Santorum seeks to sideline Gingrich

A SOUTHERN sweep for presidential hopeful Rick Santorum has intensified calls for rival right-winger Newt Gingrich to give way, allowing for a united conservative push against the more moderate Republican front-runner Mitt Romney.

A brace of victories in Alabama and Mississippi saw Mr Santorum confirmed as the leading candidate to take on the “anyone but Mitt” mantle, as the contest looked set to narrow into a two-horse race.

The results on Tuesday night piled further pressure on former House Speaker Mr Gingrich to drop out in order to hand Mr Santorum a free rein to mount a conservative charge.

But despite seeing his strategy to win big in the South fail, Mr Gingrich stubbornly refused to yield. That decision, if held to, will further muddle a primary race which could go down to the line.

The latest two southern states to go to the vote were closely fought over, but eventually went to Mr Santorum.

More than a third of Republican voters in Alabama opted for Mr Santorum, with Mr Gingrich and Mr Romney trailing on 29 per cent each.

In neighbouring Mississippi it was even closer. The former Pennsylvania senator took 32.8 per cent of the vote, compared with Mr Gingrich’s 31.2 per cent and Mr Romney’s 30.6 per cent.

After emerging as winner in the two states, Mr Santorum gave a triumphant speech to supporters.

“We did it again,” he told them. “The time is now for conservatives to pull together.” However, despite losing in the south, Mr Romney triumphed in the lesser-watched Hawaii and American Samoa caucuses, with both Pacific islands also going to the polls on Tuesday. Those results, added to the proportional way in which Mississippi and Alabama distributes votes, means Mr Romney took at least 41 delegates from the night, compared with Mr Santorum’s 35.

A candidate needs to get 1,144 delegates if they are to win the nomination outright. If not, then it will be decided at Republican Party convention in which votes will be up for grabs once again.

With just shy of 500 delegates pledged at the half-way point in the primary season, Mr Romney is in danger of falling short of the total number needed.

But it remains a near-mathematical impossibility for any of his rivals to reach the mark. “Senator Santorum is at the desperate end of his campaign,” the former Massachusetts governor told CNN.

He added: “He’s far behind in the delegate count, he’s far behind in the popular-vote count. If you look at the math, it’s a very difficult road for him.”

In a retaliatory barb, Mr Santorum said: “For someone who thinks this race is inevitable, he’s spending a whole lot of money against me.”

Despite his comments on the night, Mr Romney’s disappointment with his third place finishes was evident in the low-profile he kept yesterday. He was absent from the TV screens as the 24-hour US news media digested the latest twist in the race. But the one clear loser from Tuesday’s mainland votes was Mr Gingrich.

Despite running a close second in Alabama and Mississippi, it has left his “southern strategy” in ruins. Nonetheless, Mr GAingrich vowed to plod on “towards Tampa” – the Florida site of the summer convention.