Super Tuesday primaries lead to big win for Romney

Mitt Romney strengthened his lead in the Republican primary race last night when he won the states of Massachusetts, Vermont, Virginia and Idaho in the Super Tuesday primaries and caucuses.

Rick Santorum and Romney were neck-and-neck just below 40 percent of the vote apiece, fighting for the 66 delegates Ohio carries (of 2,286 nationwide) as of press time.

Ohio, a swing state, was expected to play a significant role in Tuesday’s results and the Republican primary race. Late Tuesday night, Romney led in urban areas near Cincinnati, Columbus and Cleveland, while Santorum led elsewhere in the state.

Romney also turned his attention away from the other Republican primary candidates and toward President Barack Obama in his speech in Boston on Tuesday night.

After thanking the other candidates for a strong run across the country, he began a concentrated effort to attack Obama’s policies in preparation for the general election.

“To the millions of Americans that have paid bills they cannot pay, I have a message for you. You have not failed. You have a president who has failed, and that is going to change,” Romney said. “For this administration, the unemployment numbers are just another annoying statistic in the way of reelection.”

Romney has been the predicted nominee for some time, but Santorum has continually challenged Romney since the Iowa caucuses.

Santorum won North Dakota, Oklahoma and Tennessee.

“This was a great night tonight. We’re going to win a few, we’re going to lose a few and we’re going to get a whole packet of silver medals,” Santorum said from Steubenville, Ohio, on Tuesday. “We went up against enormous odds. There wasn’t a single state where I spent more money than the people I was able to defeat.”

Newt Gingrich won his second state of the race with a landslide in his home state of Georgia.

He also won South Carolina at the end of January and has primarily received his support from conservative voters in southern states.

“We survived the national elites’ efforts to kill us,” Gingrich said in Atlanta. “There are a lot of bunny rabbits that run through. I am the tortoise.”

Romney and Santorum will have momentum going into the next few weeks as they vie for the 1,144 delegates necessary to win the Republican primary in August.

Wyoming and Kansas are the next states up for grabs.

Their delegations will be determined Saturday.