Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney attends a Super Tuesday Republican gathering in Boston, Mass. (AFP/Getty Images)
STEUBENVILLE, Ohio – Mitt Romney yesterday eked out a narrow victory in the blue-collar battleground state of Ohio, claiming that big prize on Super Tuesday but winning it ugly.
Trading blows with Romney, Rick Santorum managed to beat back a top-dollar attack campaign to grab key victories in Tennessee and Oklahoma.
Those wins, coupled with his close second-place finish in Ohio, bolstered the case that Santorum is still a viable alternative for the Republican presidential nomination.
Santorum also won the North Dakota caucus.
Romney scored his other victories in Vermont, Virginia, Idaho and his home state of Massachusetts.
PODHORETZ: DOUBT DOGGING ROMNEY
Despite massive spending by Romney in Ohio, he beat Santorum by a scant 38-37 percent. With 99 percent of the precincts counted, Romney led by a mere 12,040 votes out of 1,176,171 ballots cast.
In all, Romney won five of the 10 Super Tuesday states, Santorum three. Newt Gingrich won only in his home state of Georgia.
The mixed outcomes yesterday guarantee the tooth-and-nail battle between Santorum and Mitt Romney will continue.
Romney remained the front-runner and extended his lead in delegates.
But Santorum’s wins — especially in Tennessee, a delegate-rich state where Romney spent big to knock out Santorum — underscored Romney’s failure to seal the deal with conservative and blue-collar voters.
In Virginia, Romney and Ron Paul were the only candidates on the ballot, because Santorum and Gingrich failed to get enough signatures to qualify.
“We’re going to win a couple gold medals and a whole [bunch] of silver medals,” Santorum declared to about 500 supporters in the gym at Steubenville HS in northeast Ohio, before the race there was called for Romney.
The former US senator from Pennsylvania reminded the crowd that all of his wins, including the four before Super Tuesday, were in states where he was dramatically outspent.
“In every case, we overcame the odds,” he boasted.
He wasn’t the only candidate to keep his campaign alive past Super Tuesday.
Gingrich vowed to press on after winning his home state, and continued to tear into the “establishment” forces he accused of trying to take him down.
“We basically put people power up against money power,” he said. “It’s one thing to have lots of money, it’s another thing to lie with the money,” he said, in a swipe at Romney.
Before news of his win in Ohio, Romney celebrated his earlier victories with a speech to supporters in Massachusetts, where was once governor and where he scored a lopsided win.
“I’m not gonna let you down. I’m gonna get this nomination,” he said.
“We’re counting up the delegates for the convention, and it looks good and we’re counting down the days until November, and that looks even better,” Romney said, to cheers of “All the way!”
He congratulated his opponents, saying: “Thanks, you guys — nice races.”
Romney acknowledged the race was not over.
“Tomorrow we wake up and we start again,” he said.
If Santorum thought he got roughed up with attack ads for Super Tuesday, wait until he sees the beatdown that starts this morning.
A super PAC backing Romney has ponied up more than $1.2 million for attack ads in Alabama and Mississippi, which hold primaries next Tuesday.
The ads will accuse Santorum of being inexperienced compared to Romney’s record as a successful businessman and governor, said GOP sources.
The same super PAC, Restore Our Future, also has sent out mailers in Alabama blasting Santorum for teaming up then-Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton to push for restoring voting rights to felons.
“Putting his interests first, Rick Santorum joined Hillary Clinton and voted to allow convicted felons to vote,” it reads. “Rick Santorum is a D.C. insider who’s out of touch on issues that are important to us. On March 13, say NO! to Rick Santorum.”
“Romney is going to keep being negative. That’s what he does,” said Santorum spokesman Hogan Gidley.
Additional reporting by Geoff Earle and Gerry Shields