Historically, March 7 isn’t the biggest, most crucial Super Tuesday — four years ago, it was a battle for 24 states. This year, it has come down to ten — Alaska, Georgia, Idaho, Massachusetts, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Virginia and Wyoming. Victories in these 10 states will be crucial to securing the 1,144 delegates necessary to win the nomination. Super Tuesday might have featured 10 states, but in the end, it all came down to Ohio. In one of the closest primary races since Iowa in January, Romney again edged Santorum out with 38 percent of the vote, narrowly besting Santorum’s 37 percent. This, coupled with Romney’s clear victories in the more predictable states of Virgina, Vermont, Massachusetts and Idaho, essentially solidifies Romney’s status, as front runner of the Republican nomination with a total of 415 delegates.
Still, this isn’t exactly the knock out punch for Santorum. He picked up important victories in Tennessee, Oklahoma and North Dakota and provided a real nail biter of a race for Romney in Ohio, coming to a total of 187 delegates. These crucial wins (even without the big prize of the night, Iowa) are enough to poke holes in Romney’s aura of invulnerability and never-ending wealth. After all, if a social conservative so far right that he is literally isolating female voters can still be a serious contender for Romney, clearly something is wrong with his campaign. In other news, Newt Gingrich is running in his very own race, untainted by anything as bothersome as an opponent. Therefore, Georgia was a big win for Newt Gingrich. It was actually his only win. But if he had failed to snag his crucial home state on Tuesday, his presidential hopes would effectively be over. Gingrich’s campaign is revived for now — but only just.
Early predictions about a possible Ron Paul victory in Alaska — which would have marked his very first in these primaries — fell through, as Paul failed through to pick up even a single state, keeping his delegate count steady at a low 47. Right now, Romney seems to be the only candidate of the four remaining with actual chances of securing the nomination. In the coming month, large swaths of the Republican Party will slowly begin to accept the inevitability of Romney’s election, even if the acceptance stems from a desperate need to just secure a nominee. The longer the nominations draw on and prod holes in the Romney, the frontrunner, the slimmer the chances the Republicans have to beat Obama.
Maybe that’s for the best.
