Santorum takes Kansas in a rout, Romney strong in Wyoming

Rick Santorum's strong win in the Kansas caucuses Saturday will give him most of the delegates there. Now it's on to primary elections in Alabama and Mississippi next Tuesday.

|
Rogelio V. Solis/AP
Republican presidential candidate former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum salutes supporters at the Mississippi Agriculture and Forestry Museum in Jackson, Miss. Santorum has strong support among many conservative Christians in the state which his campaign hopes results in winning the Mississippi primary, on Tuesday, March 13.

Rick Santorum won the Kansas caucuses in a rout on Saturday and Republican presidential front-runner Mitt Romney showed strength in Wyoming, a weekend prelude to suddenly pivotal Southern showdowns in the week ahead.

"Things have an amazing way of working out," Santorum told supporters in Missouri, where he traced his campaign through a series of highs and lows. He called his showing in Kansas a "comfortable win" that would give him the vast majority of the 40 delegates at stake.

Returns from 89 percent of the state's precincts showed Santorum with 51 percent support, far outpacing Romney, who had 21 percent. Newt Gingrich had 14 percent and Ron Paul trailed with 13 percent.

Santorum picked up at least 32 of the state's 40 delegates at stake, cutting slightly into Romney's overwhelming advantage.

The Monitor's Weekly News Quiz for March 3-9, 2012

Santorum's triumph, coupled with Romney's early advantage in Wyoming, came as the candidates pointed toward Tuesday's primaries in Alabama and Mississippi that loom as unexpectedly important in the race to pick an opponent to President Barack Obama in the fall. Polls show a close race in both states, particularly Alabama, and Romney, Gingrich, and Santorum all added to their television advertising overnight for the race's final days.

Romney, the front-runner by far in the delegate competition, padded his lead overnight when he won all nine delegates on the island of Guam and then again in the Northern Mariana Islands.

Romney had 440 delegates in the AP's count, more than all his rivals combined. Santorum had 213, while Gingrich had 107 and Paul had 46. A candidate must win 1,144 to clinch the Republican presidential nomination at the national convention in Tampa next August.

In Wyoming, where some counties caucused earlier in the week, Romney had five of the 12 delegates at stake, Santorum had two, Paul had one, and one was uncommitted. Three more remained to be determined in party meetings on the day's calendar.

Romney did not campaign in Kansas, leaving the field to Santorum and Paul.

Gingrich cancelled a scheduled trip to the state late in the week to concentrate on the two Southern primaries on Tuesday.

In sparsely populated Wyoming, there were 15 county conventions during the day to pick six convention delegates.

Kansas drew more attention from the White House hopefuls, but not much more, given its position midway between Super Tuesday and potentially pivotal primaries next Tuesday in Mississippi and Alabama.

Paul and Santorum both campaigned in the state on Friday, and Gov. Sam Brownback appeared with each, without making an endorsement.

In Topeka, Paul told an audience of about 500 that Kansas should be a "fertile field" for his libertarian-leaning views but declined to say how many delegates he hoped to gain.

Santorum, who hopes to drive Gingrich from the race in the coming week, lashed out at Obama and Romney simultaneously in remarks in the Kansas capital city.

"We already have one president who doesn't tell the truth to the American people. We don't need another," he said.

The former Pennsylvania senator told reporters he was confident "that we can win Kansas on Saturday and come into Alabama and Mississippi, and this race should come down to two people."

An aide to Gingrich said earlier in the week that the former House speaker must win both Southern primaries to justify continuing in the campaign.

But Gingrich strongly suggested otherwise on Friday as polls showed a tight three-way contest in Alabama.

"I think there's a fair chance we'll win," he told The Associated Press about the contests in Alabama and Mississippi. "But I just want to set this to rest once and for all. We're going to Tampa."

Romney had no campaign appearances Saturday. The former Massachusetts governor won six of 10 Super Tuesday states earlier in the week, and hopes for a Southern breakthrough in Alabama on Tuesday after earlier losing South Carolina and Georgia to Gingrich.

Associated Press reporters Stephen Ohlemacher in Washington, Thomas Beaumont in Alabama and Phil Elliott, John Hanna and John Milburn in Kansas contributed to this report.

The Monitor's Weekly News Quiz for March 3-9, 2012

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to Santorum takes Kansas in a rout, Romney strong in Wyoming
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Latest-News-Wires/2012/0310/Santorum-takes-Kansas-in-a-rout-Romney-strong-in-Wyoming
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe