Romney, a former Massachusetts governor, and former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum are locked in a tight battle for the Midwestern industrial state of Ohio, in Tuesday’s key contest. Newt Gingrich, the former speaker of the House of Representatives, hopes that a big win in Georgia, which he helped to represent in Congress for two decades, will give new life to his struggling campaign.
With 419 delegates at stake, states holding contests on so-called “Super Tuesday” offer about a third of the 1,144 delegates required to clinch the Republican nomination at the party’s national convention in late August in Tampa, Florida.
Romney already has a big lead in the number of delegates accumulated in primaries and caucuses held so far. Super Tuesday could be the multi-millionaire’s best chance yet to finally establish himself as the inevitable nominee.
So far, Romney leads with 203 delegates from previous contests, according to Associated Press projections. Santorum has 92, Gingrich has 33 and Paul, 25.
Romney projected confidence. “I hope that I get the support of people here in Ohio tomorrow, and in other states across the country. I believe if I do, I’ll get the nomination,” he said.
Romney, who turned back Santorum in a close contest in Michigan last week, hoped to continue his winning trend, having won four consecutive contests including Saturday’s Washington state caucuses.
Having fallen behind Santorum in Ohio last month, Romney has closed the gap in recent days, with polls showing the race a dead heat on the eve of the primary. It’s a familiar trend for Romney, whose superior fundraising and turnout operation have helped him turn deficits in Florida and Michigan into victories.
Romney, a former private equity firm executive, tried to keep his campaign’s focus on the economy and away from divisive social issues in a final sprint across Ohio.
“Other people in this race have debated about the economy, they’ve read about the economy, they’ve talked about it in subcommittee hearings,” Romney said of his opponents in a speech at a guardrail factory in the industrial city of Canton. “But I’ve actually been in it. I’ve worked in business and I understand what it takes to get a business successful and to thrive.”
Romney is expected to do well in Massachusetts, where he served a four-year term as governor, and Vermont, another northeastern state. He is also poised to win the Virginia primary where Santorum and Gingrich did not collect enough signatures to qualify for the ballot.
Romney’s broad, well-disciplined organization all but assures he’ll collect more delegates than his opponents on Tuesday. Santorum cannot win 18 of Ohio’s 66 delegates because he failed to qualify his delegate slates in several congressional districts.
Libertarian-leaning Rep. Ron Paul of Texas was focusing on Tuesday’s caucuses in the smaller states of Alaska, Idaho and North Dakota where he hopes to benefit from strong turnout by enthusiastic supporters drawn to his small government, low tax policies.
Besides Ohio, Santorum is competing most aggressively in primaries in Oklahoma and Tennessee, where the Republican electorate’s conservative hue matches the strict social conservative’s appeal to religious voters. He was leading narrowly in Tennessee, where polls showed Gingrich and Romney closing.
Despite signs that Gingrich planned to remain in the race, Santorum urged voters in Ohio to see it as increasingly a two-candidate fight.
“I’m excited that we’re here with the opportunity of winning states on Super Tuesday ... and, hopefully, eventually, having the opportunity to go one on one at the end of this thing and see where this race really falls out,” Santorum told supporters in Miamisville, Ohio. “And when we do, we’ll win.”
At a rally at Dayton Christian School, Santorum said that no matter how much Romney spends on his campaign, “conservatives will not trust him, will not rally around him this primary season.” He has cited Romney’s past support for abortion rights and a health care reform plan enacted in Massachusetts that Obama used as a model in crafting his national program that Republicans loathe.
Gingrich has won only one state — the Jan. 21 South Carolina primary — and was projected to win only Georgia on Tuesday. He began advertising in Tennessee on Monday, with a TV ad promising to reduce the rising cost of gasoline.
Gingrich linked oil, Iran and war in remarks at a rally in Alcoa, Tennessee. “We should indicate calmly and decisively that any threat to close the Straits of Hormuz would be considered an act of war and we will eliminate the government of Iran,” he said. About 20 percent of the world’s oil exports pass through the Straits of Hormuz in the Middle East.
Gingrich planned to campaign Tuesday in Alabama, which holds its primary on March 13, even before the voting was finished in Georgia. Ads for Gingrich were expected to begin airing in Alabama and Mississippi, which holds its primary on the same day.
Gingrich tried to cast a likely win in Georgia as a sign of momentum, comparing it to Romney’s narrow win in his native Michigan over Santorum last week.
“It looks now like in Georgia we will carry the state by four or five times the margin that Romney had Michigan,” Gingrich told supporters Monday. “We have a chance to win a stunning victory in Tennessee.”
Obama, meanwhile, is seeing his poll numbers rise in tandem with signs that the struggling US economy may finally be on a course toward sustained recovery. A new NBC-Wall Street Journal poll released Monday shows him defeating all of the Republican candidates in hypothetical head-to-head matchups.
He also has been helped considerably by the Republicans having been driven badly off their economic message by a detour into a rancorous and nasty debate over whether religious-affiliated institutions such as hospitals and universities — not churches — should be required to offer health insurance coverage for contraceptives.
And the issue seemed certain to deepen the concerns of many women voters, who — along with the broad spectrum of all independents — will likely determine the ultimate outcome in the November election. Polls show women are already turning back to Obama.
Obama picked Tuesday to hold his first news conference of the year, a chance to steal a bit of thunder from the Republicans on their big day and defend a record of economic stewardship that is under daily assault in the Republican campaign.
