Rick Santorum won the caucuses in Colorado and Minnesota on Tuesday night, as well as a non-binding primary in Missouri. He spoke to supporters at a rally in St. Charles, Mo., before the results of the Colorado caucuses were final.
"I don't stand here to claim to be the conservative alternative to Mitt Romney," Santorum said. "I stand here to be the conservative alternative to Barack Obama."
Watch the full speech:
Read More »Mitt Romney took the stage Tuesday night at his Denver campaign headquarters before the results of that state's caucuses were announced.
Romney started the speech with small talk about the weather, but he quickly turned the speech to attacks on President Obama, as he has done with previous election night speeches.
Watch the full speech:
Ron Paul took second place in Minnesota's Republican presidential caucuses Tuesday night, pushing Mitt Romney into his first third-place finish of the 2012 campaign.
Addressing his supporters at his campaign headquarters in Golden Valley, Minn., Paul said he is pursuing a delegate-based strategy and spoke extensively about his foreign policy views.
Watch the full speech:
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Mitt Romney speaks during an election night rally in Denver. (Chris Carlson/AP)
DENVER—Hours before Rick Santorum's victories in Colorado, Missouri and Minnesota on Tuesday were official, Mitt Romney's campaign began downplaying the votes in the three states—knowing that the night likely wouldn't go as well as it hoped.
Rich Beeson, Romney's political director, noted in a memo sent to reporters that no delegates were awarded in the contests, because Colorado and Minnesota held caucuses with "non-binding preference polls." Beeson described the Missouri primary as "purely a beauty contest."
Echoing what Romney advisers traveling with the candidate have said to reporters on the trail in recent days, Beeson argued that Tuesday's primaries will have little impact on Romney's political fortunes.
"We are well on the way to victory," Beeson wrote.
But Romney's third-place finish in Minnesota is particularly embarrassing for his campaign, in part because Tim Pawlenty, the state's former governor, is one of his most high-profile surrogates. And the losses in Colorado and Missouri--a 30-point rout--put a wrench in Romney's efforts to portray himself as the inevitable Republican nominee.
Speaking to reporters Monday night, a senior Romney aide acknowledged the campaign could have spent more time and money in Minnesota, but said it didn't want to be "greedy" in investing in states that don't offer large numbers of delegates.
"You have to play where the delegates are," the aide, who declined to be named discussing strategy.
Stuart Stevens, Romney's senior strategist, dismissively compared the results in Minnesota to a "student body election." When it was pointed out that Romney won Minnesota four years ago, Stevens said it was because Romney in 2008 was the conservative alternative to McCain.
So Rick Santorum is the new Mitt Romney? "Yes, sort of," Stevens said.
The Romney campaign is focusing its efforts on Arizona and Michigan--two contests it considers pivotal to Romney's political fortunes and that will award a collective 59 delegates on Feb. 28—as well as Super Tuesday on Mar. 6, when 10 states will vote.
Romney's campaign aides have privately acknowledged that some of the Super Tuesday contests—particularly in states like Oklahoma, Georgia and Tennessee—could prove favorable to Santorum or Newt Gingrich, thus extending the primary season even longer.
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Rick Santorum (Jeff Roberson/AP)
No delegates were at stake on Tuesday night, but Rick Santorum still scored three important--and surprisingly large--victories in the race for the Republican presidential nomination by winning caucuses in Colorado and Minnesota and a primary in Missouri.
"Conservatism is alive and well in Missouri and Minnesota," Santorum said when he took the stage, before the Colorado results had been announced, at his victory party in St. Charles, Mo. He called his wins "a victory for the voices of our party, conservatives and tea party people, who are out there every day in the vineyards."
"I don't stand here to claim to be the conservative alternative to Mitt Romney," Santorum went on to say. "I stand here to be the conservative alternative to Barack Obama."
Romney, who had been discussed as the Republican Party's inevitable nominee after wins in Florida and Nevada last week, had his worst night of the 2012 presidential campaign.
For the first time, there was a contest where Romney did not finish in first or second place. In Minnesota, Romney fell to third, behind Ron Paul. With 94 percent of the precincts reporting in Minnesota, Santorum led with 45 percent of the vote, followed by Paul with 27 percent, Romney with 17 percent and Newt Gingrich with 11 percent.
Romney finished second in Missouri, but with only 25 percent of the vote--30 percentage points behind Santorum's 55 percent landslide.
Voters in eight states have now made their preferences known in the Republican presidential campaign, and Santorum has won four of those contests: Iowa, Colorado, Minnesota, and Missouri. Romney, who still leads in the delegate race, has won three: New Hampshire, Florida and Nevada. Gingrich has won one, South Carolina.
In Colorado, Santorum scored 40 percent of the vote, followed by Romney with 35 percent, Gingrich with 13 percent and Paul with 12 percent.
In a swipe at Romney's remarks last week about his concern for the middle class over the rich and the poor, Santorum said in his victory speech, "I care about the very rich and the very poor. I care about 100 percent of America."
It was the first multi-state election night of the 2012 campaign. Colorado and Minnesota, which held caucuses, selected delegates to attend state conventions in the spring--the same process used in Iowa's first-in-the-nation caucuses.
Missouri, where Newt Gingrich was not able to secure a spot on the ballot, was an entirely different story, and a messier one. By state law, Missouri must hold its primary on a particular date in February. But this year, the national Republican Party mandated that--with the exception of four states that were allowed to vote in February--all others must hold their election in March or later. The Missouri legislature was not able to pass a law changing the primary date, so the state held the election anyway. But the primary is non-binding--meaningless in terms of delegate selection. There will be a Missouri caucus in April to determine who gets the state's delegates to the Republican national convention in August.
Despite the zero delegates that will be awarded, Santorum will glean something from his victories. When Mitt Romney ran for president in 2008, he won in both Colorado and Minnesota; his performance Tuesday is certain to be compared to the results from four years ago.
Yet even with two losses on Tuesday, Romney is having a much better year in 2012 than he had in 2008: It was four years ago Tuesday that Romney dropped his bid for the presidency.
Read More »The Ticket is the Yahoo! News politics blog chronicling politics, elections and absurdity.
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