After Rick Santorum’s hat trick on February 7, Mitt Romney has been on a roll, narrowly besting Ron Paul to win the Maine caucuses on February 11, with Santorum a distant third. On Tuesday, the former Massachusetts governor edged the former Senator in Michigan and beat him soundly in Arizona. A few days later, he was proclaimed the winner in the Wyoming caucuses.
Two weeks ago, Santorum led Romney by a double-digit margin in the Evergreen State, with Ron Paul a distant third:
Wedged between the Michigan/Arizona primaries and Super Tuesday the Washington state GOP caucus hasn’t received a lot of attention. At least for now it looks like it could give Rick Santorum some momentum headed into the critical March 6th contests. He leads there with 38% to 27% for Mitt Romney, 15% for Ron Paul, and 12% for Newt Gingrich.
Romney and Paul have since surged, with Romney leading Santorum by 13 points as he and the Texas Congressman battle for second place.
UPDATE: Well, if Santorum didn’t win Washington State, he needed to come close. And he did, just 500 votes behind Ron Paul’s second place finish, though, in the county count, the libertarian Congressman enjoyed a 2-to-1 margin over his Pennsylvania rivalry, winning 9 to Santorum’s 4. Romney carried 26.
Romney ran 13 points ahead of Paul, 14 ahead of Santorum. Quite a shift in just two weeks. From down by 11 to up by 14.
No question that the “establishment” support for, Romney, is taking it’s toll on the rest of the field but kudos to the other candidates who have forced Romney and the establishment to the right and with delegates at the convention, conservatives will have the chance to keep the process from being little more than a mirror image of the democrat party.
Now that he has successfully destroyed his Republican opponents with millions of dollars in attack ads, perhaps Romney can now seek to win over voters with bold policies and strong, principled leadership.
Yeah, I almost wet myself laughing over that, too.
I participated in the caucus yesterday, I live in Seattle and there were many Ron Paulistas there. They did drown out the Romney and Santorum supporters.
But fanatics are always that way.
Doesn’t matter in the long run, Romney is going to lose Washington in November. He’ll also lose Michigan and probably Nevada. And does anyone seriously believe he’ll carry his “home state” of Massachusetts?
I would have been proud of my homestate had they awarded all of their delegates to Paul. Very disappointing. There is always my other homestate Oregon.
#2 – Yes, LOL 🙂