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NATCHITOCHES, La., March 6, 2012—Super Tuesday coverage will begin at 7:30pm (Eastern) tonight. 410 GOP delegates are at stake, almost 18 percent of the total.
Mitt Romney leads the GOP pack, with 1,831,529 votes and 196 delegates to Rick Santorum’s 1,083,276 votes and 78 delegates. Ron Paul and Newt Gingrich trail with 56 and 51 delegates respectively.
Romney's position as front-runner is unlikely to change this week, but this campaign season has been full of surprises. The states to watch are Ohio, which has 66 delegates and is being heavily campaigned in by Romney and Santorum, and Georgia, where Gingrich hopes a large victory will help re-energize his campaign and earn him the lion’s share of 76 delegates.
Virginia has 46 delegates up for grabs. It will be interesting as a head-to-head matchup between Romney and Paul; Gingrich and Santorum didn’t make it onto the ballot. 33 of Virginia’s delegates are awarded by Congressional district, and each district is winner-take-all. Thus even if Romney wins the state (he’s a heavy favorite), Paul could pick up a good number of delegates.
Ohio awards 48 delegates by Congressional district, again winner-take-all, so Santorum’s recent poll strength there probably won’t translate into a preponderance of delegates. The challenge is made worse by the fact that Santorum can’t win delegates in three districts because he didn’t make it onto the district-specific part of the ballot.
Both Gingrich and Santorum hope that conservative Tennessee, with 55 delegates, will be unfriendly territory for Romney. Gingrich is polling third there, but a stronger than expected showing, combined with his expected win in Georgia, would be a boost for his campaign.
Romney is favored to win handily in Massachusetts, Vermont and Idaho, with a combined 133 delegates. None of those states is winner-take-all, though, so his totals there will be less than the maximum possible. Idaho has an open caucus and a strong libertarian bent, so Paul has hopes of doing well there.
In a more typical primary season, the field might be expected to shrink to just two by the end of the week. This isn't a typical primary season, though, and no matter how the vote turns out, all four candidates will soldier on. Every one of them has reasonable hopes of picking up 50 delegates or more, and all but Romney have hopes for a brokered convention. Unless Romney delivers a knockout punch and wins the bulk of the delegates (an unlikely outcome), no one will have any reason to drop out.
Starting at 7:30, join Communities pundits Henry D’Andrea, Jim Picht, Rich Stowell, and Catherine Poe as they host a live discussion of Super Tuesday results. Your thoughts, observations and predictions will be welcome as we interpret the unfolding results.
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