What if santorum wins illinois

With Romney looking like the eventual nominee, US networks and other media organisations have already begun to scale back their coverage. There is speculation that the race might not be settled by the summer and that the battle will continue into the convention. Even if that happened Romney would have by far the largest bloc and it is hard to envisage Santorum at that point being able to present himself as a viable alternative. Romney won heavily in Chicago and its densely populated suburbs, while Santorum drew his support from the more conservative cities, towns and rural areas to the south.

The exit polls showed the main issue was the economy on which Romney has been campaigning almost exclusively while Santorum, though he too campaigns on the economy, adds constitutional and cultural issues. Santorum's remark on Monday that he did not care about unemployment possibly came too late to have a big impact on the election. A bigger mistake was Santorum devoting two days to campaigning last week in Puerto Rico where he lost badly, time that would have been better devoted to Illinois.

Santorum suffered too from lack of cash. The Campaign Media Analysis Group estimated that Romney and the super political action committee backing him outspent Santorum and his Super Pac by a staggering on advertising. Many voters admitted they had been influenced by the ads but also said that an important consideration was electability, the best candidate to beat Obama, and Romney topped Santorum.

According to Romney, Obama's "heavy hand" has cast a pall of uncertainty over the economy, preventing entrepreneurs from investing or starting small businesses. Inventors such as Thomas Edison, the Wright brothers and Steve Jobs would have never have succeeded in the current economy, Romney claimed. Santorum later mocked Romney for promoting "freedom" while also having passed a health insurance mandate in Massachusetts.

They also challenged Romney's repeated claim that the regulatory climate is slowing economic production, with Princeton economics professor Cecilia Rouse -- a former member of the president's Council of Economic Advisers -- saying there was "not actually any evidence that regulatory burden actually has a meaningful impact on employment or the economy now. On Sunday, Romney framed his win in Puerto Rico as indicative of the territory's desire for a candidate that "most represents their feelings.

That's how we're going to win, and we're going to get Latino voters to help us out. Romney had entered the contest in Puerto Rico as the favorite.

He was largely backed by the island government's political establishment, including Gov. Luis Fortuno, who campaigned with Romney last week. Santorum created a small political firestorm on the island in the days leading up to the primary when he said English should be the principal language in Puerto Rico before it could gain statehood.

Puerto Rico will vote on a statehood referendum in November. After arriving in Puerto Rico on Friday, Romney said he would have "no preconditions" on language for Puerto Rico to gain statehood, though during a CNN debate in January he said English should be the nation's official language.

This commercial, along with other positions Mitt took during the campaign has generated massive antipathy to Romney in the Hispanic community. Santorum is now highly likely in a general election to attract a significantly larger vote from the Hispanic community than Romney could. The anti-Sotomayor commercial may well be the worst blunder of the Romney campaign to date. Justice Sotomayor is a revered person in the Hispanic community. When she was nominated by President Obama to the U. Supreme Court in , then-candidate for New Jersey governor Chris Christie had the good political judgement to support her nomination.

Romney partisans will continue to assert that Mitt is the more electable candidate. Present polls show Mitt only doing slightly better than Rick against Obama. Given all this, I still believe that if Romney wins in Illinois on Tuesday, he remains the favorite to win the GOP presidential nomination. If Santorum prevails in the Land of Lincoln, however, he will shortly thereafter be perceived as the new favorite in the race. The Man from Butler will truly have become the Cinderella Man.

Alan J. Virgin Islands, and eight federally recognized Indian nations. He currently serves on the political science faculty of Monmouth University. We get it: you like to have control of your own internet experience. But advertising revenue helps support our journalism. To read our full stories, please turn off your ad blocker. We'd really appreciate it.