Santorum Stuns Romney with Triple-Victory

Former Senator wins in Minnesota, Missouri and Colorado, but victories have little impact on delegate count

The signs were there. Rick Santorum’s astonishing trio of victories was better than even he would have expected, but the media had underreported that he was surging in Minnesota and Missouri. The win in Colorado, however, will have come as a genuine shock.

This started on Saturday, whilst Mitt Romney was celebrating one of the most predictable victories of the primary season in Nevada. Santorum had already moved onto the next battlegrounds having realised what Newt Gingrich hadn’t: there was nothing to be gained in Vegas, except perhaps a lucky bet on Black 26.

By Monday, Gingrich could see that Santorum was going to have a “good day”. The polls were beginning to reflect this in Minnesota and Missouri, but Romney was still ahead in Colorado. Nevertheless, Mitt’s campaign was worried, and the clearest sign of Santorum’s strength was that the infamous Romney-negativity machine had trained its sights on the former Pennsylvania Senator.

However, the scale of Santorum’s eventual victory last night was completely unexpected. Vote shares of 40%, 45% and 55% in Colorado, Minnesota and Missouri respectively were very strong indeed, and with Romney coming third in Minnesota, it has turned into a very bad night for the front-runner and a very good one for the man who, before tonight, had the least number of delegates secured.

Nevertheless, you could forgive Mr Santorum’s supporters for being underwhelmed, not with the result, but with how it has actually impacted on the race. Missouri, where Santorum won biggest (and where he benefited from Gingrich's failure to make it onto the ballot in that state), doesn’t actually award any delegates on the basis of this primary. He will have to wait until March 17^th, when the State holds county caucuses, by which point the complexion of the race may have changed and he may not get the same result. The other two states have had some delegates pledged, but many still remain undistributed.

Despite now having won the most states, Santorum remains in third place, behind Romney, who is comfortably ahead in first, and just behind Newt Gingrich in second. The actual tangible gains he has made have been very slender indeed. However, what he has gained is that crucial word: “momentum”.

Certainly, he has made big gains on Newt Gingrich who, having won only one of the first eight states, cannot claim that this is a two candidate race between himself and Mr Romney. Indeed, Rick Santorum can now claim to be the leading conservative candidate in the race, and with Mr Gingrich now betting everything on a strong Super Tuesday in a month’s time, the former House Speaker will be struggling to maintain his momentum through to March 6^th.

We shall see how these results affect the national polls in a few days, but with Mr Romney the comfortable leader in those at the moment, he remains the front-runner and the man who has so far secured the most votes. However, the right-wing of the Republican Party still seem very reluctant to embrace him, or settle for Mr Gingrich. A hung convention, where no candidate has sufficient delegates, is looking like increasingly like a real possibility

The race continues to Maine’s municipal caucus, which is underway and the results of which will be announced on Saturday.