USANews版 - Romney Regains Stride With Victories in 2 States |
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发帖数: 29846 | 1 By JEFF ZELENY
¶ SOUTHFIELD, Mich. — Mitt Romney fought back a vigorous challenge
from Rick Santorum in Michigan on Tuesday, narrowly carrying his native
state, and won the Arizona primary in a pair of contests that reasserted his
control over the Republican presidential race as it advances to critical
Super Tuesday contests next week.
¶ His victory over Mr. Santorum here in Michigan was far from
commanding, but it was most likely sufficient to dampen the rising clamor
from across the Republican Party about his ability to win over conservatives
and connect with voters. The tussle with Mr. Santorum highlighted ample
concerns about Mr. Romney, but his win spared his campaign from deep turmoil.
¶ “I stand ready to lead our party to victory and our nation back to
prosperity,” Mr. Romney told a jubilant crowd of supporters. “It’s a
critical time in America.”
¶ The victory by Mr. Romney in Arizona, which awarded him the state’s
entire allotment of 29 delegates, was overshadowed by the battle in Michigan
. He prevailed in the statewide popular vote by four percentage points,
relying on large margins in the counties around Detroit where he spent his
childhood, but the fight for delegates was closer.
¶ Michigan awards its 30 delegates by Congressional district, which
meant Mr. Santorum would either leave Michigan with nearly the same number
as Mr. Romney or only slightly fewer. Mr. Santorum beamed when he took the
stage before a cheering crowd in Grand Rapids and reminded his supporters of
how far he had come.
¶ “A month ago they didn’t know who we are,” Mr. Santorum said,
moments after calling Mr. Romney to concede. “They do now.”
¶ As the Republican presidential nominating fight enters its third
month, the race remains far from deciding the nominee who will challenge
President Obama. A dozen primaries and caucuses will take place over the
next week, dominated by Super Tuesday, when more than 400 delegates will be
at stake.
¶ Representative Ron Paul of Texas spoke Tuesday evening from Virginia,
a state where only he and Mr. Romney qualified for the ballot next week.
Having built an extensive network of supporters in caucus states, including
several holding contests on Super Tuesday, Mr. Paul pledged to stay in the
race, declaring that his campaign is “still winning a lot of delegates, and
that’s what counts.”
¶ Newt Gingrich, who did not actively campaign in Michigan or Arizona,
is hoping to revive his candidacy next week in Georgia and Tennessee. His
allies are airing a new “super PAC” television advertisement on his behalf
starting Wednesday, aggressively taking on Mr. Romney across several
Southern states.
¶ It was not an overstatement — at least in the view of many
Republicans — to say that Mr. Romney’s candidacy was on the line in
Michigan, far more than in the previous eight contests this year. He was
born here, and his father, George, is fondly remembered for his service as
governor nearly a half-century ago. Four years ago, Mr. Romney won the state
by nine percentage points.
¶ But after losing a string of contests to Mr. Santorum, Mr. Romney was
hardly greeted with warmth and affection here. A place that his advisers
hoped would offer an easy victory turned into a fierce battleground, with Mr
. Santorum’s popularity among social conservatives, as well as his working-
class appeal, threatening to complicate Mr. Romney’s path to the nomination.
¶ The Republican electorate here, along with elsewhere across the
country, is different from the one Mr. Romney encountered in 2008. His
candidacy is facing tests that he did not go through during his first
presidential bid.
¶ In the primaries on Tuesday, the Romney campaign relied on the same
coalition of voters who have consistently supported his candidacy during the
seesawing series of Republican primaries and caucuses. He did best among
older voters, better-educated voters and higher-income voters in Michigan
and Arizona.
¶ When Mr. Romney accepted victory, he kept his sights squarely on Mr.
Obama. He did not mention Mr. Santorum or any of his rivals as he attempted
to remind Republicans of his electability.
¶ “Our campaign is about more than just replacing a president,” Mr.
Romney said. “It’s about restoring the promise of America.”
¶ Against the backdrop of a slowly rebounding economy, the Michigan
primary provided an early test of the challenges Republicans will face when
they confront Mr. Obama in the fall. The revival of the automobile industry
played a central role in the race, particularly the 2008 government rescue
that Mr. Romney and Mr. Santorum opposed.
¶ The economy overwhelmed all other issues, according to surveys of
primary voters in both Michigan and Arizona, with Mr. Romney winning by
large margins among those who believe the issue was the most important.
Voters who were looking primarily for a candidate who can beat Mr. Obama
also gravitated to Mr. Romney, as did those who said experience was the most
important candidate quality.
¶ About 3 in 10 Michigan voters said someone in their household had
lost a job in the last three years, according to surveys of voters conducted
by Edison Research for the National Election Pool of television networks
and The Associated Press.
¶ As Mr. Romney and his family savored the victory on Tuesday evening,
his advisers braced for another challenging stretch of contests next week,
particularly in Tennessee, Georgia, Oklahoma and Ohio. His aides acknowledge
that he will struggle to all of those states.
¶ Mr. Romney, who has been beset by verbal missteps in recent weeks,
accepted a share of blame for his struggle to make the case that he is the
party’s strongest prospective nominee, but he declared, “I am who I am.”
¶ “It’s very easy to excite the base with incendiary comments,” Mr.
Romney told reporters before the polls closed. “We’ve seen throughout the
campaign that if you’re willing to say really outrageous things that are
accusatory and attacking President Obama that you’re going to jump up in
the polls.”
¶ In Michigan, nearly 4 in 10 primary voters were white Christian
evangelicals, according to the voter surveys, and about 3 in 10 were
Catholic. Mr. Santorum made aggressive appeals to both groups.
¶ Pat Tschirhart, 77, a Catholic who cast his ballot at a church in the
Detroit suburb of Novi, said he sided with Mr. Santorum on many social
issues — most passionately abortion — but had voted for Mr. Romney because
he was the best “anybody-but-Obama” candidate.
¶ Michigan does not identify voters by political party, so people who
consider themselves independents and Democrats were free to participate in
the primary. The rules created a stir, with Mr. Romney accusing Mr. Santorum
of trying to “kidnap our primary process” by urging union members and
Democrats to support Mr. Santorum, a former senator from Pennsylvania.
¶ The surveys did not suggest that more Democrats voted in the Michigan
primary this year. Interviews with voters, along with a telephone survey of
those who cast absentee ballots, found that 1 in 10 said they usually
identified as a Democrat. In 2008, 7 percent of voters in the Republican
primary thought of themselves as Democrats, and in 2000, 17 percent did.
¶ But Mr. Romney poured the full weight of his campaign into Michigan,
hoping a victory would ease the qualms conservatives are openly expressing
about his candidacy. The strategy was risky, particularly with the surging
popularity of Mr. Santorum, but he and his advisers concluded that it was
his only option.
¶Reporting was contributed by Steven Yaccino from Bloomfield Hills,
Mich.; Michael Barbaro from Livonia, Mich.; and Marjorie Connelly and
Allison Kopicki from New York. |
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