rick santorum has a brand-new surge coming after stunning victories in the deep county. newt gingrich is refusing to add up the numbers. mitt romney s cavern says this race is still a forgone conclusion. let s begin with joe johns, he s in illinois. joe? reporter: wolf, this is rosemo rosemont, illinois, outside of chicago, where newt gingrich is expected to appear shortly. there were new calls today from conservatives for gingrich to get out of the race and give rick santorum a clean shot at the republican nomination. as indecision limped closer to the halfway mark, the candidates fanned out. rick san tore, tuesday night s winner, took hi victory lap, stumping for votes in louisiana, ending up in puerto rico, but not before a parting shot at romney. people say you re being outspent and everybody is talking about the math, all the things that this race is inevitable. well, for someone who thinks this race is inevitable, he s spending a whole lot of money against me for be
voters forget worry about headlines. sglooch will the north s new leader honor that agreement? i ll ask bill richardson. he as here. i m wolf blitzer you re in the situation room. the battle lines are drawn in the deep south. upcoming primaries in alabama and mississippi next tuesday may be the last chance for mitt romney s rivals to halt his momentum. rick santorum would love to go one on one with him, but night gingrich may have a different story. joe johns is watching all of this for us. reporter: wolf, rick santorum just finishing up an event, and he s expected to head to mobile, alabama later tonight. this is a situation where he has already proven he can win in the south by winning tennessee. the fact of the matter is newt gingrich is such a strong presence here. reporter: in this speech santorum is suggesting there s a third man in the race besides mitt romney, but doesn t go much further than that. if you go out and deliver a conservative victory for us on t
we re following the breaking news this hour, a tornado outbreak that scraped parts of the midwest this morning, killing at least nine people and injuring more than 100. hardest hit, harrisburg, illinois, where at least six people died, including two children. within the last half hour, we learned the tornado was a category ef-4, with winds, get this, up to 170 miles an hour, and as wide as two football fields. in the last hour, the mayor spoke at a grief-stricken news conference. we have suffered the loss of lives. we ve suffered many injures, and millions of dollars worth of is it damage, but first and foremost the loss of lives breaks my heart today. in neighboring missouri, the governor puts the damage in the tens of millions. there s also damage in kansas and kentucky, where the national guard has been called out. let s get the latest, chad myers is watching what s going on. the heartbreaking to see it, not a whole lot of warning. what s going on now? i think the mo
arizona, you re in the situation room. this just coming in. on the eve of the new nuclear weapons showing that just how tight the race is. take a look 32% say rick san storm, but with the sampling eras that s constituentically a tie. ron paul coming in at 6%, let s go in depth right now with our chief political analyst gloria borger and depend can i washington bureau chief michael crowley. gloria, first you. arizona we all thought was supposed to be relatively easy for mitt rom in, but this a week before the primary is a horse race. nothing succeeds like success. rick santorum has had a lot of success, and we see him defining himself as the cultural conservative. as you point out, this was supposed to be an easy state for mitt romney. he could win, but there s a substantial number of mormons, he has moved way to the right and also has an organization dating back. show shows you that republican voters can to get their arrange. they were for pretty romney, but we know in mi
i m candidate crowley, and you re in the situation room. just coming in, a new snapshot capturing the big picture, a cnn lorcp poll shows support for president obama up slightly from last month 67 this new poll shows a five-point lead over romney, though still within a sampling error. the same poll shows a seven-point lead for the president over rick santorum. that is up only slightly from january. we want to bring in cnn s chief analyst gloria borger. so i look at this and think maybe a problem for mitt romney? absolutely a problem for mitt romney. as you pointed out, in january neck and neck. now president obama is up. what s mitt romney s calling card as he campaigns he electability? what do republican voters say they want in all those dpit polls we ve been taking and all those primaries? somebody who can beat president obama. he kind of loses that argument. it s early, this is good news for president obama. we should say it s february, these numbers can change. an