Romney grinds out a mixed victory

What happened

The Republican presidential race will probably drag on for months, after Mitt Romney failed this week to score a knockout victory over his rivals in the “Super Tuesday” primaries and caucuses. Romney won a majority of delegates and six of the 10 contests, with easy wins in Virginia, Massachusetts, Vermont, Alaska, and Idaho. But in the key battleground state of Ohio, Romney eked out a 1-point margin. That narrow win, along with his poor showing in Southern states, kept Rick Santorum’s hopes alive. Santorum won comfortably in Oklahoma, North Dakota, and Tennessee, while Newt Gingrich took his home state of Georgia. Romney has now built a significant lead in the delegate count, with 415 delegates to Santorum’s 176, with another 105 pledged to Gingrich and 47 to Ron Paul. “We’re counting up the delegates for the convention, and it looks good,” Romney said. “I’m prepared to fight all the way to become the nominee.”

Analysts said Santorum and Gingrich have virtually no path to winning the nomination, but unless one or both drop out, Romney may not have the necessary 1,144 total delegates until May or June. Exit polls showed that many Republicans still have serious reservations about Romney and the entire field. In Ohio, Romney lost “very conservative” voters to Santorum by 18 points and evangelicals by 17 points. Voter turnout in many of the primary states dropped significantly, indicating a lack of enthusiasm. There were approximately 225,000 fewer voters casting ballots in Virginia than in 2008’s GOP primary, for example, and 60,000 fewer voters in Oklahoma.

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What the editorials said

It’s been a wild and unpredictable ride, said USA Today. But in the “grueling slog” that’s still ahead, the math is in Romney’s favor, despite all the focus on momentum and symbolic victories. Romney now has more delegates than his three rivals combined. The “stragglers” should think about dropping out, said the Boston Herald. The longer this race goes on, the more it hurts the party. Polls show that four out of 10 voters say their views of Republicans have worsened during the primaries. The party should coalesce around a single candidate, and focus on beating Obama.

Voters pick the nominee, said The Wall Street Journal, not “Republican pooh-bahs”—and Super Tuesday’s split decision showed they haven’t yet made up their minds. Santorum is drawing strong support from Tea Partiers, social conservatives, and white, working-class voters. This race won’t end until Romney convinces the GOP’s “populist precinct” that he deserves their support.

What the columnists said

Mitt Romney may have won Super Tuesday, said John Fund in NationalReview.com, but beneath the victories are “real danger signals.” Romney scraped to victory in Ohio having outspent Santorum by over 5 to 1, and lost Oklahoma despite an endorsement by U.S. Sen. Tom Coburn, “the state’s most popular politician.” When you consider that it was Romney’s best chance to “restore his supposed invincibility,” said Joan Walsh in Salon​.com, “Super Tuesday was arguably his worst night yet.” The real winner: President Obama.

How is winning six out of 10 contests a bad night? said Jennifer Rubin in WashingtonPost.com. The media has set a curiously high bar for Romney, even though he now has a commanding lead in delegates, and has proved his strength in the swing states of Michigan and Ohio. Sure, he didn’t win in the South—but in a general election, the GOP could “nominate a can of juice” and still win there. The same holds true of “slam-dunk” red states like North Dakota and Oklahoma.

The Republican race is now beginning to look like the movie Groundhog Day, said Molly Ball in TheAtlantic.com. Every time Romney moves ahead, voters rebel and “reset the clock to zero.” Hear that sound? said William Kristol in WeeklyStandard.com. It’s “the gnashing of thousands of GOP power brokers’ teeth.” Santorum is showing surprising strength, and in coming weeks will “more than hold his own” in Southern states like Mississippi, Alabama, and Louisiana, before the Northeast swings the pendulum back to Romney on April 24. Sorry guys, but “it won’t be over for a while.”