primaries. alabama and mississippi big wins for rick santorum, those are surprises. taking a look at alabama there, you can see the spread 35%, 29%, 29%. there is a battle for second place there in alabama. 84% of the expected votes in currently. as you go to mississippi you can see that it is also a win from rick santorum but a battle for second place, we can t call second or third yet. ron paul finishing fourth in both states. let s bring in our panel. steve hays and amy stod yard, and keersten powers and charles krauthammer, charles, thoughts? santorum had a big night. and there is a lukewarm accept stance speech. i think he needs to work on that. gingrich had a terrible night. i thought his speech was worse. the mocking tone, mocking
unwillingness to give up and let the millionaires roll over him met just an immense amount to calista and me. i want all of you to know, with your help, if you talk to your friends and neighbors and go back to facebook and use twitter, use email, we will continue to run a people s campaign. i believe after the primaries are over, it will be obvious that the so-called frontrunner, in fact, didn t get there and from that point on, we will be in a whole new conversation. thank you. good luck and god bless you. [ music ] . newt gingrich in alabama saying he s staying in this race.
plurality but there is no way he can win a majority. he d gotten personal on a number of occasions nchl presidential campaigns candidates like to talk about policy differences and misrepresentations of the truth or inability to be accurate. they don t like to call each other liars but make reverences about integrity and personal character. it s very clear that a big part of why newt gingrich is going stay in this lace and continue to run is to block mitt romney from winning the nomination. there is a personal tone to this. gingrich is distrustful of his honesty and believes mitt romney lacks character to be commander in chief. so that motivation alone is clearly a big part of romney s determination to keep running. he recognizes there is pressure coming from the santorum campaign to not get out of the contest. mr. santorum has been saying this sometime. it s not a direct request for
consistent of what he s gotten in other places. the most-interesting thing to me to look at going forward is whether there is a de facto pact between santorum and gingrich. if gingrich is getting out he said tonight talking about the results here tonight between santorum and me, we got two-thirds. that sounds like someone more independent, and than sit someone who is basically winning. i had communication was gingrich campaign staffers. they assure me he s staying in because he thinks he can win. we ll have communication with newt gingrich on the other side of the break and will ask about plans and about what is next. and how far he s in this race. newt gingrich right after the break.
santorum or newt gingrich to get to 1144 but it s tougher for mitt romney, isn t it? there is a long night of head of us yet. congratulations to rick santorum z begin, if you look at the exercise of delegate counts, mitt remains likely to be the nominee. and this speaker just framed a question, a main question as who is best situated to beat barack obama? we know the answer to that. you look at the recent poll, there is one republican candidate who has been no worse than tied in many way as head of barack obama in national polls. his name is mitt romney. so to answer who is best situated the answer is. mitt romney. and tonight is a step back considering the amount of money romney campaign put in