Newt Gingrich Says Illinois Primary ‘Largely Will Be Romney, Santorum’ ["Reset This Whole Race"?]

ABCNews ^ | March 15, 2012

[Steelfish]

Mar 15, 2012 Newt Gingrich Says Illinois Primary ‘Largely Will Be Romney, Santorum’

ELGIN, Ill.–After two days of campaigning in Illinois, Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich told reporters that he believes the race in Illinois “largely will be Romney and Santorum.”

A poll last week from the Chicago Tribune/WGN-TV, showed Gingrich at 12 percent support in the state, while Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum were neck and neck, with Romney at 35 percent and Santorum at 31 percent.

Illinois congressman and former Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert, who endorsed Romney for president, told reporters on a fly-around of the state campaigning for Romney Thursday that while he still considered Gingrich a friend he did not support his candidacy for president. “You’ll find that a lot of people who worked with Newt Gingrich over those years aren’t supporting Newt Gingrich. This guy is all over the place. You can’t trust him. There’s always a doubt out there about where this guy’s going to go,” Hastert said.

When asked if Gingrich would have wanted Hastert’s support in the state, Gingrich told reporters, “That would have been fine.”

[God-fear-republican]

A big yawn without Newt in the race.

Newt basically told his supporters to go with Santorum as he would not contest in Illinois, so they can vote for Santorum.

That is his strategy and he will do the same in NY and Penn, giving his supporters to Santorum.

Let’s see what Santorum do in these liberal/moderate states without Santorum. My guess is that Romney machine will clobber him.

[Bizhvywt]

With 175,000 Newt donors, if each donor gave an additional $200 each (on average) that would be $35 million.