squarely on alabama and mississippi. those two states holding primaries on tuesday, four candidates will be looking to hit political pay dirt. steve is live in washington with more. let s take a look at rick santorum. what is he saying about his chances this week? reporter: all the candidates are hoping they will win both states. rick santorum is best positioned in alabama where he just one point behind newt gingrich in the latest poll but he is way behind in the delegate race. he was asked about claims by romney supporters that romney political director there is no way santorum can get the delegate total he needs to win the nomination. they cannot make the case that they are the best person to beat barack obama on issues so they are resorting to fuzzy math. there are lots of uncommitted delegates.
competitive with romney and santorum knows that. his campaign knows that. they certainly wish gingrich would get out of the way. but the race is entering a stage where the candidates aren t necessarily behaving rationally. there s a lot of reason to believe none of these candidates can overcome romney in the delegate race. fact they re staying in in the first place means they re not being driven by the mathematics of decision. if romney were to win one of the southern states on tuesday, does that mean the race is over. it doesn t, alex. i would think the odds on favorite is that he will win one of the states on tuesday. you ll see santorum continue to fight on. there are a couple big battlegrounds coming up that will determine how long this race will go. illinois is coming up next week. molly, really quick, the article you wrote about the southern discomfort people have with mitt romney.
hear in the coming days. you have got to get to 1,144 for the delegate race. we are going from 183 with which for mitt romney in his column. so this will be a significant moment. many would expect unless it gets spread out evenly. we ll get to some kind of resolution. bill: ohio will get a lot of attention, and so will georgia. gingrich put a lot of his focus on winning that state. santorum telling voters the government has to stop taking your money and giving it to other people. they are taking wealth from some and redistributing. saying everybody has to be equal, otherwise it s not fair. bill: as you can guess, santorum s campaign saying he s
but they are less nervous today, and looking forward to super tuesday. it will not be an easy road for romney. there are states with big evangelical populations, georgia, tennessee, oklahoma, alaska, tough states for mitt romney. states where santorum and gingrich may well do well, and i think a lot of the focus is going to be on ohio. if mitt romney can now repeat what he did in michigan and win ohio without the home state advantage of michigan, he will be able to start making the argument that he should on his way to the nomination. if he loses ohio to santorum, a lot of questions will be coming back to haunt him again. can t santorum make the argument that they political the delegates because romney had an advantage in congressional districts in the detroit area where they did not have as many delegates. so santorum has divided the delegates, and it s a delegate race now. can and will make the arg
four, newt gingrich has one, ul hasn t won a single event. but let look at the all-important delegate race, 2,286 delegates available and a candidate needs 1,144 to win. romney has 126, rick santorum, 27, and ron paul despite not winning a single primary or caucus has 11. how is that possible? because delegates aren t always awarded immediately and when they are they are often rewarded proporti proportionally, south carolina gave gingrich 23 of its 29 delegates. there are four races left that are 100% winner take all, that s it is, for the total of 123 delegates available so it s still a long way to go to the magic number of 1,144. the biggest haul comes next week on super tuesday, 424 delegates at stake. and as you can see, there s some big ones. it s going to be fascinating, for instance, you watch in ohio where you have to do it by