in ohio. and the real reason behind that is that the romney campaign did not expect the primary to go on as long as it has. so what they ve been able to do with these endorsements is get these figures, these political figures to tap into their own organizations and help bring out the vote in some of the areas. rob portman is originally from cincinnati, ohio, which was supposed to be an area that was strong for rick santorum. but with portman s help, romney was able to overperform in those regions. same thing with aaron shock in eorria, illinois. downstate, more rural region of illinois outside chicago, he s been using these people to help get out the vote. and the romney campaign following their advice, as you describe it, just down to the tee. okay, thank you so much aaron, see you again. next coming up on the campaign calendar, those primaries in washington, d.c., maryland and wisconsin, they happen april 3rd. connecticut, delaware,
54 did he goes here. they are decided by congressional districts. if there is 18 congressional districts here. the real question is how it will break down. looks at this point, bill, according to exit polls that mitt romney is going to have a good night it is 18 individual races. and when you get to the downstate, that s where you see some strength for rick santorum. so, the 54 delegates on the line will be able to break down at the end but even right now on the top line number, the percentage we can t make a call because it s too close to call according to the raw vote and exit poll data that our decision desk is looking like. bill: go to carl cammeron headquarters in illinois. i understand the governor thinks he has won in illinois. is that correct, carl? well, i talked with him earlier this afternoon, bill. he was extremely confident and said he would win here tonight. and as he has for several weeks went on to say is he going to win the nomination as well. there was a real conf
economy. he s been spending time in the sururbs, an area in which he is going to find the richest vein of voters and he was talking about the economy and the president and his opponent as economic light weights, his opponent largely in this state of course is rick santorum who out on the campaign trail responded to mitt romney s jabs are being an economic lightweight, trying to hith romney where he once lived. you really believe this country wants to elect a wall street my nans ear as president of the united states, is that the kind of experience we need? someone who is going to take and take after as he did his friends on wall street and bail them out at the expense of main street america? reporter santorum has spent time in the far western portions of the state and downstate, basically south of i80 in the state of illinois. it is believed that is where you re going to find more folks that are much more friendly to this brand of populist politics. so you see a contrast, romney wor
but we ve seen in several instances, in exit polls, where perhaps there s a bit of a backlash about all of the money. if you look at the per-vote cost that romney, santorum and gingrich have spent on each vote so far, romney is winning by more than 1.2 million votes. but he s spending a lot of money to get there. jon: it s my understanding that illinois uses kind of an unusual delegate system that other states don t have, and that also favors romney, because his delegates are people who are well known in the state. reporter: right. and they are big names, and obviously, they have their own organization in each one of the areas of the state. clearly, this sets up for mitt romney. the question is whether illinois has changed demographically and whether conservatives in the seventh part of the state, the downstate, makes a difference for santorum and it s something we ll watch. if it becomes a late night and we re not going to call
i m just saying, once they scrape these roads, we get the more sun angle that will really help things out. as far as traffic this morning for awhile interstate 81 was shut down. the good thing is, this was a dry, powdery snow, so we didn t have the tree and power lines issues. downstate, as you know, living in the tristate area around new york, new jersey and connecticut, it was wild with the wind and the heavy rain fall. we had localized flooding there. this storm pulls out, you can see on the national radar and satellite composite, this thing is spinning out. we ve got some leftover snow and rain in new england. a new storm is brewing, this is going to come out of the rockies into the plains and tomorrow we ll have another outbreak of severe weather, possibly more tornadoes, and snow in the plains. this one, though, richard will track up through the lakes and spare the east coast from any major snowstorm later in the week. but, something to watch tuesday and wednesday. yeah, mike.