The bad part, no delegates.
(The State) — The early Missouri Republican primary election results are showing former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum as the projected winner, according to CNN and NBC News.
CNN is reporting that with 27 percent of the votes turned in, Mr. Santorum leads Mr. Romney by more than 25,000 votes, garnering 54 percent of the votes compared to 26 percent for Mr. Romney.
Texas congressman Ron Paul is currently in third place in Missouri, with 12 percent of the votes.
Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich is not on the ballot in the Missouri Republican primary election. Mr. Gingrich is currently campaigning in Ohio, which holds its Republican primary election on Super Tuesday in March.
NY Times’ Nate Silver on tonight’s delegate-free contests:
A cynic might say that tonight’s Republican contests in Minnesota, Colorado and Missouri deserve an asterisk. In Minnesota and Colorado, which will hold caucuses, voters will pick their preferred presidential candidate in a nonbinding straw poll, while picking delegates to county and regional conventions in a separate vote. In Missouri, no delegates are on the line at all; the state will hold a separate caucus for that purpose on March 17.
The results, nevertheless, will provide an important test of how robust Mitt Romney’s coalition is on less favorable terrain than in states like New Hampshire or Nevada. And they could potentially revitalize the campaign of one of Mr. Romney’s opponents, Rick Santorum.
Nor should one go too far in dismissing the results. The process that Minnesota and Colorado use, holding separate votes for presidential preference and delegate selection at their caucuses, is essentially the same one that was used in Iowa. Missouri is a more debatable case, but as the first primary of any kind held in the Midwest — perhaps Mr. Romney’s weakest region — it may tell us something about how states like Michigan and Ohio are likely to vote when they hold key primaries on Feb. 28 and March 6, respectively.
Update: 10:25 pm EST:
(National Journal) — Rick Santorum edged to victory in the Minnesota caucuses on Tuesday, NBC reported, giving him his second win of the night in a Midwestern state — along with Missouri — and a second wind for his longshot campaign.
The former Pennsylvania senator, a longtime champion of socially conservative causes such as fighting abortion, was declared the belated winner of the Iowa caucuses last month when results were certified two weeks after the neighborhood gatherings. He struggled in New Hampshire, Florida and even in South Carolina, where a heavily Christian conservative electorate did not turn out for him.
Front-runner Mitt Romney had sought to play down expectations for Tuesday’s races, even though he had won Minnesota in 2008 and even though former Gov. Tim Pawlenty, after ending his presidential bid last year, became one of his campaign co-chairs.
Update II:
(LA Times) — Rick Santorum won the Colorado GOP presidential preference straw poll, according to the Colorado Republican Party.
The victory means a trifecta tonight for the former Pennsylvania senator, who also won in Minnesota and Missouri.
It is a significant defeat for front-runner Mitt Romney, who took 60% of the vote in the Colorado’s 2008 nominating contest. John McCain, the eventual nominee, won just 18%.
The results were announced late Tuesday on CNN by Colorado Republican Party Chairman Ryan Call. Santorum was expected to finish with about 40% of the vote.