Romney triumphs in Michigan and Arizona

NOVI, Mich. - Mitt Romney won the Michigan Republican primary Tuesday, avoiding a humiliating loss in his native state to conservative insurgent Rick Santorum, and easily captured Arizona.

The latter victory was expected, as none of Romney's GOP rivals contested Arizona; he took all 29 delegates at stake there.

A Romney loss in Michigan, a swing state where he has deep ties, would have intensified concerns about his ability to win over the Republican base. As it is, the victory may not quiet them: Exit polls showed that Santorum dominated among voters who considered themselves very conservative or evangelical Christians.

And so the GOP race slogs on, with multiple states holding caucuses and primaries on Super Tuesday next week. Romney was heading Wednesday to Ohio and Santorum to Tennessee.

"We didn't win by a lot, but we won by enough, and that's all that counts," the former Massachusetts governor told supporters at the Suburban Collection Showplace shortly after 10:30 p.m.

Before Romney spoke, Santorum called to concede Michigan and then took the stage in Grand Rapids, where he pledged to continue the fight for the conservative cause into Ohio and the other Super Tuesday states.

"A month ago, they didn't know who we are," the former Pennsylvania senator said. "They do now."

Romney's support was concentrated in the metro Detroit area, while Santorum did best in central and western Michigan and in the Upper Peninsula.

Romney seemed to have the upper hand going into Michigan, the first of the industrial battleground states to vote in the presidential nominating campaign. He was born in Detroit, his father was a popular three-term governor here in the 1960s, and Romney won the state's 2008 GOP primary by six percentage points.

Back then, Romney was perceived as the conservative alternative to the maverick Sen. John McCain; this time, he was the one whose ideology was suspect in a GOP that has moved farther to the right over the last four years.

For all his advantages, Romney has struggled to win the support of the most conservative parts of the Republican base, including the activists brought into the fold by the tea party movement in the 2010 midterm elections.

Then Santorum roared into the state after a surprise Feb. 7 sweep of caucuses in Minnesota and Colorado and a nonbinding Missouri primary. He quickly gained a lead of as much as 15 percentage points on Romney, who struggled to try to stop Santorum's rise despite superior organization and the political equivalent of a home-field advantage.

Over the last two weeks, Romney and his supporters spent about $4.4 million on television ads to $2 million for Santorum and his allies, though the campaigns were nearly equal in their spending during the final week.

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich did not campaign in Michigan, and Texas Rep. Ron Paul did a limited amount of campaigning.

Most of the Romney ads painted Santorum as a free-spending Washington insider who had played a part in creating the nation's crushing debt. Santorum's campaign portrayed Romney as an insincere conservative who had enacted, in Massachusetts, a health-care program that served as the model for President Obama's.

The two candidates traded insults earlier Tuesday as voters were going to the polls, a reflection of the race's bitter tone.

Over the bruising last week, both candidates made missteps. Romney drew negative attention to his personal wealth, mentioning in a Detroit speech that his wife, Ann, had two Cadillac SUVs (he was trying to extol the virtues of American cars), then remarking during a visit to the Daytona 500 that some of his friends owned NASCAR teams. Those verbal blunders reinforced the suggestion that Romney has had a hard time connecting with regular Americans.

Romney acknowledged that Tuesday. Asked whether comments he had made reflecting his wealth were hurting his campaign, he replied: "Yes. Next question."

Santorum, who was trying to showcase his appeal to blue-collar voters and stress a plan to boost manufacturing, found himself sidetracked by discussions of his ultraconservative positions on social issues. He defended his belief that contraception is wrong, for instance, and on a Sunday network talk show was forced to respond to questions about his earlier observation that a classic John F. Kennedy speech advocating strict separation of church and state made him want to "throw up."

Romney suggested Tuesday that Santorum was a demagogue.

"It's very easy to excite the base with incendiary comments," Romney said after visiting a campaign field office in Livonia, a northwestern suburb of Detroit. "We've seen throughout the campaign that if you're willing to say really outrageous things that are accusatory and attacking President Obama, that you're going to jump up in the polls. You know, I'm not willing to light my hair on fire to try and get support. I am who I am."

Romney also lashed out at Santorum as an "economic lightweight" who did not understand how business worked. He also accused the former senator of employing "dirty tricks," referring to waves of automated phone calls the Santorum campaign placed to Democrats, urging them to vote against Romney in the GOP primary because of his opposition to the federal bailout of the auto industry.

"I think Republicans have to recognize there's a real effort to kidnap our primary process," Romney said. "And if we want Republicans to nominate the Republican who takes on Barack Obama, I need Republicans to get out and vote and say no to the dirty tricks of a desperate campaign."

Santorum defended the calls, saying he did it "to prove the point we can attract voters we need to win states like Michigan," the so-called Reagan Democrats. Pointing out that Romney had sought the votes of independents and Democrats in other GOP contests, Santorum called him a "bully who whines."

Michigan does not register voters by party. Voters can request the ballot of either party at the polling place, or from county clerks if voting absentee.

Exit polls indicated that about one in 10 Michigan voters Tuesday were Democrats and that Santorum won about half of them. He also won union members in Michigan, 45 percent to 26 percent for Romney. The exit polls said they made up 14 percent of the GOP electorate.

Michigan's 30 delegates were being awarded in a two-tiered system. The winner in each of the state's 14 congressional districts gets two delegates to the Republican National Convention in Tampa, Fla. Two delegates go to the statewide winner - Romney.

at 215-854-2718, tfitzgerald@phillynews.com, or @tomfitzgerald on Twitter. Read his blog, "The Big Tent," at www.philly.com/BigTent.