saying bring it on. senator rand paul refusing a pat-down at an airport security checkpoint after setting off an alarm on a body scanner. he s joining us live this hour. he ll tell us what happened. also, a key u.s. supreme court ruling on electronic surveillance. the justices agree that police need a warrant to plant a gps device on a suspect s car but they don t agree on why. i m wolf blitzer and you re in the situation room. what a day in politics. mitt romney is going all out as he goes after newt gingrich with a series of very bitter attacks. the new national poll out today may show why. the two rivals are in a statistical tie. the gallup daily tracking poll shows romney at 29% nationwide, down nine points in just over a week. gingrich is at 28%, double his strength in the last poll a week ago. it s a dead heat, just a week and change before the florida primary. let s bring in cnn jim acosta. he s in tampa and watching the battle for florida. it shouldn t be.
work. thank you so much. facebook.com/carolcnn if you d like to continue the conversation. let s continue the cnn newsroom with randi kaye. hello, it s 1:00. two short days before the make or break south carolina primary. one gop hopeful is out. governor rick perry who dominated the field so briefly last summer called it a race. good morning, i have come to the conclusion that there is no more viable path for me in this campaign. therefore, today i m suspending my campaign and endorsing newt gingrich for president of the united states. our latest polls shows gingrich gaining on romney and perry stuck in fifth with single digits. santorum is running third but today he s officially the winner of the iowa caucuses. 16 days ago, you ll recall romney was on top with eight votes but the final results show santorum actually won by a total of 34 votes. it s basically a toss-up because eight votes are still missing. four republican candidates will meet tonight and wolf blitz
buildings sustaining significant damage. that includes one of the city s main hospitals. the national guard on patrol with a state of emergency in effect. andres cue teams they keep searching today, this afternoon, all through the day for survivors. joplin, missouri, the latest victim of a volatile wave of turbulent springtime weather. brian todd in the thick of it. reporter: drew, rescue teams are combing through grid by grid, house by house in this city. the houses that are left are severely damaged, but frankly in this part of the city not many houses are left. you mentioned about 1/3 of the houses in this downtown area were severely damaged. by that you can take to mean flattened. behind me you can see the wreckage of some of them that is left. now the weather is complicating things as these teams go through the grids of this city on foot mostly and pick through this. the lightning has been rolling in. thunder, rain, all day long. it has made their job, much, much diffi