Score Mitt Romney a Super Tuesday

Tuesday was a super night for Mitt Romney. Mitt has now won around a third of the delegates he needs to clinch the Republican nomination, and continues to rack up the delegates with a widening lead that is double his nearest rival and beats all his rivals combined.

Candidate	NYT	WSJ	CNN	CBS	MSNBC	RCP
Mitt Romney	415	415	429	391	335	404
Rick Santorum	176	176	169	140	107	161
Newt Gingrich	105	105	118	95	111	105
Ron Paul	47	47	67	38	29	61
Jon Huntsman	2	2	0	2	0	0
Total	745	745	783	666	582	731
Mitt Romney	56%	56%	55%	59%	58%	55%
Rick Santorum	24%	24%	22%	21%	18%	22%
Newt Gingrich	14%	14%	15%	14%	19%	14%
Ron Paul	6%	6%	9%	6%	5%	8%
Jon Huntsman	0%	0%	0%	0%	0%	0%

1144 delegates are needed to win, at least they all agree on that.

You might be excused for thinking Tuesday was Rick Santorum's night with wins in 3 states and a near draw in Ohio. But he may have made a crucial strategic mistake by not challenging Newt Gingrich in Newt's home state of Georgia.

Gingrich's win and Santorum's distant third place finish in Georgia and puts Gingrich in position to beat Santorum in Alabama and Mississippi next week, states Santorum needs to win to overtake Romney.

Call me cynical but I don't buy Newt's $2.50/gallon gasoline platform when he's got two oil state governors, current Texas Governor Rick Perry and former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, in his corner.

Still, it's going to be a long slog for Mitt Romney. According to my calculations, it is mathematically impossible for him to get the 1144 delegates he needs to clinch the nomination until May 8. It's now looking like he may not clinch until the California primary on June 5. That's two or three more months of primary campaigning.

Update: more complete counts from 8pm EST 3/7/2012.

Update: So far, Romney has won 14 states, Santorum has won 7 states, and Gingrich has won 2 states.