­cuses in Amer­i­can Samoa.

Returns from 38 per­cent of Mississippi’s precincts showed San­to­rum with 33 per­cent and Gin­grich and Rom­ney tied with 31 percent.

The first 14 per­cent of Alabama’s precincts also favored San­to­rum, who was pulling 34 per­cent of the vote. Gin­grich had 29 per­cent and Rom­ney 28 percent.

Each of the three lead­ing con­tenders faced a dif­fer­ent chal­lenge in Alabama and Mis­sis­sippi, where heavy tele­vi­sion adver­tis­ing was evi­dence of the states’ unac­cus­tomed sig­nif­i­cance deep in the nom­i­nat­ing campaign.

Gin­grich strug­gled for polit­i­cal sur­vival, Rom­ney sought a strong show­ing to silence his crit­ics and San­to­rum hoped to emerge at last as the chief con­ser­v­a­tive rival to the front-runner.

Rep. Ron Paul, the fourth con­tender, made lit­tle effort in the states on the day’s ballot.

Evan­gel­i­cals played an out­sized role in both pri­mary states, under­scor­ing the chal­lenge to Rom­ney. In Mis­sis­sippi and Alabama, roughly four in five vot­ers sur­veyed as they left their polling places said they were born again or evangelical.

Those vot­ers have been reluc­tant to rally to Romney’s side in the pri­maries and cau­cuses to date. He won 35 per­cent of their votes in Mis­sis­sippi, and 27 per­cent in Alabama, the polling day sur­veys indi­cated. His best pre­vi­ous show­ing in a heav­ily con­tested pri­mary this year was 38 per­cent in Florida.

More broadly, the exit polls showed an elec­torate that is con­ser­v­a­tive, deter­minedly Repub­li­can and pro­foundly unhappy about the government.

In Mis­sis­sippi, more than eight in 10 vot­ers said they were dis­sat­is­fied or angry with the fed­eral gov­ern­ment, while in Alabama, 80 per­cent said they would def­i­nitely vote for the Repub­li­can can­di­date against Obama next fall, no mat­ter who he is.

While Alabama and Mis­sis­sippi are among the most con­ser­v­a­tive states in the coun­try and share a long bor­der, the exit polls showed sig­nif­i­cant dif­fer­ences in the vot­ers’ reac­tion to the candidates.

In Mis­sis­sippi, Rom­ney had the sup­port of 35 per­cent of pri­mary vot­ers who earn under $50,000 a year, com­pared with 27 per­cent in Alabama. He drew the back­ing of 38 per­cent of Mis­sis­sippi pri­mary vot­ers with no col­lege edu­ca­tion, com­pared with 26 per­cent in Alabama.

Only about half of all vot­ers in each state said they work full­time for pay, and they, too, voted dif­fer­ently one state from the other.

San­to­rum out­polled Rom­ney, 38 per­cent to 23 per­cent among that group in Alabama. But Rom­ney pre­vailed in Mis­sis­sippi, 35–28.

As has been true in ear­lier pri­maries, the econ­omy was the most impor­tant issue to vot­ers, and an abil­ity to defeat Obama the most impor­tant qual­ity when it came time to pick a candidate.

The exit polls were based on inter­views with 1,552 vot­ers as they left 30 ran­domly selected polling places around Alabama, and with 1,575 Mis­sis­sippi vot­ers from 30 sites. Each sur­vey had a mar­gin of sam­pling error of plus or minus 4 per­cent­age points.

The South­ern show­down came as new polling showed a decline in Obama’s approval rat­ings — a rever­sal amid esca­lat­ing gaso­line prices and tur­bu­lence in the Mid­dle East.

The day began with Rom­ney lead­ing the del­e­gate com­pe­ti­tion by far in The Asso­ci­ated Press count, with 454 of the 1,144 needed to win the nom­i­na­tion. San­to­rum had 217, Gin­grich 107 and Paul 47.

That gave the for­mer Mass­a­chu­setts gov­er­nor more than his rivals com­bined. And while San­to­rum in par­tic­u­lar chal­lenges the math­e­mat­i­cal pro­jec­tions, Rom­ney is amass­ing del­e­gates at a rate that puts him on track to clinch con­trol of nom­i­na­tion before the con­ven­tion next summer.

Rom­ney, cam­paign­ing in Mis­souri, took excep­tion to a tele­vi­sion com­mer­cial air­ing in both South­ern states and said San­to­rum “is at the des­per­ate end of his cam­paign.” The com­mer­cial was backed by a super PAC that sup­ports the for­mer sen­a­tor, not by him.

Santorum’s camp had ear­lier issued a memo that dis­missed as fuzzy math Romney’s claim that he is on track to amass a del­e­gate major­ity. “Sim­ply put, time is on our side,” it said.

Gingrich’s aides issued a rebut­tal of their own with the polls still open in the pri­mary states. It said the pri­maries were not yet half over, and the for­mer House speaker “is well posi­tioned to win the GOP nomination.”

The large amount of tele­vi­sion adver­tis­ing was tes­ti­mony to the impor­tance the con­tenders and their allies attached to the pri­maries in both Alabama and Mississippi.

All three can­di­dates as well as super PACs sup­port­ing each of them ran tele­vi­sion com­mer­cials. As has been the case all year, Restore Our Future, which backs Rom­ney, spent more than any of the oth­ers. The group put down $1.3 mil­lion for tele­vi­sion ads in Alabama, another $900,000 in Mis­sis­sippi and more for radio on Chris­t­ian and other radio sta­tions as well as thou­sands of pieces of mail designed to help the for­mer Mass­a­chu­setts governor.

It was only in recent days that Rom­ney seemed to sense a chance in Alabama and Mis­sis­sippi, and he responded by increas­ing his tele­vi­sion ad expen­di­tures and his plans for cam­paign­ing in the states.

Born in Michi­gan and a long­time res­i­dent of Mass­a­chu­setts, he told one audi­ence the two pri­maries were “a bit of an away game for him” and drew laughs from another when he said he hoped to go hunt­ing with an Alabama friend “who can actu­ally show me which end of the rifle to shoot.”

He gen­er­ally steered away from crit­i­ciz­ing his Repub­li­can rivals and aimed his rhetoric instead at Obama, whose prospects in both states are as dim next fall as any­where in the country.

San­to­rum cam­paigned against the pres­i­dent and Rom­ney simul­ta­ne­ously as he sought the sup­port of con­ser­v­a­tives who have fueled his recent surge.

In Biloxi, Miss., on Mon­day, he ridiculed the sci­ence behind global warm­ing. “The dan­gers of car­bon diox­ide? Tell that to a plant, how dan­ger­ous car­bon diox­ide is,” he said.

Gin­grich spent part of his time push­ing back against sug­ges­tions — includ­ing from his own staff — that he might drop out if he didn’t notch a pair of South­ern vic­to­ries. His only two wins so far came in the South Car­olina pri­mary on Jan 21, and last week, when he won his polit­i­cal home state of Georgia.

Ini­tial polls showed the for­mer House speaker in a strong posi­tion in both states, but he abruptly can­celed a cam­paign trip to Kansas in advance of the state’s cau­cuses late last week to remain in the South.

He used a recorded tele­phone mes­sage from Chuck Nor­ris, the actor and Karate cham­pion, for a last-minute appeal to vot­ers in Alabama.

Posted by AP News on Mar 13 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.