delegates. that is one thing that we have to watch. the race, the race is to get to 1,144 and the question is if governor romney can win two tonight and get back to the front-runner status or separate with senator santorum and go to next tuesday's contest with a lot of unpredictability. our coverage of choice 2012 continues. >> the race has been won by ronald reagan in california. >> george walker bush, the 44th president of the united states. >> and now the race is too close to call. >> and george w. bush re-elected. >> barack obama, president-elect of the united states. of the united states. >> this is cnn. -- captions by vitac -- www.vitac.com we may be in for another jaw-dropping night in the republican presidential race. >> the results could hit one of the front-runners painfully close to home. >> tonight, mitt romney's toughest test since rick

santorum's surge. >> if you want a fiscal conservative, you can't vote for rick santorum, because he is not. >> does the word hypocrisy come to mind? >> it is a two-state showdown with one front-runner trying to avoid an embarrassing defeat. >> governor romney has learned in nevada, you can't take the home state for granted. >> and will he suffer a crippling disaster in arizona and michigan? it is america's choice. santorum climbed to the top, and now he wants to win a valuable prize, the state where romney was born and raised. >> it is laughable for governor romney to suggest that i am not a conservative. >> romney is waging a fierce battle in two states that should have been shoo-ins. >> senator santorum is not as carefully viewed by the american public as the other two have. >> and struggling to erase the voters' doubts and fighting each other like dogs ready to pounce.

>> those other two at the top now, doesn't mean they will stay there. >> this is the wildest strangest nominating process. >> will there be a split decision or will one candidate take it all? >> who is authentic? >> who is believable? >> look, my team is the people of michigan and america and i will fight for you. >> the moment keeps shaping and controversies keep coming, and tonight kicks off a blockbuster round of contests that could change everything. welcome to our viewers in the united states and around the world. i'm wolf blitzer at the cnn election center. we expect the first raw votes to come in from michigan about one hour from now, and it is hard to

overstate just how important this night is for mitt romney in the battle against the main rival rick santorum. voting is under way right now in michigan and arizona, and the results could turn the republican race upsidedown. cnn cameras are strategically positioned in the states to show you the action and bring you the results before any other network. we have the most crews and the most locations. our anchors and correspondents are out in full force including candy crowley and jim acosta, and first to candy over at romney headquarters. candy. >> you know, wolf, name recognition, money and organization has been in place for years and now here we are in mitt romney's home state. what could go wrong? plenty could go wrong, but the romney organization will tell you that if they lose tonight, yes, it would be a big blow, but ittal one, wolf.

>> and jim acosta offver at the santorum headquarters and what is the scene? >> well, officials believe they have already won the michigan campaign, because they believe he has had to fight like crazy to win his home state which he should have had wrapped up days ago and we will find out if the santorum robo call is a misfire to cause democrats to crossover to vote for rick santorum or a direct hit on the romney campaign, wolf. >> we will get back to both of you, and anderson cooper will be with us throughout the night. >> well, it could be a long night. and we will know that most of the polling places across michigan will close in an hour from now, but voting will continue until 9:00 p.m. in michigan that are in the central time zone. and also at 9:00 p.m. eastern time all polling places will close in arizona and that poling could be exciting, because we could project winners then. and romney comes into the night

with four victories new hampshire, florida, nevada and ma maine. and newt gingrich has the single victory in south carolina and ron paul looking for a win in any state and as we look at the magic wall, john king will show us exit poll data and erin burnett will show us how money in the campaign ads is influencing votes. what to you have john? >> well, we are looking to see if mitt romney can hold his home state, and we are learning how people are voting and why. well, the economy is issue number one, and 54% say that the economy is number one issue as they make a choice for the republican nominee. we look for this in every state, and 62% of those in michigan are not born-again christians and 38% identify themselves as evangelicals which is a critical constituency for rick santorum. and the tea party big in 2010 but only half, 53% of people

voting in a republican primary saying they support the tea party movement. and one other part, is there democratic mischief, and 14% voting say, yes, they are members of ulabor unions and thy say yes. and what is interesting that is of that four years ago, over half voting for rick santorum saying they want to embarrass many mitt romney in his home state. part of tonight is about bragging rights. romney and santorum with four wins and gingrich one, and a candidate looking for momentum, and d anderson, heading into the very big super tuesday contest next week. >> very fascinating, john. what about you, erin? >> terms of the money spent on ads in michigan and not arizona for romney, the question is will it matter? you look at the economic situation in michigan, mitt romney h's home state, and look at detroit. 61% drop in houses, and that

housing prices, and that ties for the worst in the united states of america since the peak of the housing market. incredibly grim economic picture in michigan despite the improvements in the past year in manufacturing and the question is will the ad money make up for the difficulty he has faced here in the past couple of weeks with rick santorum on his heels? we will look at that in a few minutes, anderson. >> we will follow every twist with gloria borger and david gergen, and all of their teams, and they will break it down in the election center like no one else can. and we are looking ahead to the ohio primary one of the most crucial of ten contests next week. tom forman is in columbus with a group of undecided republicans. they will watch the results and give us instant feedback of the campaign speeches of the candidates and tell us what they think about it. >> all right. we are also getting results in wyoming. the wyoming caucuses have been going on for several days right

now, and the final results not expected until tomorrow, but the republican party in wyoming already publicly releasing some of the results. let's take a look. and let's see what is happening in wyoming right now with 26 delegates at stake in wyoming. 83% of the vote is now in, and the precincts reporting in wyoming and not a lot of people have voted in wyoming, but mitt romney with 41%. rick santorum, 31%. ron paul, coming in third with 20%. 7% for newt gingrich. we will get the final results tomorrow, but it is interesting that wyoming is shaping up with 83% of the vote going in and looks like a good night tomorrow for mitt romney. but we will wait and we will see tomorrow what the final results are, but let's get back to arizona and michigan right now. candy crowley is over at mitt romney campaign headquarters in michigan. candy, what would it mean for mitt romney if, and it is a huge if, if he were to lose in the

state where he was born and his father served as governor? >> well, he would have a lot of explaining to do, and i can tell you that we are seeing bits and pieces off that at any rate and not that they think they are going to lose or admitting that i are going to lose, but this the day after, if mitt romney should lose either the delegate count or the of all count in michigan, what you will hear is a couple of things. first what you heard today that rick santorum ran a dirty race, and that he got democrats to come vote against mitt romney, and that is not democratic, and et cetera, et cetera, and you are also going to hear a lot of what we talked about at the top of the show, and that is delegate count. mitt romney will focus on who is in the lead in the delegates and clearly expect that is romney, and listen to him today. >> if we do well in arizona we will pick up all of the delegates, but here though, we have to make sure that each one of the 14 districts that we get as many of them as possible and get the delegates that i need.

>> beginning to sound a lot reminiscent of hillary clinton and barack obama in this way that after each and every race we heard from the winner or the loser of the race how what really matters is the delegate count and not the overall voter count at the end of the day, so you will hear a lot of that from mitt romney should he lose tonight. wolf. >> can dirks thank you very, very much. other candidates, and we will check in with jim acosta in a few minutes and he is covering the santorum campaign and kate bolduan covering the newt gingrich campaign and joe johns with the ron paul campaign. and kate, all of the candidates are in michigan, but ron paul is in virginia where you are. and virginia does not vote until next tuesday, super tuesday, and explain what is going on. >> well, the reason that they are in springfield, virginia, is one of the not in michigan is that there are a couple of

reason reasons, i will tell you, wolf, that i am hearing from the campaign. from the campaign, they say that congressman paul needed to tend to the day job, and he was on capitol hill, and my colleague saw him on the house floor today, and also spending time in springfield, virginia, which is 20 minutes outside of washington, d.c. and the campaign is very much acknowledges that come super tuesday, this is a very, very interesting primary race. there are only two candidates on the ballot in virginia come super tuesday, and that is ron paul and mitt romney, and they are on the ballot, and the other two candidates newt gingrich and rick santorum do not have their names on the ballot, and they did not get their names on the petition, and they were contested a enthey sued, but that were denied to be on the ball lochlt and ron paul sees a good opportunity tuesday to pick up a good number of delegates if they can, and they know they have to spend time on the grounder hoo and that is part of the reason they are in springfield tonight, wolf. >> well, ron paul is ready to

speak there where you are kate bolduan, and we will have more on that. and joe johns in florida where newt gingrich is. and that is why newt gingrich is where you are, joe? >> well, absolutely right, wolf. this is west georgia university and a school where newt gingrich taught in the 1970s, so it is really quite a scene and hundreds of people in the room, and i have talked to some of them students, and some others coming to see whether they believe they will vote for newt gingrich on super tuesday. so what is going on with the campaign? the first thing and the most important thing for them perhaps is that they just got another infusion of cash from sheldon adelson, the casino billionaire who has given so much money to actually the super pac that supports newt gingrich, and that money, we are told is being used by the super pac to buy television ads in the super tuesday states as well as radio ads and national radio campaign

and most ly on the conservative radio. and the other thing is that people close to newt gingrich tell me to look for him to try to make more news, that is talking to individual news operations to try to get his message out that way, because there won't be so many debates where he seems to be doing so well. one of the big things he is talking about is the $2.50 gasoline policy promise. they think it is big for them, wolf. back to you. >> yeah, the newt gingrich at the same time, he has acknowledged that, and certainly to me, because i spoke to him earlier, and he is acknowledging that he does not win georgia next week, it potentially would be a disaster for any hopes that he might still have. >> that is absolutely right, and i talked to one gingrich insider today, and asked frankly, is a georgia's newt gingrich's last stand, but he said he didn't think so, but it would be very hard for him, because georgia, as you know, it is the state which has the largest number of

delegates coming out of super tuesday and second is ohio. it is important because he lived in the state and worked in the state and represented this state in congress much as mitt romney in michigan. it is a rel teal test for him h and georgia is a huge test for newt gingrich, wolf. >> and we will hear from him fairly soon, joe? >> i'm sorry, i didn't hear that. >> he is ready to speak where you are, newt gingrich? >> yes, newt gingrich is at a fund-raiser right here in the building trying to raise some more cash and then we are expecting him to come in to address the crowd and very interesting to see how personal it gets given the fact that he has a real connection with west georgia university. >> yes, thank you so much, joe jo johns. we will have live coverage of newt gingrich later tonight as well. >> and one of the allegations is class warfare and the allegations have been flying on both sides of the aisle. >> well, we hear are a lot from the republicans about the class

warfare, but what is being played out in the republican primary process is the class warfare within the republican party. you have mitt romney who is the establishment kind of old-line conservative republican versus somebody like rick santorum who sees himself as more of an insurgent, and more conservative he says and more values-based. and when we look at the exit polls tonight, it will be interesting to see how the votes breakdown. does mitt romney win in the past with people with more education versus people with less education, and this week rick santorum accused mitt romney being a snob because he wants everybody to go to college and that is geared to the blue-collar workers he is trying to win. and they have gotten away from the non-college educated and blue-collar workers. >> and we have a couple of

symbols from mitt romney saying that his wife has several cadillacs and -- >> playing into santorum's hands. >> are the reporters making more out of that than justified? >> no, i don't. i think that he is having a hard time breaking out of his world, if you would. he has been extraordinarily successful in everything that he has done, but it has become clear that he lives in a certain kind of universe that is not shared by a lot of working people in the country. >> and just in fairness, don't all of these guys live in their own universe? >> exactly, exactly. >> in various forms. >> yes, but there is a language problem he is having, and it is something that i have talked with some of the friends and they say it goes quay baway bac have difficulty communicating. >> this is not the new, but it goes back to george w. bush who

went to the checkout counter and he did not understand what a quart of milk costs, so in a bad economy, it hurts him worse. >> and the flipside is franklin roosevelt who was really rich, but he spent a lot of time with polio getting to know people who are disadvantaged and changed his outlook and mitt romney has not had that crucible experience to allow him to break apart. he is a good person and family man and churchman and family man, but by his own admission he said today at a gathering, these gaffes have hurt me. >> and when he talks about people's struggles, h he sounds somewhat inauthentic very often when he says i know what it is like to be worried about a pink slip. really? that didn't ring true to people given that he is a man of great wealth who also came from great wealth so he needs to find a different way the talk about his wealth in particular than he has been doing. >> if you watch the clip tonight from barack obama when he went out and talked to the auto

workers and the language, it shows what kind of race it is for the republicans. they have been talking to each other, and soon they will have to crossover and get in a conversation with barack obama, and he knows how to talk to people who are hurting and to make the case, you auto workers are accused of having, and all of the favoritism in the bailout, but look at how much you had to give up. >> but there is a populist to rick santorum that he has been able to use effectively, and wolf, what a difference it has made for rick santorum in the past month and extraordinary when you think of how he entered the month and to now. >> and even coming to this point, remarkably well. and the word "surge" has been used a lot to describe rick santorum, but has the primary season support peaked? we will talk about that and more and also whether democrats will help santorum's chances to win

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and we are standing by right now for the first raw vote to the important primary night as we have watched rick santorum become a threat to mitt romney in michigan and possibly arizona as well. romney wasway ahead in the national polls after the win in the primary, and then santorum became within striking distance after his wins, and then romney kept making gains, and then just in the past week romney had ha rebou rebound and a slim advantage over rick santorum among the registered republicans across the country. a lot to talk about ahead. let's check in with the contributors, paul begala and

maria cardona and marty flisher in and alex castellanos. if romney loses michigan, is the bid over, and all of you said no. you have no doubt, that michigan matters, but it is not going to end things for mitt romney if he does not end tonight? >> right. he has talent as david gergen pointed out and a ton of money and good organization. it is a huge embarrassment, and i can't begin to describe and i have been asking around and maybe the viewers and the political reporters has anybody had this much problem in the home state in the primary, and nobody can remember it, but even if he loses it ain't over for him. >> but even on another program he said that he was distancing himself, and massachusetts is really the main stay and that is where if the voters in massachusetts rejected him, that would be something. >> okay. >> it is not done for him, but he is clearly going to be limping with crutches out of the contest, because, yes, to everybody's point here, we

should not be talking about whether michigan was contested for him. he has been campaigning for more than two years and michigan is his home state. the fact that we are even talking about a possible loss is a loss for him. >> i thought january would be a strong month for romney and then lo and behold rick santorum took the three weeks and the primary, and he has made a battle of michigan. but if he loses michigan, he has enough strength and shaky front-runner, and he of course will go on. it is not an issue. >> even if he loses, there has to be someone out there to beat him. you need someone to get the nomination, and rick santorum has hurt himself this week, i think marginalizing himself as a candidate who, you know, the party that is against sex and other things that are somewhat popular throughout america. >> but doesn't that though if he loses, doesn't it set off a firestorm about we have to get someone new to get in to broker the convention. i think they will go crazy and

do that. >> well, there is a big difference between a party being split and a party at odds with itself and a party that can't agree on the nominee. the republican party is not united around a candidate, but the party is not divided and this is not a party where one end hates the other right now, and they will come together against barack obama, and by the way, when you ask people in a general re-election of gallup, who is more extreme, mitt romney or barack obama? and guess what? barack obama, about half of the electorate thinks he is too liberal and only half think romney is too conservative. >> david and gloria. >> well, i talked to some republicans today, and they were saying to me that even if mitt romney were to win in michigan tonight, they are still worried, but a it is a close race and in order to win a presidential campaign, you have to be able to win in the midwest. and if he can't, doesn't have a strong showing in michigan, and what about ohio which a

republican a republican would need to win, and they are saying too early to panic and he can pull it out, but we have a lot of problems, because the midwest is where the elections are won. >> and i have to go pack the paul begala, because that is what is going to happen and if mitt romney is going to lose, and i imagine he is going to win this, but if he were to lose, you would have a drum beat among the republican prose, can we find somebody else and get him in there because they dot no believe that santorum can win in the fall, and if romney loses in michigan, it will underline they have a weak alternative in mitt romney, and so why don't they look for somebody else, and can you get anybody else into any other primary? >> well, that person would lose. >> do you believe that rick santorum could be the nominee? >> there is a chance he is the nomin nominee, but it is a slim chance. right now, he has -- he has focused on the republican base, but at the expense of his appeal in a general and electability, so he has narrowed the message and he has hurt himself. but there's just not enough time really for another candidate to

get in right now, and even if another candidate jumped in, you would skip the primaries and hope for a brokered convention and put yourself through that but the republicans don't want unvetted candidate and takes the stage for the first time and the news media would devour him and eat him up in two weeks and it is a nightmare. we have the field we are, and we are going through the stages of death here, and we are up through anger and denial and bargaining and we are now up to depression. the next step is acceptance and that is where we are. it does get tougher, though, and gloria is right, it is tougher from here, and ohio is michigan where your dad is not governor for mitt romney and a tougher sta state. >> and romney has outspent santorum two to one in the state of michigan. >> he is winning all of the states tactically one by one by crushing the opponent and negative ads and money and negative message and manpower, and not winning big. >> if rick santorum had not had a bad debate per fformance, whi

he did, you might have a different race. i thought last week, rick santorum had a real chance and road to the primary, but he set himself back, and can he get back there? if he does not take michigan, it is going to be harder to get back there and he need s ts the state to propel himself into super tuesday. >> he had a bad debate performance and not as bad as you would think, santorum, and terrible gaffes and he insulted the memory of president kennedy and said he thinks of against sex and in a dog fight of a guy who grew up there, and did i mention it is the home state, and you will never hear me stop talking about that because i cannot wrap my mind around it. >> we are waiting for the first votes to come in, wolf. >> well, in about a half hour away. and standby for that. and ron paul and newt gingrich are ready to address their supporters, and they are both ap peopling for the voetes in supe tuesday's contests, and we will have live remarks and also how

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less than 30 minuteinutes a from the first official votes being counted. actually 28 minutes from now and we will have live coverage of that and we already have exit poll resultings that we are going through, and john king is looking at the exit polls closer. john, what is going on in arizona and michigan, because we spoke to the voters in both states as they were leaving. >> well, let me show you the difference of the two states. out to arizona first to click on the map and bring up the issues here. a key issue here and i want to make that one go away to not confuse you here, but the most important issue, and the most important issue is coming through and we will find it right here.

in arizona, the most important issue is the economy and let me clear up the clutter there. most important is 48%, wolf, of those voting in the republican presidential primary saying that the economy is number one and perhaps not a surprise the issue of illegal immigration getting 12% in arizona and in michigan, barely registered. so you see that the budget deficit is second in every state, and abortion is a relati relatively small issue in the state of michigan. if you come along the map here, in michigan, you have -- that is a wrong number, and that came up the wrong way. let me switch the map, and a little issue with the map on occasion, and bring up michigan results here and look by important issues here, and coming back down and i want to bring up two things to you and move this one to the side in the state of michigan, and that is going to cooperate -- well, here we go. the most important issue in michigan is the budget deficit at 32%, and another issue, and wolf, this is one of the interesting ones throughout the

night, 10% of those voting in michigan and arizona is closed only republicans can vote, but 10% of those voting in michigan are democrats. >> and look at how many are independent independents. >> yes. and 50% are right now, 50% and there is a problem with the graphics and this is michigan and not arizona. something is happening with the graphics, and 50% of the democrats in michigan are voting for rick santorum, so that could be in a close race and perhaps minor mischief, but it could be something that we are watching late into the night. 19% of those democrats are voting for ron paul, and 15% of the democratic vote is going to mitt romney, but the participation of the democrats higher than last time, it could have an effect. >> and there is a bold move in michigan formally asking democrats to vote for him in today's republican primary, and that is allowed by rick santorum, because michigan has what is known as a primary. but mitt romney is accusing

santorum of dirty tricks. our congressional correspondent dana bash is in michigan. you spoke to dem tdemocrats, any say they are holding their noses and voting for santorum, because they want romney to lose. >> that is right. he is not the only one who is so-called engaged in dirty tricks, because was the democrats admitted to trying to go get rick santorum, and they have crass political goals. help barack obama by throwing the republican race into more chaos, and also to embarrass mitt romney. >> do not forget to vote today if you care about the future. every single person who touched the show today, every single person said they were voting for santorum. >> i'm a radio talk show host. >> a liberal talk show host. >> i am a liberal radio talk

show host. >> and a proud liberal? >> yes, a proud liberal. >> and you are telling someone to go vote for the most conservative in the republican race? >> unequivocally, yes. do i think that rick santorum is a weaker candidate, yes. >> you are making mischief? >> yes, i love to make the mischief. >> let's go off to vote and play republican for three my nootmin. i checked off the republican party right there, yowsah, yowsah. >> so how many people would do that? well, we ran into another person who did. >> i'm crystal larson, a democrat. >> you voted in the republican primary? >> i sure did. >> why? >> well, it is my way of protecting barack obama. >> you voted for rick santorum? >> i did, yeah. >> the look on your face? >> i feel like i made a deal with the devil. voting for santorum goes against

everything that i believe in and everything that i have ever stood for my life. >> i am joe, a democratic strategist in the state of michigan. for the past seven days we have been organizing and creating a list of democrats who are committed to vote for santorum in the election today. we believe we have 14,000 solid commitments to work to turn out today in the primary. when we are done, they are going to have to buy pepto bismol by the gallon the rnc. >> you went in there, a democrat, and you voted for -- >> santorum. >> obviously not a democrat. why did you do it? >> i am fed up with things. >> why do you consider voting for rick santorum a protest vote? >> because it is going to throw the gopto turmoil. it is my way of saying, i've had enough. >> now, we spent some time this morning with the democratic chair of this state mark brewer and he said that the official line and the official policy is not to encourage democrats to

cross over and make mischief, but they are also not activity discouraging it either. he, also, wolf made the point that is a valid point that the democrats would not have the ability to create any kind of mischief if mitt romney didn't have a tight race on his hands if rick santorum were not so close nipping at the heels here. >> well, it is interesting that i saw some tweets that michael moore who is a resident of michigan and well known resident of michigan is getting involved in the republican contest. have you seen those reports, dana? >> yes, i have. i have seen the tweets just exactly what you are talking about. it is certainly not surprising, because this is very much been going on and in fact for about a week or even more that has been the active campaign, but even longer, there has been a lot of buzz on the internet, and still is on a national level, wolf, and it is not michigan, and the daily post, the liberal blog saying start in michigan, but several other contests coming up with the open primary rules and

encouraging the democrats to get out to do it in other states, but in the state, it has a long history of krosover voting and mischi mischief. >> if it is close and we expect it is very, very close and the democratic crossover of the independents showing up as well could be decisive right now. dana, thank you very much. back to anderson on what we are calling the mischief vote out there, anderson. >> mischief. yes, let's check in with brooke baldwin over there at the social media area. >> again, i'm surprised that the word mischief is yet to trend, and i'm predicting it might. so we are looking on twitter with the trend of possibly democrats voting and might this change things for santorum versus romney, and take a look at this. this is initially the story from 8:00 this morning to now, and if you advance the graphic, and not a huge difference between your santorum and romney here, but i want to clear this and i want to pull up a couple of tweet, because dana talked to someone who said a democrat in michigan

wanted to take a shower after voting for santorum, and this person said -- >> this person is a cat with a hat. >> a cat with a hat, and we dot no judge. we are quoting a cat, because this person is a voter in michigan and that person counts. every vote count, anderson cooper. ha ha. i said loudly that i was a dem, but i wanted to vote gop this time and the turnout was just awful. hopefully not another cat on this one, but this person says, i can see why democrats would vote for "situation room," because he is less capable of defeating obama and i would be less scared that he might actually win. so some democrats say, if i vote for santorum would that lead to am no nation. >> and you trust this guy on twitter. >> paul begala and we do trust him, and this point is that adds to the question, 10% of the voters in michigan are dems down

17% in 2000, and hardly raiding or mischief, so he is maybe deb debunking the mischief thinking process here, and mitt romney is so weak in his home state. so weak. so we learned in iowa every vote counts, right. so who knows how this could translate coming into the night. >> brooke, thank you very much. as i said in an earlier interview tonight, which paul loves, kind of distancing himself from michigan and kind of saying, well, if massachusetts is really where i have spent most of my time. >> it is like one of newt's wives, well, i don't remember, i didn't have anything to do with it. it is crazy. >> we ask you a second question, has santorum peaked and two of you said yes and two of you said no, and one said, well, it was a maybe from over there, and another. do you think that he has peaked? >> i don't know that he has. frankly, because in part, because mitt romney is weak. he didn't have the best debate of his life, but he has a message, social conservativism, and when he gets around to it, economic populism, and there is

an appetite for it and the calendarer in the system will reward him for staying in at least until april 1st and most of the primaries are proportional representations so even if he does not win, he gets delegates. no reason not the stay in. >> i said that he has peaked, but he could peak again because given romney's weaknesses and look, romney going into this has handed santorum and all of the other opponents the fire to hit him with. the gaffe about nascar and the gaffe about his wife having two cadillacs, are things that are not going to connect with the average voter that you are going to need in the general election, and so the gaffes are his own doing and that is not going to stop i don't think, and that is one of the worries for the republicans. >> what do you think, alex? >> because he has chosen a path on social issues to define himself and that is what he is banking on in michigan where it will give him some votes, but it is going to make him less

electable in the fall, and the republicans want to see that and have a candidate to beat barack obama. super tuesday is coming up, and there are a lot of states that do not auger well for mitt romney. georgia will go for gingrich and oklahoma and tennessee and ohio as we were just talking about is a state much like michigan, but where romney does not have that institutional support from the family and the father. so he has some tough times ahead, but right now, i think that santorum has put himself on a path that narrows him to a hunk of the republican electorate and not the broader candidate that he really needs to be. >> i don't think that there is too much primary to go if he peaks or not. if he wins in michigan, maybe another peak in front of him, but if he loses today, it could prep a decline on super tuesday and mitt romney is the nominee. so it is like a baseball game -- >> and are we going be here in the summer in june? >>le with, this is so different this year, and in addition to mitt romney's problems where he can't shore it up, it is not super tuesday, but somewhat, because there are only ten

states voting and in 2000, there were 16 states who voted on the super tuesday and it was winner takes all, and now it is proposh gnat and i think it keeps going and the next time super tuesday, the next time you have a multiple state primary more than two states is not until april and it slows down again and then picks up and this goes. >> and i think that at times, it is time for another debate. >> let's do it. >> anderson is give meg a look. sorry, anderson. >> but mitt romney, ease gaffes are not politically fatal gaffes, and we are sitting here talking about whether a guy had a press conference in a empty stadium and had two cadillacs. mitt romney talking about the wealth is like putting a mink coat on a mink. it is like making something slick even slicker, and he does not do it well, but in politics people don't ever care about someone else's money as they do their own. we have an economy that is going down the toilet, and fewer poo m

-- fewer people are working in america and unemployment is down because people have given up working for work and 6 of 10 people are working, and a little less actually, so in a general election, mitt romney looks like and attractive candidate again barack obama and that is enough to get him through the convention. >> but here is the problem with that which it is not one gaffe or two gaffes, but a list of those gaffes and the reason that it matters is when the voter goes into the voting booth to vote, they want to vote for somebody who gets what they are going through and they vote with the gut and mitt romney does not represent someone who understands what working class americans are going through. >> and do they want somebody they can have a beer with or isn't there something to be said about the smart guy who has run companies? >> well, the harvard law -- >> well, look at the -- >> and the two degrees from harvard and president obama only has one, and yet brilliant guy and he has the dumb things and it is because he means it.

i don't care about the poor people, because they have a social safety net, and if it needs repaired, i will fix it. i was worried about a pink slip and i'm unemployed about myself and he is terribly bright. i don't think it is because he is dumb. >> and quickly, barack obama gets what he is going through, because barack obama is largely the guy who got them through, and he has presided over the economy who has it. >> and the voters absolutely -- >> and we are going to let them sort it ow through the break. we waiting to hear newt gingrich speak to his supporters in georgia. we will get the first raw votes in the michigan primary very soon. stay tuned. totally dedicated to your eyes, from the eye-care experts at bausch + lomb. as you age, eyes can lose vital nutrients. ocuvite helps replenish key eye nutrients. [ male announcer ] ocuvite has a unique formula not found in your multivitamin to help protect your eye health. now, that's a pill worth taking. [ male announcer ] ocuvite. help protect your eye health.

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romney's home state and because his father was the governor there and because he as anchored his campaign on saying that i'm the best candidate in the fall and it is a great laboratory for the m campaign in the fall and, wolf, it is also important to us at the moment, because the polls are about to get some of the results. some of the counties up here, and a of the counties here are open for another hour. we need to be careful about that during the central time zone. the bulk of the state will come in momentarily. we know the major population centers here. this is largely democratic. the grand rapids kalamazoo tends to be more conservative. gritty blue here, rick santorum. let me go back in time to get perspective. this is the republican presidential primary 2008. mitt romney won the state by beat i beating john mccain. mitt romney's campaign was the was the conservative alternative to john mccain. what has senator santorum

argued, he's the conservative alternative to romney. and four years ago, it was an mccain romney race. let's watch this tonight. this is mitt romney the darker red. can he hold what he had last time? that would be critical to a win tonight. remember, these delegates are not awarded to the state-wide winner, to the congressional delegates. even if he carries the state, doesn't necessarily get all the delegates. george w. bush was running away with the republican nomination in 2000 or so we thought. john mccain got 56% of the vote and also worth remembering, wolf, as we prepare to start counting votes. we will get some nine minutes or so that this state does have a history of saying to the front-runner, not so fast. >> a good slogan. thanks. we will also be standing by momentarily, both ron paul and newt gingrich will be speaking

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getting ready to hear from newt gingrich and ron paul. they will be speaking to their supporters. we will have live coverage on that. at the top of the hour, we will have the first raw votes from michigan. stand by for that. once the candidates are speaking, all four will be speaking to their reporters, you will be seeing squiggly lines. the super tuesday state one week from today, voting from ohio, a key battleground state. set the scene, explain, tom, what the lines at the bottom of the screen will mean for viewers out there, who will be hearing shortly from newt gingrich and ron paul.

hey, wolf, all the voters will be helping us out with that using these devices. you can dial it up or down depending on their reaction to what the candidate is saying. you will see lines going across the screen. you will see red lines for all the male voters here and green lines for all the female voters here and a white line, the average of them. we've been watching political campaign ads before hand, very interesting to see what this group responds to, what you like and what you don't like and where they diverge. where the women like one thing, the men like something else. is the an undecided group of voters. let me see a show of hands, how many of you are leaning towards mitt romney in this race? hands up high where we can see them. not a whole lot. how many of you are leaning

towards rick santorum? now, i will tell you something interesting about all of this, wol wolf! earlier, when we checked the lines against this, when we were waiting for newt gingrich to come out, we asked this very group, who do you think will win? there's more support for rick santorum. who do you think is going to win? mitt romney? this is the thing. we've seen this in all our focus groups, time and again, you get the undecideds together and lean towards the conservative candidates and like them and who do you think will win and keep coming back to mitt romney and say they generally will vote for him if he wins although there are some here who suggest they will not. it will be interesting to watch newt gingrich and see how they respond to his message. >> i'd be curious if you want to ask some of those folks what they want to hear from newt gingrich who will be speaking momentarily. >> reporter: that's a good question. what do you want to hear from newt gingrich when he speaks? >> i want to hear about jobs.

he's been speaking about jobs. i want to hear about national security. >> reporter: what about you? what would you like to hear from newt gingrich? what could he say that would make you think differently about him? >> i would like to see him get more in detail about bringing the gas price down to $2.25. i want him to get more in depth in that instead of just saying it to be saying it. >> reporter: what could newt gingrich say that would make a difference to you? >> i'd like to see him talk about the budget and how he plans to reduce that. >> reporter: it's all a question about the economy. our coverage continues right no now. >> the presidential race has been won by reagan of california. >> governor clinton is now president clinton. too close to call. >> george w. bush re-elected. >> barack obama, president-elect of the united states. >> this is cnn.

>> this could be a turning point in the republican presidential race. >> we're standing by for results from two states where the battle from the gop front runners has gotten very personal. >> tonight, mitt romney's toughest test since rick santorum's surge. >> if you want a fiscal conservative, you can't vote for rick santorum because he's not. >> does the word hypocrisy come to mind? sn>> trying to avoid an embarrassing defeat. >> he cannot take his home state for granted. >> reporter: will romney have staying power or suffer a crippling setback. michigan and arizona, america's choice. santorum climbed his way to the top. now, he wants to win a valuable prize, the state where romney was born and raised. >> it's laughable for governor romney to suggest i am not a conservative. >> reporter: romney is waging a fierce battle in two states that

should have been shoo-ins. >> senator santorum hasn't been as carefully viewed by the american public as the others. >> reporter: the two leaders trying to erase voters doubts and underdogs ready to pounce. >> those two at the top now doesn't mean they will stay there. >> this is the wildest strangest nominee process. >> reporter: will there be a split decision or will one candidate take it all? >> who's authentic? who's believable? >> my team is the people of the michigan of america. i will fight for you. >> reporter: momentum keeps shifting, controversies keep coming. tonight kicks off a blockbuster round of contests that could change everything.

welcome to our viewers in the united states and around the world. i'm wolf blitzer at the cnn "election center." you can bet there's a lot of tension inside the romney and santorum camps right now. polling places across most of michigan are closing right now and we should start getting the first raw votes of the night very very soon. both front runners are pulling out all the stops to try to win michigan and arizona. many republicans would tell you these are the states that romney simply cannot afford to lose. we're having full coverage as always, anderson cooper is with us as well. >> wolf, the polling places that just closed in michigan are the eastern time zone. voting is still under way in the state in the central time zone. the last polls in michigan close at 9:00 p.m. eastern, when we could be giving you some results and at 9:00 eastern, all polling places in arizona will close. we could learn a lot more how this race will turn out less than one hour.

>> thanks very much. i want to go to to john king at the "magic wall." the exit poll results we're getting are beginning to show us what potentially is in store. >> you want to respect those people still voting in the central time zone. we do a lot about -- let's focus on michigan, what's on people's mind today as they vote in the primary for president. the most important especially the state of michigan given the state of the economy not the past few years but past decade, 54% of those participating in the republican presidential primary say the economy and 24% say budget deficit. economic issues. only 3% say illegal immigration and 14% say abortion. that's one way to look at this. the auto bailout has been a big source of debate in this electorate. all four republicans oppose the auto bailout to gm and chrysler and started under george w. bush. 51%. barely a majority disapprove and

43% approve. interesting to watch how that plays out. 43% of those voting disagreeing with the position of the candidates. will you vote for the gop nom kn knee in november? satisfied with the field or only their candidate. 63% said they would definitely vote for the candidate in november and 12% said only if my candidate wins and 17% say probably. that's another thing to watch. this is interesting, most states we see a more conservative electorate than michigan. 40% of those voting in the presidential primary describe themselves as moderate or liberal. 6 in 10, very conservative. why is that happening? it's an open primary and democrats can vote. 10% describe themselves as democrats, 31% describe themselves as independents, 6 in 10 are self-identified republicans voting in this primary. among the 10% who say they're democrats, 50% are voting for

rick santorum. let's watch tonight. this is a very close election, number one, might democrats make the difference state-wide for senator santorum and delegates are based on congressional district and not state-wide vote. some of the congressional districts, especially detroit area, we'll see if it makes a difference between we get to divvying up the delegates. >> and we'll see this mischief vote if it turns out to be a s mischief vote. the war of words has heated up over the past 48 hours. let's look at the late campaign pitches an the fireworks. >> if you want someone who understands the economy and will get it going, i'm the only guy in this race that will answer that question with the affirmative capability of growing america's economy and getting michigan back to work and getting america back to work. >> we have an opportunity here tomorrow in michigan, here in kalamazoo, to go out and do

something big, shock the establishment. [ applause ] >> senator santorum is a nice guy but he's never had a job in the private sector. he worked as a lobbyist and elected official. that's fine. but the issue of the day is the economy, i think to create jobs it helps to have a guy as president who's had a job, and i havemichigan, you have the opportunity to stop the joke, tell the truth about who the real conservative is and to go out there and have the best candidate, the one that can take barack obama on, on the biggest issue of the day, health care, and government mandates. >> i need republicans to get out and vote and say no to the dirty tricks of a desperate campaign. >> that's what bullies do. when you hit them back, they whine. >> certainly will be an exciting

night by all accounts. very close race unfolding in michigan. let's check in on the correspondents at the front runners. candy crowley at romney's headquarters. at some point romney will speak. i assume he will wait until after we know the results? >> reporter: yes, or until after we're pretty sure with a combination of votes and exit polls we know who won. that is generally what happens. if this comes at 1 :00 or 2:00 or 3:00 in morning, perhaps we will see what we saw in iowa, he thought he won by a squeaker vote. you probably remember iowa pretty well. absolutely, they will wait until they have a pretty good idea how it's going. we believe it may be according to early polls before these polls open, national polls, this will be a very close race in michigan. >> stand by for a moment because calista gingrich is getting ready to introduce her husband at gingrich headquarters.

he's in georgia before their vote. >> two months left befo-- only t before the most important election in our lifetime. the only opponent is barack obama and we are committed to removing him from the white hou house. [ applause ] newt is the only candidate with the experience and knowledge necessary to rebuild the america we love. he has a successful national record of creating jobs, balancing the budget and reforming government. today, we need a leader who can clearly arctticulate why presidt obama and his policies are wrong for america. we need a leader who understands that we must contain and defeat our enemies. we need a leader with bold solutions to create a better future for all americans.

i believe that leader is my husba husband. please welcome former speaker of the house and the next president of the united states, newt gingrich! f ♪ >> newt gingrich getting ready to speak, walking in, introduced by his wife, calista. you will see squiggly lines at the bottom of the screen while speaking. we have republicans voters in ohio who have meters in their hands telling us what they like and don't like so you will be able to give a little sense of what's going on. here is the former speaker of the house, newt gingrich. >> a., i'm running late and, b, not exactly apologizing but that's one of the longest photo lines i've been through. i hope you can hear us. first of all, governor deal, thank you for your generous time and everything you've put up

with. he's been an enormous help and great governor and thrilled he's with us and our state chairman and doing a great job. thank you, sir. [ applause ] >> i also want to thank the president of west georgia college for being such a great host and reminding me of how much i really enjoy come back to west georgia. thank you very much for being here tonight. [ applause ] >> i have a number of former colleagues from both my college career and my congressional career. i do want to take one second to mention the very first person i met when i came on campus in 1970, dr. mel steely, who's right down here. it's a little fright toening to

know we've known each other for 42 years. i was reminded of my age something my daughter on occasion reminds me of. i think all of you know is the my daughter, my younger daughter and her husband, jimmy. several people came through. it wasn't that they came through and said they were my students. it was they come through and said, my dad was your student and then say, meet my son. so i know i've been at this a fair length of time. two of my colleagues on the governing side, congressman bob barr and congressman matt collins are both here and i'm very grateful to them for their support. we also have a number of state representative representatives extraordinarily helpful, state representative, paulette braddock is here and she's really been just terrific. state representative dusty high tower is here, state representative, kevin cook is here. i'm grateful to all of them for

their support. i'm also grateful that harrelson county commission chair alan pool is here. i have to say, this goes back a long way, but to have mayor wayne garner i knew as state senator wayne garner before and knew as a friend, to have him here is a great honor and great to be back with you. i also want to say, without gordon and meredith austin having put all this together, you can imagine, looking at the size of the crowd and everything else, what a great job they did. gordon and meredith, i want to thank you for a lot of very are hard work. i do apologize because it's been a long evening just to get to this point although i think we took an awful lot of pictures and it's great honor to be here. i thought i would take a couple minutes and tell a couple of stories.

because i haven't been back in this kind of a setting. it's kind of triggers memories as people came through that i had known over the years, and to think back to what it was like to teach here, have both of my daughters go to carroltrollton school and the many things i learned here at west georgia college and then carrollton. a couple of them may actually tell you something about professors. one of my favorite stories, which i spent a fair amount of time telling when i used to go out on the speech circuit before i ran for congress, this is a true story, a friend of mine, we lived on a street right off the college, and he lived down at the bottom of the street, and there was a really big tree that was dying. it was angled towards his house. his wife wanted him to hire a

tree surgeon because she said, you know, if that tree falls during a storm, it's going to hit the house. but he was like some college professors, i include myself in this, he was confident that he knew how to do virtually everything. so our next door neighbor was about 5'5, a teacher of sociology named henry and the guy's house was carter, a pretty big guy, 6'3. the three of us, all being professors, decided, how hard can it be to cut down a tree? and so we went down and kip, who felt he knew everything, said, you know, what we're going to do is tie a rope about 15 feet up, and then we're going to cut the tree until it it's almost ready break. then we're going to pull the tree in the direction we want it

to fall. now, this is an example of why sometimes it's useful to have people who may or may not have an advanced degree, but have some level of common sense. so we went down there, kip's wife is saying to him, this is a very bad idea. we go to work cutting this tree. we have the rope in place. we get to a point we think the tree is about ready. remember, i said, it was leaning towards the house. we had cut it so the angle was away from the house, because we had figured out -- by the way, none of us were math majors and none of us had study ied physic one social scholar and two history professors. so we got on the tree and we got on that rope and this is what, if we had been in physics, we would have figured out, it was really big tree. it probably weighed 12 or 15,000

pounds. and as big as we thought we were, our collective weight was probably at that point about 500 pounds. now, if you have 500 pounds pulling in one direction and -- [ laughter ] >> see, at least one person here has already figured this out, right? you can imagine, just work out the math yourself, 500 pounds going this way, 15,000 pounds leaning this way, turns out when the tree breaks, it doesn't matter that you're pulling it, it's going to go in the direction that the tree's leaning. so we're standing there, we're pulling and we suddenly realize that we're being pulled.

and very slowly, but with gathering speed turns out galileo was right, the way gravity works is it accelerates as it comes down. now, the tree was dead enough that when the top of it hit the roof of the house, it broke clean, leaving the rest of the tree falling on the yard in a very nice orderly way. the part that hit the roof of the house, of course, hit with a fair amount of concussion because it had accelerated coming across and those of you who are physics majors can probably figure out the exact speed, i've forgotten nowadays but doubles every second or something. the concussion pumped holes in the ceiling because you have a tree hitting the house so the roof had holes in it. the concussion effect dropped the plaster in the master bedroom on the bed and the last thing we saw of kip that night was him running up the street with his wife chasing him with a

broom. the next day, they had a tree surgeon come by. they paid what they would have paid originally for the tree surgeon, plus they paid for the guy who fixed the roof, plus they paid to redo the plaster in the room. other than that, it was a very expensive education. i personally have never tried cutting a tree down since then. there were a thousand things like that that you could do and learn from and make friends that became permanent friends. i have to confess, i was in cu wannis at the time and i would go around giving speeches for kuwanis and i'd usually start with that story. the number of people who decided they liked me because i decided to admit i wasn't really smart, they could all identify. everybody at some point in their life, has done something and looked back, that was not very smart. >> newt gingrich is getting ready -- just into the meat of his speech. we will break away momentarily. we'll get back to it once he's

in the substance. we have votes coming in from michigan right now. very early in the process. only 1% of the vote in. rick santorum with 41%. 1100 or so votes, mitt romney, 36%, 979 votes, ron paul, 12%, 331 votes and newt gingrich, the man we're listening to now in georgia with 7%, 188 votes. is the extremely early in the process. all the polls in the state will close at 9 p.m. eastern, less than an hour from now. most of the polls have closed in michigan right now but all of the polls in michigan will close at the top of the hour, presumably at that point, we'll be able to have some more substantive information. these are very early numbers, the first raw votes coming in on this very very pivotal night, in the race for the white house. michigan, arizona, the polls have closed at arizona, at the top of the hour as well. what's going to happen in arizona? what's going to happen in

michigan? if romney were to lose the state where he was born, where his father served as governor, would be a huge setback for mitt romney. we're watching this very closely. you can see right now, 1% in, rick santorum slightly ahead. stay with us, our coverage only just beginning. ♪

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a huge night in the race for the white house unfolding right now. two primaries, arizona, where the polls will be closing at the top of the hour. michigan, most of the polls have already closed in michigan. some of the polls in michigan in the central time zone will close at the top of the hour. 1% has already been released. the numbers are going up slightly, a few thousand votes have already been counted. 41% so far for the former pennsylvania senator rick santorum, look at, 36% for mitt romney. he was born in michigan, but so f far, he's coming in second.

ron paul with 12%, newt gingrich, only 8%. early in the process, i want to show you what's happening in wyoming. tomorrow, all the official results in wyoming, caucuses released, they've been going on for several day. the republican party has already released these results. 83% of the vote in wyoming, not a lot of people voting. romney slightly ahead, 41%, santorum, 31%, ron paul, 20%, newt gingrich, 7%, all the official results from wyoming will be released by the republican party tomorrow. arizona, as i said, no raw votes in yet, they'll be coming in at the top of the hour. john king is looking at this. michigan is critical to romney. if he doesn't, his campaign is in deep trouble. >> there will be a lot of question about his strength against president obama and a lot has said he's the best candidate to make the economic

argument. these are the states already voted with these four. governor romney won four around the country with wyoming and it's starting to fill in. senator santorum hopes the night ends with purple. let's be careful. is the just 1% of the vote in, very close so far. we have a long way to go. we will wait for this to happen. we will bring up this part of the state, mainland part of the state. just 1% of the vote in, this is an area if senator santorum wins tonight, he needs to do very well in grand rapids area, conservative voters. and blue collar voters in kalamazoo. if this stays purple, it's a strong sign for senator santorum. let's move to the east. is the oakland county. 12% of the state population, one of the big counties important to the auto industry, important to the suburbs, northwest of detroit, this is 1% of the vote.

this is early. this doesn't really matter yet. if those numbers were to stay this way, that would be a sign of deep trouble for mitt romney, oakland county is the county he first lived, the county where he grew up. this county was big to mitt romney, in 2008, it was place he won 47% to 27%. a big vote margin. let's watch as the counties come in around the detroit area. it is right up in this area north of detroit, you have macolm county. is the where the term democrat was kind, why many were union members and in this research, we watch this map fill in tonight, at the moment very critical to mitt romney to win in the area of the auto industry, that's where he was from, where his dad ran the american motors corporation and his dad the popular governor. these areas are conservative areas beginning to fill in purple. 1% of the vote.

>> i have 2% of the now in with 42% for rick santorum, 37% for mitt romney. ron paul, 11%, 7% for newt gingrich. the votes are beginning to come in and they will accelerate. >> and sometimes you see it jump from 2 to 10 to 20 beyond and especially if they're coming in from the population centers here and in the west. as you watch the mitt, they call michigan the mitt. see the thumb. governor romney four years ago won the thumb area and won it quite convincingly. remember that as the map fills in tonight, can governor romney match that? senator santorum, this is 48% in huron county, very tiny rural area. that is the key. we said this in past states. the key for senator santorum is run up rural areas where he tends to do very well. the key for governor romney, big suburbs around detroit and can

he poll up here an area he won four years ago where senator santorum believes he can do damage. >> fascinating. if you see a lot of purple. he could win the popular vote and might not win the delegates because it is based on congressional districts. >> it is possible the state-wide winner does not get the most delegates. michigan's delegates are awarded two per congressional district on the new map. it has 15 members in the house of representatives but lost a seat after the consensus and only have 14. that is the new map on the districts. it will take effect this november, 14. we watch tonight we need to do the more important map, district by district because that determines who gets the delegates. >> i want to show our viewers. 3% of the vote is now in, coming in quickly. 42% for rick santorum with 10,256 votes, 37% for mitt romney, 9,155.

11% for ron paul, 7% for newt gingrich. 3% is coming in as we've been saying. these votes are going to accelerate. anderson cooper is over there watching what's going on. you know, these ads have been very significant in michigan. >> and we see mitt romney outspending rick santorum in the other states almost 2-1. >> the margin, interestingly not you saw in south carolina or florida, take a look at the ad spending by candidate. obviously, this was a mitt romney-rick santorum battle in michigan. you see that on the numbers. as of friday this is what the candidates had spent. $678,000 for mitt romney, $350,000 for rick santorum. that's just the campaigns, you're used to how i do this. you can see the super pacs change that math and make it spend more money than the candidates themselves. why does it say as of friday. what a weekend it was. as of friday, almost $2 million,

$1.3 million for rick santorum. ready? >> wow. >> just over the weekend. over the weekend, mitt romney putting another $1.2 million in a couple days, three days. >> incredible. >> amazing. rick santorum putting in just under $1 million. that's the candidate and the super pac combined. it's pretty stunning. what kinds of ads? we'll play a couple. we thought this was pretty interesting, called rombo. let's listen to it. >> mitt romney's negative attack machine is back on full throttle. this time, mitt romney's firing at rick santorum. romney and his super pac have spent a staggering $20 million attack i attacking fellow republicans. >> i thought that one was pretty -- >> got a lot of comments online. >> yes. it did get a lot of comments online. >> let's play this one, america is drowning by the mitt romney campaign at rick santorum. >> america is drowning in national debt yet rick santorum

supported billions in earmarks. >> i have had a lot of earmarks. in fact, i'm very proud of all the earmarks i put in. >> so just as nasty as it has been everywhere else. the rombo one made me chuckle. >> thank you very much. santorum in the debate tried to point the earmark figure at mitt romney because he had asked for federal money for the olympics. alex, you have done a lot of ads over the years. what do you make of the ads you have seen in michigan? >> business as usual. romney has run a very effective negative ad campaign. he's proven to be more effective at burning down his opponents' house than building his own and ultimately, you have to give peop voters a place to go. negative ads are easy. easy to say, don't touch the hot stove. the hardest place is lift your

eyes up, follow us, there's a better place. on that count, the romney campaign has fallen short. >> at this point in a primary battle are those the kind of ads we would normally be seeing? >> yes. >> they are? >> actually roughing. >> the positive raising up ads, these aren't the kind we would normally be seeing? >> you know, you have to have some of that, you really do in the mix. you can't win a football game with just defense or just offense. you have to be able to play both sides of the game and so it is in politics. these people are competing for a position of leadership. yes, you can disqualify the other guy. at the end of the day, voters are still going to look at you and say, where are you going to take this country? me, my family, our lives? without that the negatives actually backfire on you and they look like they're short term political things. vote for me because i want you to, not vote for me because i will lead the country to better place. >> interesting.

>> wolf, more numbers coming in. >> yes, they are. they're coming in rather quickly. we expect it to accelerate even more. 4% of michigan. only 230 votes separate rick santorum from mitt romney. 40% for santorum with 15,275 with 39% for mitt romney, 15,045. ron paul and newt gingrich, way way behind. look how close it is between rick santorum and mitt romney, even in romney's home state of michigan. we're going to be hearing from these candidates, all these candidates tonight. ron paul is getting ready to speak to his supporters. the numbers have just changed a little bit. it's getting even closer right now. only 151 votes separate rick santorum and mitt romney. rick santorum slightly, slightly ahead of mitt romney, 4% of the vote is now in. they'll be coming in quickly. pretty soon 10%, then 20%. don't go away, our coverage

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during the commercial break, it went back and forth, romney all of a sudden on top. now, 5% of the vote in, 457 votes separate rick santorum and mitt romney, 40% for santorum, 39% for romney, 18,854 for santorum, 18,397 for romney. look, it just changed once again. 6% of the vote is now in, 40% still for santorum, 39% for romney. a difference of 596 votes. it is really, really close. the votes are coming in rather quickly right now. we are going to keep those votes up there and see what's going on. let me go to john king to get a

little more analysis what's going on. it's going back and forth. we see a lot of purple in those screens. there are 14 congressional districts in michigan. even though somebody will win the popular vote, that doesn't necessarily mean the delegate vote will be won by that person. >> exactly. because 14 congressional districts might say, no, we have phone. these republican delegates will be awarded on the new map just drawn, 14 congressional districts because of the census and a couple republican national committee unpledged. senator santorum ahead by 1,000 votes. we have a long way to go. as you watch the map, not how much turns purple or dark red, santor santorum, purple, romney is dark red. michig michigan, not a great population, there's one

congressional district. if you see all this turn purple, it might make you think he's winning in the state. this whole area would be only two delegates. if you do another line, i will try this again. for some that might have a michigan congressional map at home, this is not exact science. there are six congressional districts above the line and eight congressional districts below the line. in the southern part of the state is where the population is where you have more congressional districts and more delegates at play. very important for senator santorum to win the top half of the state and very important for governor romney to defend and so far doing okay in areas he won last time. i will stretch the map out. you have a half-dozen congressional districts in the bottom half and eight, as you move up. oakland county i mentioned. if you know detroit and the auto

industry, you have detroit and motor city, a lot of auto industries and factories in here, warren michigan and oak county where mitt romney grew up as a child, winning by 41% and four years ago, won that county by 20 points. that's one of the ways we will watch governor romney. as you pull out now, state-wide, still at 6% in rural voters, upper peninsula, conservative voters critical to senator santorum. how he fairs in the suburbs is critical. one of the things you will watch is john dengal's congressional district. how many turned out to vote, only a tiny amount of votes. as it fills in, could it stay close? could democratic mischief have been an impact. we have indications we will be at this a long time, not only to see who wins state-wide but also

important to see who wins the congressional district, looking at a margin like that with 7% of the vote in with a state as diverse, break out the calculators. >> it could turn this race upside down. about 1,000 votes, santorum ahead of romney right now, 23,780 for santorum, 22,792 for romney. 40% to 39. so it's very very close right now. a thousand votes or so separate these two candidates. we will continue to watch what's going on. right now, though, ron paul, the republican presidential candidate is speaking to his supporters in virginia, where the super tuesday ballots will be counted next tuesday. only ron paul and mitt romney are on the ballot in virginia. there will be squiggly lines at the bottom of the screen, we have republican voters in columbus, ohio, liking or disliking stuff they hear. see and watch ron paul right no

now. >> the fed's been around for 99 years. guess what? they've lost 99% of the value of our dollar from 1913. [ booing ]. >> pretty bad record. i willett you in on a little secret, the chairman of the federal reserve will be before the banking committee tomorrow and i might show up and ask him why they destroyed our money! f i can assure you that we probably won't get a straight answer. but, no, obviously, the monetary issue is a very big issue. governments can't grow without it and it's been growing endlessly. when government grows, liberty is undermined. since that time, since the progressive era, we have undermined our liberties, whether through the encroachment

of the entitlement system. the entitlement system was set up for those poor who will fall through the crack. the best demonstration of the failure of that was the housing bubble. the housing bubble created by the federal reserve and affirmative action programs by the congress. guess what? who made a lot of money during this time? banks and brokers and fannie maes and freddie macs, they made all the money. [ boos ]. >> then they got into gambling and derivatives and big trouble and lo and behold the predictable bursting of the bubble came. when it came, they yelled and screamed and said, we're too big to fail, too big to fail, you have to bail us out, there will be a depression coming. so guess what? the fed and congress bailed them out. guess what, those very people these programs were designed for, to give everybody a house, guess what? they lost their jobs and they lost their houses and it's not resolved yet because the entitlement system tends to help

the wealthy much more so than the poor. the poor are deceived into believing the government can produce wealth forever and redistrict it. i tell you what, there's a transfer of wealth from the middle class to the wealthy. that occurs just with the destruction of the currency and middle class gets wiped out and wealthy get wealthier. this is what has happened. wealth is okay if people make money honestly and don't make it by ripping us off and getting advantages from the government, if they give us a product -- if they give us a good product and we vote confidence in them and they make money, that is a lot different than if they're in the military industrial complex or banking system and they get the money first and they get the contracts and they get the bailouts, that's not fair and it's not fair to dump the wasteful products and all the debt on the american people.

that should be liquidated. the fact that printed money can encourage wasteful spending, it certainly is true with overseas spending. just look at the waste. the wars that have been going on for the past ten years have added $4 trillion to our national debt. what have we gotten from it? we're less safe and we're broke. the very simple solution to overextension overseas is to follow the advice of the founders, follow the constitution, have a strong national defense defend this country but get out of the business of policing the world and get out of the business of nation building! f >> bring them home! >> you know all my lines.

which means we bring our troops home to solve that problem. the sooner the better! f fortunately our defense would be stronger and people say we have to do this because we're an exceptional nation. we did have an exceptional nation at one time, we had an exceptional constitution, we were exceptionally wealthy, exceptional with our freedoms. but this idea that we're so exceptional that we can use force and intimidation and bombs and spread our so-called goodness, it eliminates all our goodness if we believe that we have the authority to go overseas and tell people how to live. it doesn't work. [ applause ] >> now, a very simple solution to this, both the entitlement system and the war mongering

goes on, only send people to washington who you honestly believe they really did read the constitution and -- and that they understood it, and that they will obey it! that's the kind of people we need! [ applause ] >> so how many wars would we have been fighting since world war ii? zero. none have been declared. they were unnecessary. too many lives lost, too many dollars spent, too many veterans suffering now without getting medical care. it doesn't solve our problems. if i thought we were safer and necessary, yes, we should do it but it doesn't work that way. so what we need is a new for ren policy based on non-intervention, minding our own business and the constitution and taking the advice of the founders. it's much better to talk to people than initiate war against

them. they keep saying the previous administration, this administration, take nothing off the table when it has to dealing with our enemies. what about why should we take off negotiations? why not diplomacy? should we take that off? [ applause ] >> i remember very well-being drafted since 1962 at the cuban crisis, it was dissipated rapidly because john kennedy called up and said we have a problem here. >> and they said, we have a problem here, you have missiles in turkey. he took the missiles out of turkey and we took the missiles out of cuba and we didn't have to fight a war. why can't we talk to people who have weapons of mass destruction? [ applause ] >> now, now, of course, they're talking about attacking another

country, iran. they're far from -- >> [ booing ]. >> there's no evidence they have a weapon. our cia hasn't proved to us or tell us they are building one yet the war drums are beating and beating. we have to be heard about this. this country does not need another war at all. [ applause ] >> the other thing that happens under these conditions where government grows too much, violates our civil liberties. we do know about the tsa, i think a certain senator brought that up. the tsa and our liberties are undermined under the conditions, too often and even in earlier wars violations have occurred. they're being violated more now than ever and we're really not in a war like world war ii. it's undeclared but used as an excuse because we're in a

perpetual war against terrorism. terrorism and crime should be dealt with to say we're in a war against terrorism wherever they are, that means we're against the whole world and literally because we have a lot of bombs and missiles, that we send our missiles and we send our missiles any place in the world we please. that is not the way to win friends, i'll tell you that. that's the way to build up enemies. but the undermining of our liberties should be one of our greatest concerns. when you think of the patriot act. the patriot act -- >> [ booing ]. >> the patriot act was passed shortly after 9/11, if it was called what it really is, repeal the fourth amendment act, i wouldn't have passed. so next year, when we go ahead and get rid of the patriot act, we won't call it repeal the patriot act, we will call it restore the fourth amendment act

to this country. >> ron paul delivering his speech to his supporters in virginia. they vote in virginia one week from today on super tuesday. he's on the battle -- mitt romney on the ballot. mitt romney is on the ballot. the other candidates did not make the ballot in virginia, a key battleground state. take a look at this. i want to show you the raw votes coming in from michigan. 12% are now in and rick santorum continues to maintain a lead. he has 40% to mitt romney, 38%. 2700 votes ahead. there are now 2800 votes, just gone up. 43,732 for rick santorum, 40,930 for mitt romney, ron paul and newt gingrich in michigan tonight, way behind, only 11% for ron paul, 7% for newt gingrich. but a real battle under way in michigan with 12% of the vote in between the former pennsylvania senator, the former governor of massachusetts, rick santorum, maintaining a lead, nearly 3,000

votes ahead, 2,800. it's just changed. look at this. it's now only 1400 votes. the votes are coming in quickly from michigan right now. it's a 1409 vote separation. look at this. it's coming in really really quickly. at the top of the hour, all the polls in michigan will be closed. all the polls in arizona will be closed. guess what? we are going to see if we are going to be able to make a projection in michigan or arizona at the top of the hour. our coverage continues right here in the cnn "election center." ♪ [ male announcer ] how could a luminous protein in jellyfish, impact life expectancy in the u.s., real estate in hong kong, and the optics industry in germany? at t. rowe price, we understand the connections of a complex, global economy. it's just one reason over 75% of our mutual funds beat their 10-year lipper average.

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in just more than five minutes, it will be the top of the hour and all the polls will be closed in michigan and arizona. stand by to see if we can make a projection or two. 14% of the vote is now in. santorum maintaining a slight lead, 40% to 39%, ahead by 15,067 votes. let's go to john king.

he has a map of michigan. a lot of purple, santorum, not so much red, romney, but very close with 14%. >> why so much purple? less red? a very close election. at the moment, rick santorum is winning. i will pick a random county and put it up, a pretty good margin in small rural counties. less than 1% of the population in the rural counties. this is important for rick santorum. is t this is where you have tea party voters. mitt romney starting to fill it in here. a very close election. let's look at kalamazoo county. can mitt romney hold his lead there? very narrow population center. he needs to hold his lead. >> you see governor romney winning. i'll stretch it out in the auto area. lansing just came in, romney leading, only 2% of the vote there. needs to win this if you watch state-wide. this is his home county, oakland

county, stretching out the lead with only 4% of the vote in. the major population centers are here, key to the battle. we're at 14% of the vote here. watch it here. only one big congressional district. a lot of counting to do. >> it certainly does. get ready. we'll see if we can make a projection. that's coming up in a couple minutes. the other office devices? they don't get me. they're all like, "hey, brother, doesn't it bother you that no one notices you?" and i'm like, "doesn't it bother you you're not reliable?" and they say, "shut up!" and i'm like, "you shut up." in business, it's all about reliability. 'cause these guys aren't just hitting "print." they're hitting "dream." so that's what i do. i print dreams, baby. [whispering] big dreams.

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i wonder how she does it. that's why she's the boss. because the small business with the best technology rules. contact the verizon center for customers with disabilities at 1-800-974-6006. we are getting close to the top of the hour. all the polls will then be closed in both michigan and arizona. lots at stake for all of these candidates tonight, but especially for mitt romney and rick santorum. rick santorum as we've been seeing in these early numbers coming in, slightly ahead of mitt romney in his home state of michigan right now. who would have believed this? only a few weeks ago, mitt romney would be struggling in a state where he was born, a state where his father was governor, a state where his wife was born, they were raised in michigan, but there are serious problems for mitt romney in michigan right now as the votes come in. at the top of the hour, all the

polls in michigan will be closed as well as arizona and we will be able to assess what we do at that point. get ready, our coverage is only just beginning on this very pivotal night and the race for the white house. cnn can now project arizona will go for mitt romney. cnn projects arizona and its 29 delegates, all of them, will be in mitt romney's camp. he will win the election, the primary election in arizona tonight. we do this projection based on the exit polls that have come in throughout the course of the day. we interviewed people at very important sample precincts throughout the state of arizona. arizona, another state going in favor of mitt romney, but guess what? we cannot repeat, not, make a projection in michigan right now. it is way too close, based on

all the exit poll numbers coming in as well as the actual raw vote that is coming in. let's take a look at the exit poll numbers that have been coming up in arizona, first of all. we have projected mitt romney is this winner. based on the exit poll information in key precincts, 44% for mitt romney, 27% for rick santorum, 16% for newt gingrich, 11% for ron paul. this is why we can project arizona and all of its 29 delegates, winner take all in arizona, will go for mitt romney. we cannot make a projection in michigan right now, 30 delegates at stake, proportionate representation in michigan. let's take a look at the vote, though. the raw vote in michigan right now. 17% of the vote is now in and mitt romney has now take an slight lead over rick santorum. look at this. 40% for mitt romney, 39% for rick santorum. mitt romney, about almost 2,000 votes ahead of rick santorum, right now, ron paul with 11% and

newt gingrich with 7%. it's just gone up a little bit more. mitt romney is almost 4,000 votes ahead of rick santorum in michigan, 68,208 for mitt romney, 64,303 for rick santorum. it's very very close. 19% of the vote now in michigan, romney taking a slight lead over rick santorum. let's go over -- let's go over to john king right now. let's assess arizona. first of all, 29 delegates, all of them going for mitt romney. that is absolutely nothing to sneeze at. an important win for mitt romney in arizona? important win, winner take all in arizona. michigan is proportional. let's look first why we're so certain to make this call for mitt romney in arizona and look why michigan is so close. the number one issue for arizona voters say the economy was issue number one, 17% edge of governor

romney over rick santorum. you're on your path to a good night. what else mattered, electability. 38% say can defeat barack obama, trying to defeat the incumbent president. and 53%, the majority thought electability thought was the big issue went for governor romney. look at the ideology, 38%, just ahead, 38% say they're very conservative voting in arizona, senator santorum 38%, romney 38%, santorum needs to do better to win a state among very conservative voters, governor romney splitting the difference there, part of his path to victory, among the 37% that say they're somewhat conservative a big win why he describes himself as moderate. in the romney camp, winner take all, michigan a roller coaster, governor romney 2500 votes ahead with almost 20% of the vote in.

why is this so close? the economy the number one issue in michigan. governor romney winning getting a pretty good margin over senator santorum that say the economy is the top issue. you see weaknesses for governor romney, among very conservative voters in michigan, 30% of the electorate, senator santorum getting 50% for senator santorum among the very conservative voters. governor romney getting 35%. remember, they split this vote in this state of arizona, governor romney wins, santorum with an advantage here and one of the reasons we'll be counting votes. among those who describe themselves as somewhat conservative, 31% of the electorate, governor romney with an edge. you have an ideology strain in the state of michigan now, some what conservative to moderate breaking for governor romney. is the interesting wolf. this is very close late tonight we start asking about democrats voting 39% of the electorate, that's high describing themselves as moderate or

liberal. rick santorum is no liberal. 37% to 33%. are these moderate to liberal voters voting because they support senator santorum or are they democrats, independents who lean democrats voting in the republican primary trying to cause mischief in mitt romney's home state, something we will watch as the night goes on. looks like we will be counting michigan county by county and congressional district by district. why are so many moderates and liberals voting for rick santorum? could be a question late into the evening. >> could be late into the night. let's go to candy crowley's headquarters. they're very excited mitt romney has won arizona and all of its 29 delegates. >> reporter: they are. but i have to tell you that the video feeds in here cable news went to hash about 10 minutes ago, so nobody in this room knew until about a minute ago that the arizona projection is that mitt romney will win all those delegates.

came over the p.a. system is how they found out. while they're not dancing in the streets, they're at least dancing in the ballroom here. obviously, what they want to know about is michigan. the folks here on the ground, a lot of them state officials say it will be a long night i think we probably could have figured out for ourselves. at some point we expect the attorney general of michigan, romney supporter to come up and say exactly what they've heard, a, arizona is coming in for romney and, b, stand by and we'll see how michigan goes. wait and see. some have been here a couple hours. it was nice for them to have some good news, albeit over the pa system, wolf. >> amazing. you would think a night like this, they would have the tvs working at these respective campaign headquarters but obviously someone screwed up over there at romney headquarters. people will be saying this is a metaphor and let's assume somebody made a mistake. >> reporter: it was working originally. it was fine and then it went to

hash. i'm sure they're working on it. >> i'm sure they are. don't go too far away. anderson is with us as well. you can't knock it. arizona, 29 delegates, all going for romney, a big win. we were in arizona at the cnn debate and romney came through there. we'll see what happens in michigan. >> it would have been a huge surprise had he not won in arizona based on all the polls we've been watching. >> absolutely. we need to give him credit in arizona. we have a tendency to focus on the train wrecks or close ones like michigan. arizona has just as many delegates, in fact, he'll get all the delegates out of this. in terms of the delegate hunt, this was a significant win for romney and looks like he's doing -- the trimlines in michigan suggest he may pull this out. that would constitute a good evening for him. >> and in michigan, it's close

at this point at least. does that still do him damage? >> it could because you would feel michigan would be an easy state for him to win. because it's where his father was governor and where he grew up and he's having a hard time there. it brings into the whole question of how is a republican candidate, if he becomes the nominee going to do in the midwest which you have to win a state or two in this midwest if you're going to win the presidency, michigan and ohio would be nice. to echo david on arizona, i think you have to give mitt romney credit here. what's interesting to me, is that he split the most conservative voters, he still was a little behind santorum on the tea party voters, strongly support the tea party voters, those are the ones he's had some problem with. but he won all income groups and he usually wins the wealthy and not under $50,000 so you have to give him credit. >> of you're a rick santorum, you look at the fact you look at his percentage of the votes and newt gingrich's percentage of the votes it about equals wh

what -- >> and he could say, i didn't spend money in the state of arizona, competing in the state of michigan, large population of mormons, 15% of the republican electorate. >> the polls do show that in arizona that the debate - debate -- santorum. i think we all agree santorum lost the debate, had a bad night last week and that did have a significant impact in arizona and i think it helped romney. i think it had less of impact in michigan. i think a win is a win in terms of the headlines you get but it does set you up for the effect test. ohio will be a perhaps i think in many ways more critical test for mitt romney because it is not the state in which he was raised and right now, he's behind there. it will be so interesting to hear tonight from these undecided voters in ohio how they respond to whatever happens if mitt romney wins michigan. >> the big question also if mitt romney wins michigan if only by

a point or two or three, will that give him momentum? we haven't seen a lot of momentum in these races? will that give him momentum on super tuesday and will that get him some more money because he's been spending his money at a very quick pace here. he needs money, he needs momentum. going into super tuesday, in a lot of states in the south for example that he is not likely to do well in, like georgia where newt gingrich will do well. massachusetts, yes, he will. oklahoma, times squaennessee, yo think of those states and santorum could do well. >> how critical on super tuesday does georgia become for newt gingrich. newt gingrich has not had a win now since south carolina. i guess he can stay in it regardless of super tuesday. >> i think the most important state for newt is not georgia, it's nevada. he's got to keep getting money out of adele sson there.

as long as he keeps winning that one man primary -- interestingly enough, i think even a victory in georgia won't do much for newt gingrich at this point. it's at home, it's expected. he has to broaden himself. you certainly can't count him out. he's harder to kill than one of the thing from the horror movie, you know, he keeps coming back. unless he goes beyond georgia, i think you will see this stay a two-man race. >> newt set himself up because he said it's hard to imagine anybody going on if they don't take their home state. he set himself up for that. i think georgia will be a fair fight with him. we've been focusing on all night long, the democratic influence in michigan. the latest poll is 9%, dropped from the earlier projections often% putting it close to the 7% that came out four years ago. i've talked to a number of people in michigan tonight. there's a real sense up there

it's been a bit of an exaggeration how many of these people are political pros who came out to make mischief. they're the ones who love to get on camera and talk about it. there is a sense there are blue collar democrats moderates who don't like barack obama attracted to rick santorum mostly because of what gloria talked about, class warfare and identification with rick santorum. i do think it's more to it than mischief making to rick santorum and i don't think that's fair to him. he has an attraction to some voters. he has 45% of the union vote and mitt romney has only 26% of the union vote in michigan. that's a democratic vote. >> there's some things that don't make sense. when you look at -- you look at people who say they oppose the tea party, guess who they're voting for? rick santorum. wait a minute. that doesn't make sense. some democrats slipped in there. you look at liberals, guess who they're voting for in large numbers. rick santorum. >> it's moderate and liberal

combined. >> you would still expect that that would be a place where romney would find gold, not rick santorum. the answer is probably a little bit of both but in a close race, it all counts. >> at the end of the day, i don't know if it will make all that much of a difference. i do think what we haven't really focused on tonight, i'm sure we will as the night goes on are the politics of the auto rescue. i really think that's one of the reasons why mitt romney is struggling so much in his home state. while clearly the majority of democrats are for it, we see a good number of republicans support it as well including the republican governor. >> but all the candidates were opposed to the bailout. >> yes, except for mitt romney is from that state. his father was an auto executive. people from detroit and especially michigan obviously they see this as more of a betrayal from mitt romney than they would rick santorum. let's keep in mind, they don't call this the bailout in michigan, they call it the auto rescue. why? because it rescued millions of

jobs. >> exit polls show 51% of voters tonight in this primary oppose the bailout. the majority of voters in michigan opposed it. >> that's not the republican number. >> it's the majority. >> it rescued michigan for barack obama. he will win in the general election, not be a swing state even if mitt romney as the son of that state, it was very unpopular at the time if you polled it, in both parties and it worked out. he will win michigan and won't be a swing state. >> it hasn't been a swing state in a long time. >> it was a few months ago because the economy was so bad and unemployment so high. it looks like it's worked. >> so the president took a tough stand giving away 43% of gm and billions of dollars? giving money is the easy part. saying no -- mitt romney is criticized, excuse me, mitt romney is criticized a lot for not taking tough stands for not

being federal on things. guess what, in his home state, he stood up to a home state industry and said, no, there's a better way to do this than hand it to the uaw. >> he said in that op-ed. i know he says he didn't write the headlines, let detroit go bankrupt. in the lead, if we do what the auto executives are asking for we can kiss the automotive american industry good-bye. he was wrong. this is an important thing but a the graph.of his argument against president obama is he has never held a job and doesn't know anything about business. that's a powerful argument. this is a wonderful argument obama has, mr. ceo, i made a big call about business and i was right and you were long. >> certainly true about chrysler. chrysler is no longer an american owned company. we took it over and then sold for pennies on the dollar to fiat. fiat owns chrysler. >> mitt romney's point has a lot of validity there.

>> the problem is what romney was talking about, his plan would not have worked, in fact, your old boss said so as well there was no private money to come and rescue the auto industry, there was no other option. what is he talking about when he said we should have done it my way. >> the chrysler bailout did come from the bush administration. they deserved credit for that, if they were bought by fiat or whatever -- >> the most important thing we've learned tonight so far is mitt romney has too many home states. because he does seem to be doing well in them. >> wolf, still watching the votes come in. >> let's take a look anderson where the votes stand in michigan right now. 28% of the vote is actually in. mitt romney is building up his lead in the state of michigan. at 9,238 votes ahead of rick santorum. 116,000 votes for mitt romney and almost 107,000 for rick santorum. 41% for romney, 38% for santorum, 28% of the vote is now

in. ron paul, newt gingrich behind. we will be speaking live shortly with ron paul. i have a bunch of questions i want to ask him on this very important night, michigan, arizona, we projected arizona already going to mitt romney. we're one week away from super tuesday. ten contests next week, lots of questions coming up for ron paul right after this. all energy development comes with some risk, but proven technologies allow natural gas producers to supply affordable, cleaner energy, while protecting our environment. across america, these technologies protect air - by monitoring air quality and reducing emissions... ...protect water - through conservation and self-contained recycling systems... ... and protect land - by reducing our footprint

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we're watching what's happening in michigan right now. we already projected mitt romney will take arizona, take all 29 delegates. 29% of the vote is in and mitt romney has a lead over santorum, 126,000 and rick santorum, 116,000. ron paul in third with 34,703.

newt gingrich in fourth with 20,"360." 31% of the vote is now in and mitt romney maintaining a slight advantage over rick santorum. this is a critical battleground state for mitt romney right now, a state where he was born, a state where his father served as governor. he needs to win michigan night. it's looking a little bit better for him than it was a little while ago. we'll stay on top of the situation. we cannot project a winner yet in michigan. i want to bring in ron paul the republican presidential candidate, the republican congressman from texas intimidate congressman, thanks very much for coming in. >> you're welcome. >> i want you to responsible, if you will, rick santorum keeps suggest i suggesting and his supporters and strategists keep saying you're in cahoots with mitt romney, you're trying to help mitt romney secretly behind the scenes in order to -- for whatever reason and that's why you're running ads going after

rick santorum. earlier, you ran ads going after some of the other candidates but you never say anything or do anything critical of mitt romney. go ahead, talk to rick santorum, tell him why you think you're not in cahoots with mitt romney. >> well, you know, if anybody comes to any of our meetings or our rallies, i talk about issues and foreign policy and civil liberties and the federal reserve. if that's all he has to talk about, that doesn't mean he has much of a platform to talk about. we're supposed to talk about the issues. to construct something like that. he pulled that out of the air because there's no truth to it. if he wants to spend his energy doing that, i just -- you can't do anything about it. he dreamt that up. i think he should talk about the issues instead, that's what i think i'm supposed to do. let me be precise. have you run ads critical of mitt romney. he says you haven't but you know the facts.

>> we have at the beginning, we called him a flip-flopper and any time we're in a debate, you know, i mention i run against all three of them because they are very similar. they have the same foreign policy, they're very ayesaggres moving our troops around and occupying and endorse preemptive war and not interested in talking about civil liberties and don't talk about the federal reserve and what we ought to do and nobody talks about cuts. the debt is the problem. we have a debt crisis in this country worldwide and rather serious. i see them all in the same category. i think the only difference i've been able to observe is quite possibly would be management styles on their personalities on how they would do things, but philosophically, there's no difference. i don't hesitate to point out our differences no matter who it is. >> because i've asked some of santorum supporters, why would -- why do you believe ron paul would be in some sort of

conspiracy to help mitt romney? you know what they said to me, congressman? you want me to tell you, right? >> well, if you want to. >> they've got this motion that you would like to see your son, rand paul, the republican senator from kentucky on the ballot with mitt romney and that's why you're supposedly protecting mitt romney in going after rick santorum. what do you think of that theory? >> the first thing, it hasn't crossed my mind and second thing, i don't think it would work and third thing, i don't think mitt romney would be talking in that language at all. i think that's -- some people are much more into conspiracies than others. if santorum is an addict on conspiracies, i guess he's going to have to keep talking that way. >> what happened in michigan tonight? i would have thought in a state like michigan you would have done better than you're obviously doing right now. what happened? >> i don't know what you can say

something happened, because our polls showed that, you know, we have solid support and our numbers are better. every state we've been in, if you compare it to four years ago, it doubles and triples in enthusiasm. obviously, we wished we could have done a lot better but the growth and the spirit behind what we're doing, we g get -- everybody recognizes we get a large number of people out and a lot of them are young people some came out four years ago 18 and 19 and they're now voting. there's still a lot of young people coming out. there's something about this message of liberty and anti-war and sound money very attractive to young people. i think they're scared to death about the debt they're inheriting and understanding what i'm saying. so, yes, the enthusiasm is much greater than the actual votes that come, still, we're very pleased with our strategy. we're accumulating delegates and we'll continue to work in the

caucus states where, you know, our investment can pay off more and that is our strategy and right now, we're not disappointed with the way the process is working and giving us a chance to build on our delegate count. >> the virginia primary, a week from today, you're in virginia right now, springfield, virginia, just outside of washington d.c., as you know, newt gingrich didn't get on the ballot in virginia, rick santorum didn't get on the ballot in virginia, their campaign organizations weren't good enough apparently to get all the signatures they needed. you're on the ballot and mitt romney on the ballot, only the two of you. some will say you will reach out to santorum and gingrich supporters in effect to try to beat mitt romney in virginia. what's your strategy in virginia, congressman? >> well, obviously, by reaching out, some people think you will try to talk people into voting for you for nefarious reasons. certainly not. i was reaching out when i put

ads on about how santorum is a fake conservative. you know, that's to get some of his vote. i'm always reaching out to get all their votes. yes, i'm going to try to get as many votes from santorum, of his people and gingrich and see what i can do. that's our job on the campaign and that's why i'm here and why we had a couple thousand people show up and it was very encouraging obviously. >> in virginia, what's going to be your main argument over the next few days between now and next tuesday to try to win in virginia and beat mitt romney? >> that's one thing you know people ask about that what we do in virginia versus north dakota and california. to me, the same message. why should the message of freedom and sound money and prosperous economy and sensible foreign policy and civil liberties, that should appeal to everybody. that's what i love about this message of individual liberty. it brings people together

because they come together for social freedoms or economic freedoms and we should all get together for that reason and not be judgmental how they use that freedom. i can't change my message and say, i'm going virginia, what kind of subsidies do we promise them and go to iowa and promise farm subsidy, this kind of thing? i can't do that. i'm convinced the cause of liberty and individual liberty and sound market and free money economic is is the solution of the problem. mow message is the same no matter where i go. >> when somebody like mitt romney wins in arizona tonight, let's see what happens in michigan, do you normally call them and congratulate them after a win in these states? >> you know, i have in the past, but there have gotten to be so many states coming up, if somebody doesn't give a speech early, i'm on the road, it's likely i won't do it. but you know i have on several occasions. >> congressman, as usual, we were getting into this habit of speaking every week during these

campaign elections. thanks so much for joining us. >> you're welcome. nice to be with you. >> ron paul joining us from virginia tonight. let's look at the votes right now in michigan. we'll put them up on the screen. 35% of the vote in michigan now and mitt romney maintaining his lead, 41% over rick santorum's 38%. he's up by 12,494 votes. 145,000 or so, almost 146,000 for mitt romney, 133,400 or so for rick santorum. ron paul with 12%, newt gingrich with 7%. you see the vote constantly changing. it's coming in rather quickly from michigan. unlike arizona, we cannot yet project a winner in michigan and we will wait for actual votes. we have projected a winner in arizona and projected mitt romney is the winner in arizona. let's go over to john king one more time. we're looking at arizona, we're looking closely at michigan right now, arizona, all 29 delegates going to mitt romney.

>> that's a big win for governor romney in terms of momentum. still early. and we know 10 states next week, he would like the win going in and when we start to get votes in arizona that will turn red and trust our projection and romney red at the moment in michigan, 36% of the vote. you see about a 12,000 vote lead, a little more than that. governor romney at 41% and santorum, 38. you look at the map, you say there's a little more purple than dark red, why isn't santorum doing better. these places, 100% of the vote counted in marquette county. 27% of the vote, remember the vote count. 2300 votes. smaller more rural communities. we've seen that in other states. a stronghold for senator santorum and democrats causing mischief. there are a lot of democrats in this area. that's governor romney. i will come back to that in a second.

if senator santorum is to make up this difference, where would he have to do it? he's doing well in the conservative grand rapids area. only 5% of votes counted so far. you see the margin for senator santorum, 8 point margin from percentage standpoint. he needs that to continue. when that gets up to 95 and 100 to keep that margin and have the vote count go up. that's one of the places he needs to do well. you move over this way and look at places governor romney is doing well. wayne county is where detroit is. a lot of talk of getting democrats out for santorum. governor romney ahead there. he's holding onto a place he had to win. come over here, governor romney at 50%. this is the area of the auto industry, detroit, macomb county. governor romney holding his lead, 11% there. >> let's go to oakland county.

dana bash is standing by. set the scene, a big county. 12% of the population. >> i remember being here with governor romney four years ago, this was teplace in his michigan campaign four years ago, critical. i went to one of his headquarters with him. 48-33% for senator santorum. only 17% of the vote in. if governor romney can hold those numbers and oakland county, that would help him win the statewide vote n. we have to break it down by congressional district. 12% of the population, 17% of the vote in, that's a good margin for governor romney if he can hold it. >> that's significant. dana bash is in oakland county right now. they're counting votes in oakland, only 17% have been counted so far. tell us what's going on. >> we actually have a very cool thing for you right now. we are behind the scenes at the oakland county "election

center." what you see here is where they are gathering all the votes coming in from all this important county john just laid out. figuring out exactly where things stand. i want to bring in joe, the director of elections. thank you for giving us this inside look here. tell us exactly what's going on here and how high-tech it is. >> okay. over here, we have our connections, our secure electronic connections with our 51 cities and townships reporting us to all our 541 p - precincts. >> reporter: all the information is coming through those particular lines where the red bulbs are? >> that's right. all electronic. no manual entry, no opportunity to transpose numbers, that type of thing. >> reporter: take us to what these people are doing on these computers. >> these folks are 541 precincts divided up being monitored by these different individuals, each one responsible for about 100 precincts. they're monitoring those precincts. that data is being pushed over to the other area over here where it's then being put out

onto the internet so the folks at home can see the results. >> this is something we have first on cnn right now, you're looking at a screen, i know john had just said he had 17% of the vote in oakland county, we have a much larger percentage right now. tell us what we're seeing. >> we're looking at 61% of our precincts counted. mitt romney at 38,000 votes or 49% and rick santorum is at 24,000 votes or 31%. >> reporter: okay. thank you. i want to quickly talk to one other person, billing bullard over here, the county clerk. you are more political, shall we say, because you have endorsed mitt romney. >> that is correct. >> reporter: tell us how important this county is. obviously, we know it's his hometown, where he went to elementary school and high school, politically. >> this is the second largest county in this state, the biggest republican county. a candidate to win statewide has to win oakland county. >> reporter: not just a candidate but romney in

particular because of the demographic makeup of oakland county, right? the more moderate suburban area of detroit? >> yes. mitt romney went to high school, his family, a lot of his family, his brother lives here, nieces and nephews. this should be his home territory, only matter of how big will he win in oakland county. >> reporter: we got numbers on bloomfield hills literally his hometown. what can you tell us about how well he's doing there? >> he got a higher percentage of bloomfield hills in the county as a whole, 73%, a pretty good total because there's 10 other candidates on the ballot. michele bachmann and other candidates are still getting votes. >> reporter: looking at the numbers overall so far obviously just 67% are in, how are you feeling about how mitt romney is doing in this very important county? >> he's doing very well here. as you know, the delegates are by congressional district pretty much. there's only two allocated statewide. the 14 congressional districts, we basically have two big

congressional districts here, so i'd say he probably has won those two congressional districts. >> reporter: one other important fact, in fact, let me reiterate one other thing and get back here. that is this numbers, where we stand right few. if you want to come over here, joe, and just tell us once again so our viewers can hear, where the candidates stand in this incredibly critical county of oakland? >> sure. about 67% of our county reported mitt romney has 49% of the vote followed by rick santorum with about 31% of the vote. >> reporter: romney is doing quite well here. and needs to politically. >> that's correct. >> reporter: i just want to tell you one other thing, wolf. wolf, let me tell you one other thing, if we come over here, this is where everything is being gathered and eventually go off to the state, to the kcapitl in lansing. when they get 100% reporting, they will hit send and send it off and we will hopefully get

that to you a sneak peek before everybody else does. >> very good. we're in the news business an want to get the information first. dana, thanks very much. back to john. officially, they've only reported 17% of oakland county in where 12% of the people of the state of michigan in. now thanks to dana, she got 67% of the vote in and it's a significant lead for mitt romney. >> it is a significant lead. the percentages stayed about the same. governor romney up to 39% and senator santorum, 33%. you look at this one county, 17% of the votes. these numbers welcome shrink when i do this. pull the map out, have to turn this off. you're seeing a lot of purple. why is governor romney winning the state, 41% counted statewide, you see all this purple, how can that be? the votes that matter the most, you have more votes in places you have a bigger population, these detroit suburbs, governor romney won in block field fields

and oakland where he lived, he's running up pretty good margins. that makes it hard in these more populated areas he's running up big margins and we overlay this with the congressional district map and we're up to 67% in that count and the state's only reported 17% so far. >> that will be encouraging to the mitt romney folks and mitt romney supporters. stand by. john, we will hear from the governor of michigan. it's an incredibly close race in michigan, still a lot of votes yet to be counted. we're staying on top of the story. we're not going anywhere. stay with us. you're here at the cnn "election center." if there was a pill

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the numbers, though, in

michigan, romney is in the lead with 42% of the vote in. he has 41% of the vote, about 173,000. he's 12,037 votes ahead of santorum. let's go to the political director, check in with him, get a sense of when we might be able to project an actual winner in the state of michigan now that the polls just closed and we have gotten so many of the votes in. >> 24 more, correct? >> what are you hearing? >> we actually got some breaking news out of michigan right now, anderson. we don't know who is going to win michigan and who is going to win the bulk of the delegates, however, we could award some delegates in michigan, which is big news. this is going to be a long night, but we can now based on our calculations, award three delegates not only to mitt romney but also to rick santorum. >> to each of them, each get three at that point. >> that means 24 more delegates. we're looking to see what

happens. >> in terms of projecting a winner in michigan, do you have a sense? >> we don't have a timeline, but in 2008, 870,000 people voted in that primary. so far, only 412,000 people have -- we have actually seen that vote, so it's too early for us to make the call overall for who is going to win michigan, but also for dividing up the proportional delegates. >> i want to check in with our contributors, our analysts, about the delegates counts. ari fleischer, we were talking during the break about this. this is important to point out you can win the state of michigan and still not win all of the delegates. >> that's right, and also, we're focused tonight on who is winning, losing, but there are 15 different elections going on in michigan tonight. you can get two delegates if you win the state, and also two delegates for each of the 14 congrekzal districts in the state. mitt romney, winner take all in

arizona. 15 races under way in michigan. that's how you can end up with a split verdict in the state. someone wins "x" number of delegates and the second runner up gets "y" so whoever doesn't win the state can do well because they did well with the delegate count. 15 separate races, 14 cds, congressional districts, one state-wide election. >> that works for romney probably tonight. and it works for him in all of the other three candidates are unlikely to drop out because i think they can still think their proportions. i think the field that is set is going continue. tonight, that's good for romney. over time, that's bad because he needs to put this thing away if he wants to be the republican nominee. then-governor bush put away nominations early in 2000. senator mccabe pin put away the election in 2008. for the republican party, it

hasn't been the case, and they like to wrap it up early. >> do you think the race is making mitt romney a better kanlt dt? >> no. he keeps making these marie antoinette gaffes, and more importantly, it's dragging him -- >> that's what you want him to become known as. >> i suppose. there's another thing, he can't control it, he's allowing the process and the conservative thunder on the right to draw him to the right. he's moved on immigration so far that he's almost an athma to latinos. he's moved to contraception. he wants no federal funding for contraception. that used to be a republican plan. they created that plan. the process has put him way to the right, and that's really damaging for him in the general election. >> and republicans love to compare this with the primary of '08 between hillary and barack obama, and it really is so different because first of all, yes, that one was very

contested. it went all the way to the very end, but it was not as nasty as this one. they never called each other unelectable. they never called each other dishonest. and the other thing is that each candidate, hillary clinton and barack obama had tremendously passionate followers. and each camp, i remember because i was on hillary's camp, we had basically -- we knew and sort of had a deal that no matter who won, we were going to get behind it. that probably will happen. >> at the time, i remember that whole, like, i like you just fine line. >> but look what happened. she's the secretary of state for the president. you don't see that kind of thing happening this time around. >> it didn't draw obomb omauma orpresident, we'll nationalize the oil company.

they stayed right where they were in the beginning, and that's why i think president obama was able to become president obama. >> jessica yellin, i want to check in with her, white house correspondent. if you're sitting in the obama white house tonight, clearly, i would assume they wish rick santorum would win the state of michigan. >> well, one democrat, not a white house democrat, but somebody who is very close with them, said if santorum wins tonight, it's christmas for the democrats. he told me that, so yes, but to borrow from what paul just said, they would also be happy to run against marie antoinette at this point. bottom line is, mitt romney has proven to be a weaker candidate along the line than they expected, frankly than many political observers expected. that said, anderson, at the same time, everybody in team obama expects once there is a general election nominee, this will be a dog night. once this fighting is all over in the primary process, the president will have to slog this

out because it will be about the economy, and it's a lifetime between now and november elections. so it will be a whole new ball game come the general. >> alex, i see you nodding your head. >> they're admitting that themselves because they're saying when they're looking at mitt romney, he's weak because he's the establishment candidate. he's not the candidate of the far right in this primary. mitt romney is going to be a very tough general election candidate. and mitt romney's weakness is he's flip-flopped on some issues. barack obama has been all over the map, more spending to reduce the deficit. going into iraq while coming out. you know, he was the candidate for pay as you go budgeting a long time ago. we're not going to have any lobbyists in the white house or take lobbyists' money until they look for the job in the white house and found jobs. again, this is going to be a much more competitive race, but i think jessica is right. this is a country that is still

hurting economically, and that falls on the doorstep of the president of the united states. independents are not happy with the way this economy is going. and you know when revolution said occur? they don't always occur when things are getting worse. revolutions occur when things start to get better and people's hopes and desires get a little more intense. so barack obama is in big trouble. >> gloria, david, you have no doubt this is going to be a dog fight. >> it will be a dog fight, but one thing i want to point out is when you look at arizona and michigan and look at the two candidates, i would have to say that neither of these candidates finished really strongly, on a terrific, upbeat, great campaign note. i mean, you had rick santorum doing pretty well, and then he went down these rabbit holes, as one republican described it to me, on the cultural issue, and you had mitt romney gaining momentum back in the state of michigan, and what does he do? he uses -- to use your phrase, to marie antoinette line,

talking about his wife driving a couple cadillacs, et cetera, so the question of whether the candidates have become better candidates, if you look at the race and the primaries we're looking at tonight, i think neither of them distinguish eed themselves particularly. >> i don't want to rain on mitt romney's parade tonight because it looks increasingly like he's going to get two victories, but the truth is i need to go back to paul's point. i find myself agreeing with him. the longer this goes on, the more it is hurting the republican prospects in the fall for everybody. and yes, it's going to be a dog fight in the fall, but when mitt romney drops 20 points among independents, when barack obama seizes a 20-point lead over mitt romney among nments over the course of a campaign, something has gone very wrong in that campaign. and i do think -- >> is there time in the general election to make that up? >> it is, but i have always

seen -- i worked for jerry ford when ronald reagan ran a hard, tough campaign. almost took the nomination away from him in 1976. and ford was so far back, 33 points back of jimmy carter by the time that was over, he could never catch um. he didn't have time to catch up. can you -- can romney still win? absolutely. can republicans win? but they're starting further back than they would like to. >> and it democrapends on, theyo divided about their candidates. will they be able to muster the enthusiasm just because they don't like barack obama. >> there's been a lot of polls showing the president is starting to open up a bit of a lead. on the other hand, there was also a gallup poll that shows he h romney had a 4 point lead over obama. this is going to be a 50/50 race. i don't think people can say barack obama has it made. >> republicans have been chewing

on each other here. pretty tough, expected in the prielary. barack obama should have a ten-point lead right now, and he does not. romney, i tell you what happens when you win a nomination. winners look a lot prettier in the morning. and what will happen at the republican convention, he'll grow in stature, be in the ring with the heavywit champ, that makes him the number one contender. victory washes away a lot of the mud of the primary. what until he takes his two cadillacs into the general election. >> you can't argue it both ways, say the economy is terrible, and therefore, therefore romney is going to win and turn around and say, actually, obama should be ten points ahead. you can't have it both ways. >> we know who is involved in the campaigns. nine months before the election, the question, who would you rather be for, obama or romney? it's useless. if the election were held today, who would you be for?

nothing has happened yet. we haven't had the election. what you should look for is the turnovers david talked about. in the washington post poll, 20-point gap among nmeindepende in favorability. romney, only 29%. in the pew poll, they asked, do you think romney understands the concerns of people like me. 16-29 said no. 65% said mitt romney's goals would favor the rich. >> there are other internals too, and we noted before, when you ask who is most extreme, ask most voters and they're think barack obama is too liberal, 50%. mitt romney, conservative, only 33%, and this election is still going to be about government spending and economic growth. >> also, don't discount what happ happens. whether you get a nomination, you turn toward the middle, talk

about economic growth, paint the contrast with barack obama, and that's going to make romney look a lot better. >> here's where i think you're wrong, alex, in terms of mitt romney and his ability to be able to turn back to the middle. because he's been so extreme on so many issues and you really cannot compare the flip-flop that he has made in his career to whatever you say -- >> you can. >> but they would not be right comparisons. >> i think obama's flip-flops are so much worse being he's done them as president of the united states. >> we have to take a brick. we're also waiting to hear from governor romney, also waiting to hear from former senator rick santorum. we'll bring you those statements live as we continue to see the numbers coming in. looking to see when we might be able to project a winner in the state of michigan. romney has won arizona tonight. our coverage continues.

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we're getting ready to hear from mitt romney momentarily. he's going to be speaking to his supporters in michigan.

you're looking at a live picture. believe in america, that's his campaign slogan. once mitt romney starts speaking, you'll see it, hear it live right here on cnn. let's take a look at what's going on in michigan right now. here are the votes. look alt this, almost 60% of the vote is in. 59%. mitt romney maintaining a significant lead over rick santorum right now. 237,000 for mitt romney. 214,000 for santorum. he's up by 22,770 votes. 40% to 36%. ron paul and newt gingrich way behind. 60% of the vote is now in. even as we're speaking, more votes are coming in. so it's a significant lead for mitt romney. he's looking relatively strong in michigan right now. we're still waiting for 40% of the vote to come in. let's go to john king. he's watching what is going on. based on what i'm sensing right now, it's going to be hard for santorum to make up the 20,000 votes. >> not impossible, but i'm going

to say almost impossible. oakland county, our count only shows oakland county at 20%. we have much more of that vote -- >> more than 70%. >> that's much more coming, and we know it's lopsided in favor of governor romney. when we along at the state-wide gap now, we know governor romney will get a big boost from oakland county. you see all of this purple, the issue is in a lot of places they're tiny. they have santorum winning the county, but it's 250 votes. the fact that romney is winning down here is critically important because this is where the bulk of the population is. wayne county is where detroit s not a lot of republicans there, but 45% to 32% with half of the vote in. if that margin stays the same as we get the other half of the vote in, it becomes hard for senator santorum to wide sta state-wi state-wide.

that gives you the moral boost, but the question is the delegates. michigan has 15 congressional dwiths tonight, but it's losing one because of the census. it will have only 14. that's the map we're dealing with. right in here, where you see the purple, senator santorum doing well, there are four congressional districts in this area. it looks like senator santorum will win those four districts. that would be eight delegates from the districts. you see this area here? there are a half dozen congressional districts. major population centers there. governor romney, it looks like, will pick up the six congressional districts in here. the upper puninls law, this is one district. you see romney doing well here, santorum well up here. we have to go through all of the precincts in the number one district, a couple more you can see the battles for going on. i want to blank this and show the voters a cheat sheet we had our guys make up, our magic wall team. i'm going to lay this in over the state. these are the new congression a

districts. this is one district, up top, the northern part of the state. romney here, santorum here. we have to count the votes. this may take a while. one, two, three, four districts here. a lot of purple. santorum looks like he's on his way to winning in the newly drawn districts. this one at the bottom of the state looks like a fierce battle except where the bougdot is, th population center. romney winning in the population center, would have the edge. and you can't see them because they're around the urban area of detroit, so i'm going to pull the map out of the way, right here, what is called the thumb of michigan, the congressional district there, looks like a big battle for that. let's move that out of the way and you're going district by district, a half dozen here. santorum winning the west, romney winning the detroit area. we'll break it down as we go. very hard, very hard for me to see any way for santorum to make it up. >> he's up by 22,000 votes. going to be hard for santorum to make it up.

but we'll see, 38% of the vote outstanding. lerlt go to candy crowley. she's at romney headquarters with a special guest. ca candy? >> michigan governor rick meyer, thank you for joining us. i want to start out with what we're mahearing from oakland county, more republicans than any other county? >> our largest county, and a great county. all results coming in strong for romney is a good sign. >> we had him at about -- the last i chicked, 49%, santorum, 39%. is that enough to pull him over? >> i wouldn't have that as a final conclusion, but it's a positive indicator. things are going well. governor romney is the right candidate. i'm proud of support him, and it's great to have the primary here in michigan. we're the comeback story in michigan. we were down for a decade, and the things we're doing here is what needs to show up in washington, balance your budget,

move forward, and create jobs. >> it shouldn't have been that hard for romney. why was it? >> primary season is competitive. you have to go state to state. once he got actively campaigning, you saw the result. he's continually moved up in the polls and we'll hopefully see a win tonight. i believe we will. >> you predicted on sunday he would win michigan. are you still firm, willing to take all bets? >> i'm not a betting man, but i believe he will win. i'm a problem solver. >> the fact is that, you know, he talkled a lot about his michigan roots. you know governor romney, his father still a big name in michigan. and yet this has been a pull for him. you see that people are going to look at this and say he should have won bigger if he wins at all? >> i wouldn't read into that. it's a competitive race. michigan is a diverse state, and this is a good state for him to win. it's icing on the cake. he's from here, but the real reason people are voting for him is the jobs and kids and their future. that's what michigan citizens really care about, more and

better jobs and a brighter future for our kids. we're doing that in michigan. we had a big deficit, we had, you know, to balance our budget, pay down liabilities. we did it. he did it in miassachusetts. we need that skill set in washington. that's what the voters are responding to. >> you had a democratic president who was willing to loan money to the auto industry to get them back on their feet. it was very successful, if you get your way, you're going to have a candidate. even if it's rick santorum, who opposed the auto bailout. isn't michigan a done deal for democrats in the fall? >> not at all. and this is what i have said continually, because i represent the citizens of michigan. i think i have a good feel. we shouldn't armchair quarterback that. it'sigate to see the auto industry successful, but our citizens are looking and wanting an answer to the question what is going to create jobs today and tomorrow for them and their kids. so the dialogue needs to move to what's going on today and what's going on tomorrow as opposed to

what happened in the past. >> you have in the past talked about being in favor of this open primary. where democrats can come and vote for a republican if they want. the former governor romney said today, this is mischief, this is sort of trying to cheat. do you think that? >> i have been a supporter of the open primary, i still am. you literally give people the opportunity to vote for the candidate they believe in, but they're voting for them because they think they're the best person. unfortunately, there is a side that is not as positive, that isn't a good thing, and that's where people are sort of using their vote to vote for somebody they really don't like to cause trouble with someone else. >> that's the first time that's happened in michigan, though. >> in a relative sense, more often it works to the positive to allow people to look at a broader base of candidates, and again, vote for who they think is the best person. overall, it's a positive, but it doesn't help when people try to encourage that kind of behavior, because that's not a great use

of democracy. >> thank you so much for joining us. your people and my people are saying wrap, so we have to. thanks so much. back to you. >> thanks very much. thank the governor as well. i want to go quickly to grand rapids, michigan. jim acosta is at rick santorum headquarters. we're getting ready to hear from santorum, but you're getting new information. what are you hearing, jim? >> that's right, wolf. i want to pass along something i picked up earlier from john, a senior strategist for the rick santorum campaign. he basically acknowledged some of the problems rick san tore 78 has had in the past couple days, going down the rabbit holes, talking about how president obama wants to induoctrinate college students. you look at the banner behind me. it talks about made in america. they're going to be getting back to senator santorum's plans for fixing the manufacturing sector in the economy. that's what they want to pivot

to in the coming days, heading into super tuesday. a few moments ago, they were playing the music from the "natural" the robert redford movie about the baseball player who comes back to win the big one. at the end of the movie, he smacks the baseball into the stadium lights to win the game. i think what you're going to hear from a lot of republicans over the next few days is that rick santorum hit a foul ball with the robo call and trastray from his message. it's been a tough couple days and that acknowledge from john earlier this evening is an indication they know that. >> they filmed that movie "the natural" in buffalo, new york. i remember it well. thanks very much, jim acosta. we're going to get ready to hear from rick santorum momentarily. romney will be speaking. we'll have live coverage of all of that. once we hear from the candidates, we have the focus group, republicans in columbus, ohio, that's where they're

voting on super tuesday one week from today, and they're going to show us what they like and don't like so much with the two candidates, the two front-runners. >> what do you think went wrong for rick santorum in the last week? >> i think it has to do with what jim was talking about, which john, the top adviser to santorum all but admitted. he took some detours he didn't understood to take. he was trying to be a cultural conservative, appealing to the evangelical voters who are important in the state of michigan. he's winning some of those ar areas, but he forfeited his populous message as a result. he didn't continue to talk about it, and his economic message is really what has driven him so far to succeed in the primaries, so he tried to nuance it and combine them, except he didn't do that very well. he seemed to focus more on the values issues, and in a time

when the economy is really hurting, i think voters want to hear more about the economy. he lost a lot of fiscal conservatives he could have won. >> parallels to the front runner. >> we heard you say that on debate night. >> the first time he had ever been on top. and romney and ron paul both went after him, had a movement against him, and they drove him into talking about earmarks and his congressional record, turning him into a legislator, and here when he came into michigan, not only having up on the debate night, when you're a front runner, the press is going to look at your record. his record has never been unearthed before, and a lot of these issues he had to defend, came up from things he said in the past, about satan threatening the united states, about how he almost threw up after john kennedy's speech on religion. >> santorum is about to speak. let's listen.

♪ >> wow. a month ago, they didn't know who we are, but they do now. what an absolutely great night. i am so thankful, so thankful to so many people here tonight. first and foremost, i just have to say to the people of michigan, you know, we came into the backyard of one of my opponents in a race that everyone said, well, just ignore, you have no chance here. and the people of michigan

looked into the hearts of the candidates and all i have to say is i love you back. thank you. [ applause ] i also -- thank you -- as i said, you're getting to know me. well, thank you. not necessarily exactly through the mediums i want you to get to know me, but we have an opportunity tonight to tell you a little bit more about who rick santorum is. i want to thank the folks up here on the stage behind me. my wife karen and my family who is represented here by elizabeth and john, and at home, the rest of the family, daniel, peter and patrick and little bella. i want to thank them for standing behind me, not just figuratively, but literally every day of the campaign. so i thank them very, very much.

i want to tell you about more specifically about three people. first, someone who is not here that i haven't publicly thanks yet and i have been remiss in doing so. that's someone i know is watching, too. that's my 93-year-old mom. i'm sure she's feeling very proud. one of her first jobs was in g sagin saginaw, michigan. she was excited i was coming back here to michigan. but my mom is in a very -- well, unusual person for her time. she's someone who did get a college education in the 1930s, and was a nurse, and got a graduate's degree, even, as a nurse and worked full time and when she married my dad, they worked together at the veterans administration. that's where they met right after the war. and later on, they had me and

the rest of the family, my brother and sister, and my mom continued to work. she worked all of my childhood years. she balanced time as my dad did, working different schedules, and she was a very unusual person that time. she was a professional who actually made more money than her husband. i grew up with a very strong mom. someone who was a professional person who taught me a lot of things about how to balance work and family and doing it well and doing it with a big heart and commitment. you know, that's probably one of the reasons that i ended up marrying the person i married here, karen. [ applause ] someone who is as strong as they get. someone who -- i met when she was just about to start the practice of law and i was doing the same. i recruited her. in more ways than one, to my law

firm. karen was a professional, worked as a nurse for nine years and after that, she -- we got married and she walked away. she decided to stay home and raise her children, but she didn't quit working, obviously. raising seven children is a lot of work, but she found time also to be an author of two books. those books about really went to the heart of the family and something she knows a lot about. she, too, has been that rock that has been beside me and has been a great example of how it's important to balance that work and family and do so committed to making sure that you're the best at both that you can be. and now i'm proud that i have a daughter here, elizabeth, who is a great part of our campaign. she goes out on her own and campaigns and the feedback i get is, you stay home, just send elizabeth out. you'll do just fine. so we have been -- i have been very, very blessed.

very blessed, with great role models for me, someone who goes out and tried to do the job i'm doing right now, to balance the rigors of running a campaign and trying to maintain a good and strong family. we all have to do that as americans. we all have that responsibility, to make both work and work as well as we can. and it's getting harder out here in america. it's getting harder for people to make ends meet because we have a government that is crushing us every single day with more taxes, more regulations, and the idea that they know better than you how to run your life. that ultimately is about what this race is about. it goes down to the very nature of who we are as americans. are we a country that believes in big government? do we believe in the smart and elite in this country to manage us? or do we believe in free people and a free economy and building a great america from the bottom

up? what do you say? [ applause ] well, we put together a plan and we announced it here in michigan. our first 100 days of what we're going to do, our freedom agenda, how we're going to get the country turned around. the first thing we talked about is the rising energy costs in the country. we can put millions of americans, and i'm underscoring, millions of americans back to work if we would unleash the entrepreneurial spirit of the energy sector, drive down pleases, decrease our dependency on foreign oil. we can do it all, but we have a president who says no. we have a president who when the opportunity to open a federal land for mining and oil and gas drilling, says no. we have a president -- we have an opportunity to open up offshore, he says no, deep

water, he says no, lavlg laalas says no, build a pipeline, he says no. we need a president who says yes to energy production. it's not -- that's right, it's not just the consumer that is affect eed by it. it's many communities across this country. rural communities that have been struggling. you look at where the population loss is in the country. look at where the unemployment rate is the highest, in areas where the government has shut down and made it virtually impossible for us to use our natural resources, to be able to get to that oil, to get to that coal, to get to that timber, whatever the case may be. bureaucrats in washington don't care about fly over country and those sparsely populated areas that provide us the resources upon which we live. i was in one of those areas just

a couple weeks ago, in northwestern north dakota, and i went to a little town in north dakota. i tell you how small it is -- >> we're going to interrupt rick santorum for a very important bulletin. >> cnn can now project that mitt romney is the winner, the winner of the michigan primary. mitt romney will win the michigan primary based on the actual votes that have been counted as well as the exit poll information we have. mitt romney, the winner. the second win he has today. earlier, we projected he's the winner of arizona. now we project he's the winner of michigan as well. let's take a look at the vote right now, where it stanldz and we'll explain why we can make this projection. mitt romney, the former governor of massachusetts, wins in michigan. 71% of the vote has been counted. he has almost 300,000 votes to 266,000 or so for rick santorum.

he's ahead by almost 30,000 votes. 41% for romney, 37% for santorum. ron paul and newt gingrich way behind. 12% for ron paul, 7% for newt gingrich. a huge win, he needed this win badly in michigan. if he would have lost in michigan, the state where he was born, where his father served as governor, it would have been a disaster in his bid for republican presidential nomination. he won't get all of the delegates because in michigan, in michigan there are -- in michigan there are proportioned delegates that are awarded. he will get all 29 in arizona, mimrot m mitt romney, a huge win for him in arizona. an important win in michigan. it sets the tone for super tuesday when there will be ten contests. let's go to dana bash. you got some new information

coming in on why we can project mitt romney wins in michigan. dana? >> that's right, wolf. i have an e-mail from a source familiar with the phone call that rick santorum called mitt romney before senator santorum went out to speak, and officially conceded this state of michigan. so they certainly knew very well inside the santorum campaign it was over before he went out. it was obvious from the numbers as we were getting them in, but it's now official between the candidates that rick santorum has called to concede, told mitt romney effectively congratulations on winning your home state. >> a very important, critical win for mitt romney. let's go to john king. right now, we said several minutes ago, john, it was nearly impossible for rick santorum to make about the nearly 30,000-vote deficit, and now we have projected it will be impossib impossible. >> we still need to see how the delegates break down. a win is a win. there will be a debate about romney's margin. but as you look at the numbers

tonight, as we call the win tonight, dorothy said this in a movie a long time ago, there's no place like home. the reason i mean this is i want to come to oakland county, this is where dana is and where romney lived a a child. he's winning this county by almost 30,000 votes, 25,000 there. mitt romney needs those votes. if you pull out of oakland, you essentially have a tie. he also lived for a short time in detroit as a young child. he's winning wayne countcounty. the places he lived, wayne county, in michigan, and oakfield, he's winning huge. in the rest of the state, he's winning in the areas right around there. there are a half dozen congressional districts right here because of the population centers, romney is going to win those. there are three in the western part of the state, senator santorum is going to win those. there are fights under way for newly drawn congressional districts. this is one of them from here up, it looks like a tight battle

here because these are small counties. there's another one here, another one in the middle that santorum will probably win, but we need to count that up. if you look at the state-wide tot totals, because of oakland county, because of detroit, romney will win michigan, wins arizona tonight, he's leading in wyoming. there's still some of the vote out. i think they're up to 83%. by the end of the night tonight, romney will have six wins, nevada, arizona, michigan, florida, maine, and new hampshire. by tomorrow night, it looks like he'll have seven. heading into super tuesday, he can claim some momentum. people will debate the margins, but as they say in politics and most sports, a win is a win. >> i want to go back to senator santorum. remember the squiggly lines at the bottom, those are republicans in columbus, ohio. they like certain things, don't like certain things. these are undecided republicans, but maybe they'll be making up their minds soon. here is senator santorum.

[ applause ] >> we've got a great conservative track record on not just health care but on taking on the big problems that confront this country, the deficit, huge expanding, exploding dent in this country. someone has been an advocate ever since i was in politics for a balanced budget, fought tooth and nail to get it passed. came within one vote. never given up trying to fights. we'll work to get a balanced budget bill to the constitution, but in the meantime, we'll do something no one else has ever successfully done but i did, we will go out and end entitlement programs on the federal level, give them back to the state and cut them dramatically to save

money. people said we couldn't do it. we did it. i was the author of welfare reform, welfare reform which ended the federal entitlement, capped it, gave it back to the states, like we need to do with medicaid, food stamps, and a whole host of other programs that have no business, according to, remember that document, what's it called? oh, yeah, the u.s. constitution, that's it, right? we need to get those programs back to the states. save the federal government money, and more importantly, welfare didn't just save money, didn't just cut the roles, but it saved lives. it put people back to work, got people out of poverty, gave them something that's dependenceacy doesn't give, hope, and that's what america is all about. giving opportunity and hope.

all of our economic plan is based on a very simple concept, based on what worked for america since its very founding. i wave this constitution at every speech and talk about it being the operator's manual of america. it's how america works. it's the how of america. but there's another document equally important, which is the why of america. that's the declaration of unl s independence, and in this declaration, we hold the truth that all men are created equal and they have certain inalienable rights. that was the most important, said we would be a country with limited government and believing in free people to be able to

form families and communities and churches and educational institutions and hospitals and be able to build a great and just society. a free society from the bottom up. that's how america works best. from the bottom up. and that's the solutions that we're going to propose for america, from the bottom up. [ applause ] the men and women who signed the declaration of unless wrote this final phrase. we pledge to each other, we pledge to each other our lives, our fortune, and our sacred honor. when they signed that document, they had very little hope, real hope, of actually succeeding in a revolution against the british. the british were the most powerful army in the world and

navy in the world. they were ruled by highly educated, noble people. the uniforms were crisp and stiff. they looked good. but their rulers ruled them from on high. didn't listen to them as they fought the revolutionary war. our leaders were different. george washington, a signature leader of america, was different. he understood that the greatness of this new country was to have leaders who understood that in spite of their education, they didn't have all of the answers. they could trust the people that rag tag group of people that stepped forward to volunteer, to create freedom in this land. and they believed, general

washington believed in that. in fact, some of his boldest moves came not from him or his generals, but from the ranks. that's how america's freedom was won. leaders believing in the people that they led against those who just thought all the answers resided in those in charge. ladies and gentlemen, that is what made america free, and that is what will make america free. in the future. thank you. thank you. [ applause ] >> all right, so there you heard rick santorum. we did learn from dana bash, he has already called mitt romney to congratulate him on his win tonight. we projected that mitt romney is the winner both in arizona as well as in michigan.

an important win for mitt romney. he's getting ready to speak momentarily himself, we'll have live coverage of him speaking to his reporters. that's coming up momentarily. a very important night for mitt romney. he needed michigan. he needed michigan desperately, and he wins michigan. >> he did. let's talk about rick santorum, about what he just said and moving into super tuesday. did it sound like he's trying to recalibrate already, talking about his mom, women in his life? >> i think he is trying to recalibrate, if you look at the exit polls, he did not win with women this evening. that's clearly something he's got to shore up. i think he's going to go back and start talking about his economic message again, particularly in the state of ohio, which is a state he is clear lly liked to win on super tuesday, and mitt romney needs to find somewhere conservative to win on super tuesday because he's still not winning with the

most conservative voters in the republican party. so he's got to try and seal that deal with them. >> it's still a very good night for mitt romney. >> of course. >> and actually in many ways, we said for some time, it's easy to see how mitt romney is lose this. it's hard to see how anyone can win it. and that's proving for santorum. his bubble burst tonight. double losses. can he remain competitive? yes, but i think it now comes down to ohio. he has to win ohio, and he hasn't yet faced an onslaught of advertising from romney, which will come in ohio. the romney organization will come into play. and santorum has a lead there. that couldesally disappear on him. >> they're warming up the crowd right now for governor romney. we'll bring you what romney says live. when you heard rick santorum today, i heard a couple of you saying he's rheoteurea-attackin

recalibrating. >> he lost by nine points. that could have been -- that's what it was, the deciding facting in the primary. he tells this wonderful, evocative story about his mother, how she went to college. the other day, he talked about people want to send thekids to college are snobs. she worked outside of the home, even when she was raising rick. he talked ability his wife being educated as well. he was maybe definitely trying to manage the damage. >> and ann romney is about to introduce her husband as she has done now for many nights in these primary nights. let's let them in, again, reaching out to women. >> as usual, i have a long list of thank yous and i'm going to see if you're all going to behave and listen to the list without cheering in between. we'll see if you can get this right. thank you to our honorary michigan chairman, governor rick schneider who you just saw. lieutenant governor brian kelly,

and to our campaign co-chairs attorney general bill schutte, senate majority leader randy rich richerville, keith bulger, and this is really helpful, our finance chairs, david and john. and we have a big family here in michigan, and we would like to thank them. scott romney, lynn keenan, rona romney, rona romney mcdaniel, and other members of the family, by the way, my family, across the state. i also must recognize our national committee members, sol and holly. and our congressman, this is a list. let me see if i can get through this, david camp, fred upton, mike rogers, thad mccotter, bill huizenga, dan benasheck, tim

walberg, and thank you to our wonderful surrogate, donald trump. governor tim pawlenty, governor bob mcdonald, governor chris christie. and your famous oakland county sheriff that you love, let's see -- brooks, brooks patterson. how could i forget brooks? representative eric nesbit, former state rep, rocky rescowsky, professor gary wolfron, and mike cox. listen, this list has been so helpful. i'm sorry to keep going to our state team, laurie and bob. and finally, thank you, kid rock. the last week, i have been going along with mitt, my son tagg,

too, up and down the state, all over from the tip of the mitt -- [ applause ] i know, i better be careful. but what we have seen, what we have seen out there has broken my heart. i love michigan. i love michigan. >> we love you! >> i grew up drinking verner's and listening to tiger baseball. and what we saw when we went across michigan were families that were hurting, people that were out of jobs, and then there's something else, and they're so concerned about their children, and why it is, because of the debt that we're going to give to our children, and we have had it. washington, here we come. we are going to take back

america, and we're going to let this guy do it. >> wow, what a night. thank you. thank you. thank you. now, first -- first -- >> mitt, mitt, mitt, mitt! >> okay, first thank you, thank you, arizona. great victory in arizona tonight. and thank you, michigan. what a win. this is a big night. thank you, guys. you know, a week ago, it was just a week ago that the pundits and the pollsters, they were ready to count us out, but across michigan and arizona, i kept on meeting moms and dads and students and grandparents,

and they were concerned about what is happening to this great country of ours. and i was confident we could come together today and take a giant step toward a brighter future. so tonight, their efforts have brought our cause a great victory, and we celebrate with people across these states. thank you. now tonight is also particularly special for me because this is a place where i was born. this is the place where i was raised. my mom and dad lived many years here and loved this great state, and i know that michiganders in this room, we consider your all family. thank you for your help. and in this room are the people who knocked on the doors and made the calls and went to the polls, and it made an enormous difference. we didn't win by a lot, but we won by enough, and that's all that counts. and by the way, in arizona, special thank you to governor jan brewer there and senator

john mccain. they were tireless, particularly john mccain, he went all over the country helping. what a hero. thank you, senator, thank you, governor. they're out there. we've got two sons out there celebrating with them. the great thing about having so many in the family, we can cover almost every race. so super tuesday will be stretched, but we're going to find a way. our campaign, as you know, is about restoring the promise of america. last week, i unveiled a very bold economic plan that's going to jump-start the economy and it's going to get michiganders more work, more jobs, less debt and smaller government, and i'm going to deliver on more jobs, less debt, and smaller government. more jobs, less dent, smaller government. you know, there are a lot of people who were saying if you're running for office, you really can't speak honestly to the

american people. well, we did, and i will. and because this is a decisive moment, i believe this is a time that requires real leadership. times are tough. we need leaders who will live with integrity, have the kurcoue to tell the truth and the experience to get our economy back on track. that's the kind of leader i aspire to be. that's the kind of leader i will be if i'm president of the united states. [ applause ] our campaign -- our campaign is about more than just replacing a president. it's about restoring america's promise. from generation to generation, americans have always known that the future would be brighter and better. americans have always believed in a tomorrow full of possibility and prosperity. that's what it means to be the land of opportunity. if you worked hard, you could build a better life. if you teach your kids the right kind of values and help them

make the right choices, their future will be prosperous and secure, and the deep confidence of a better tomorrow is a basic promise of america. today, that promise is being threatened by a faltering economy and a failed presidency. four years ago, we warned that the precedency was no place for on the job training. well, today we have the economy to prove it, all right. this president, by the way, he likes to remind us that he inherited an economy that was in crisis. but he doesn't like to remind us that he also inherited a democrat congress. he had majorities in both the house and senate. he was free to pursue any policy he pleased. did he fix the economy? no. did he tackle the housing crisis? no. did he get america back to work? no, instead he put us on a path toward debt and deficits and decline. it's time to get off that path and get back on the path of american prosperity.

now, these days when he's not spending our money or infringing on our rights, he's busy running for re-election. he believes -- did you hear this? he believes he ranks among the top four president in american history. did you hear that? i would find a different spot for him. he thinks he deserves a second term. he says we can't wait, to which i say, oh, yes we can. today, we're $15 trillion in debt, and real unemployment stands at 15%. you've heard that old saying about, i need a vacation from my vacation. well, we need to have a recovery from this so-called recovery. you know, as a nation, we have

survived a great depression, we weathered two world wars. we made it through tough times, and we have not come all this way to give up now. we still believe in the hope. in the dream, and the promise of america. we know our future is better and brighter than the troubled times. that unwaivering conviction guides our campaign and this effort. it's rallied millions of people to the cause, and it's a message we're going to take to every corner of the country from ohio and idaho to georgia and tennessee. we have seen enough of this president over the last four years to know we don't need another five years of president obama because he thinks he's unchecked by the constitution. he's unresponsive to the will of the people, and in a second term, he would be unrestrained by the demands of re-election. if there's one thing we can't afford, it's four more years of

barack obama with nothing to answer to, so we're going to get him out of office and back home where he belongs. [ applause ] now you saw his budget. >> mitt, mitt, mitt, mitt, mitt! mitt, mitt, mitt, mitt, mitt, mitt! >> you the budget, he put it out. it foreshadows exactly what we're going to see ahead if he's the president, run-away spending, record debt. for an encore, he wants to raise taxes on job creators and small businesses and families. and we are not going to let him do it. and this campaign, i'm offering a real choice and a very different direction. i have a plan that will restore america's promise to more jobs and less debt and smaller government. president obama is making the federal government bigger, more burdensome and loaded.

i'll make it smaller and si simpler. and it's about time for that to happen. he raised the national debt. i will cut cap and balance the budget. he passed obamacare, i would appeal obamacare. he lost our aaa credit rating. i'll restore our aaa credit rating. he rejected the keystone pipeline. i'll get us the oil from canada we deserve. and by the way, i'm going to open up the lands for development so we can finally get the energy in this country that we need at a price we can afford. look, when it comes to the economy, my highest priority will be worrying about your job, not worrying about how to save my own.

this president -- this president wants to raise your taxes. i'm going to cut them. it's going to start with an across the board 20% cut for every american, i'll also appeal the minimum tax and we'll abolish the debt tax. and you know, he's now proposed raising taxes on small businesses and job creators. i'm going to lower the taxes and also lower the corporate rate to 20%, make it permanent to faster innovation, and i'll turn the money offshore, there's a lot of money offshore to come back to america. let's have a tax plan that puts americans back to work. i have it and we'll get it in place. now, you know he also proposes

to raise taxes on savings and investment. and if i'm the president, i'm going to help middle class families save and invest tax free. yeah, good, i agree. it's about time. and he also has an extraordinary gap in his policy proposals. you realize after saying medicare and social security were in trouble, he has yet to offer a single serious proposal for saving medicare and social security. i have a plan to save them both. and unlike him, i have the courage to put my plan on the table for people to see. look, what this campaign is about, what my plans are about are creating jobs and raising wages for the american people. they're going to strengthen the entitlement programs for the next generation and we will finally balance america's budget.

now, beyond having a plan to get our citizens back to work, i have the experience to get our economy back on track. i spent 25 years in business. i was also the steward of the oly olympics and the leader of a state. i cut taxes 19 times. i turned a budget shortfall into a surplus. i know how the government can kill jobs and create jobs. i stand ready to lead our party to victory and our nation back to prosperity. we'll get the job done. it's a critical time in america. it's our time for choosing, and this time, we have to get the choice right. i said it before and i firmly believe it, that this campaign is about saving the soul of america. this election -- this election comes down to two very different visions of america. it's a choice between becoming a

nation of and by washington or remaining a nation of and by a free people. a choice between an entitlement society and the land of opportunity. a choice between squandering america's promise and restoring that promise for future generations. if you want to make the election about restoring american greatness, i hope you'll join us. if you believe the disappointments of the last few years are a detour and not the destiny for america, i need your support. i'm asking for you to get out and vote, and i'm asking for you to go on mittromney.com and pledge your support in every way possible. i'm asking you to join the fight for the freedom, to insure that tomorrow will be better than today. this election, let's restore america's promise. let's fight for this country we love. we've got work ahead. we're going to do that work. we're going to take back america. america is the greatest nation in the history of the earth. we're going to keep it that way. thank you, guys.

you're the best. god bless the united states of america. thank you. >> very happy and very relieved mitt romney. he's the winner in arizona and in michigan as well. the state where he was born. he needed this win in michigan. he wins, you see him there with ann romney, his wife, and some members of his family. very, very relieved. very happy that he managed to pull it off. relatively close, but still a significant win for mitt romney. we'll see how the delegate count, the 30 gel dts in michigan breaks down. he gets all 29 in arizona. a significant win. we have been watching what was going on in wyoming. official results will come in tomorrow. he's ahead in wyoming as well. all of this sets the stage for next tuesday, super tuesday. ten contests will take place next tuesday, including the key battleground state of ohio. right now, santorum is slightly

ahead in most of the polls in ohio. we'll see if he gets momentum, mitt romney, out of the two wins. maybe three wins if we include wyoming tomorrow. we'll stand by for that. we'll see what happens. you can see the vote right now in michigan. 85% of the vote in, with mitt romney with 41% to 38% for santorum, 12% for ron paul, 7% for newt gingrich. ohio, we're going to be speaking with voters in ohio. they were watching all this. what they liked, what they didn't like. we're going to ohio when we come back. this at&t 4g network is fast.

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and welcome back. we heard from governor mitt romney. very happy tonight. a very energized mitt romney. speaking to supporters in michigan after winning both the state of michigan and also arizona. let's look forward to the next super tuesday, obviously, this gives good momentum for mitt romney. >> he still barely won in his home state. mitt romney winning closely in his home state like charlie sheen barely winning a primary in a hooters. he's going to win and it's not going to give you a lot of momentum, but i think the armageddon of super tuesday is ohio. gingrich will make a stand in georgia and may or may not win, but santorum will have an appeal, and romney won't have the legacy and the family and the establishment. >> if you look at people who earned less than $100,000, a lot of that support went to santorum, over $100,000 went to romney. >> the only income group that

romney got a majority of is the people who made over $200,000, the highest income cnn tested. romney is doing well with upper income, not as well with lower income and middle income. >> this is may be one of his biggest vulner nlts, especially going into super tuesday in ohio. the midwest is going to be critically important, not just for the primaries, but especially for the general election. i'll go back to something i was going over with alex. mitt romney is not someone the voters look to to say this guy is someone who understands what i'm going through. you don't go into the booth and say this guy understands my problem. he gets me. right now, president obama is that person. going into the general election, that's why he's got the advantage, and mitt romney has to focus on how he communicates that message. santorum is doing better than that. >> super tuesday, ten states, and i think mitt romney goes

with three in the bag, massachusetts and virginia, where no one is on the ballot but him and ron paul. ron paul is going to do well in alaska and alabama. paul could get idaho, that could make five our four. here are the four, ohio, oklahoma, tennessee, and georgia. those are really the four states that super tuesday are going to come down to. but if romney walks in with three of the ten in the bag, which he will, he just keeps accruing delegates. he's kind of the energizer bunny in this. unless he stops, he keepshunter. >> this could be a good time where a political pro would advise romney, everything you got, all of your chips on the table. you fought off a mortal threat in michigan. you have georgia, ohio on the table coming up. borrow all of the money you can,

raise everything you can, empty the bank account. everything you can, put it in the states to win it, and shut it down now, early, before he continues to bleed in the process. the second thing we learned tonight, which i think i heard ann romney say was a secret weapon. i think i heard her say this week i have been all over the state, up and down to the tip of the mitt. well, this explains all the children. the secret weapon, i guess. >> cnn after dark here. >> i never heard the tip of the mitt before. anywho. he seems to do well in the part of michigan where they make cars. where people grind out steel and put wheels on them and shove them out the door, so it turns out that all of this, you know, he's disconnected with the people, we didn't see so much of that, but you know who else he beat in michigan tonight? barack obama who went into michigan after mitt romney.

i think ohio is a key battleground state. it will be michigan light. >> let's keep in mind he won michigan four years ago by almost ten points. okay? tonight, more voters voted for somebody other than romney, other than the favorite son in his home state. >> we have to take a quick break. our coverage continues. a lot more going on here. we'll continue through the midnight hour and piers morgan takes over coverage. we'll be right back. you know when i grow up,

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will be giving away passafree copies thank you! of the alcoholism & addiction cure. to get yours, go to ssagesmalibubook.com. a one-two punch in the republican presidential race. >> you can almost hear the huge sigh of relief out of the romney campaign right now. >> mitt romney pulled out a hard

fought win. in michigan and arizona, he's the voters' choice. >> thank you. >> delivering a blow to santorum and his place as a leader of the pack. two front-runners in their most intense and personal battle yet, and the competition is only getting tougher. super tuesday is just one week away. >> we want to welcome our viewers in the united states and around the world. i'm wolf blitzer in the cnn election center. mitt romney says he didn't win the primary in michigan by a lot, but he did win and he says that's enough. his victory tonight in michigan and in arizona should give him

some badly needed political momentum heading into the big super tuesday blockbuster next week. if he had lost michigan tonight, it would have been a huge blow in his race for the white house. let's take a look at some of the numbers that we have right now. we have projected he's the winner in michigan as well as in arizona. in michigan, most of the vote has been counted. so far, 41% for mitt romney. 38% for rick santorum. up by almost 30,000 votes. ron paul, newt gingrich, way behind. 12% for ron paul. 7% for newt gingrich. let's take a look in arizona where we also project mitt romney is the winner with 48%, a significant win over rick santorum with only 26%. 16% for newt gingrich, only 8% for ron paul. arizona, very important, all 29 delegates, winner take all in arizona. 29 delegates going to mitt romney. let's go to john king, and let's take a closer look at how mitt

romney managed to pull off two important wins. >> we can look at both states. we'll start with the xiexit polling. here is one reason mitt romney won, a little more than half of the electorate in michigan were men tonight. governor romney winning narrowing over santorum, splittal the man vote, 39% to 37%. 48% of the electorate in michigan, women. governor romney with a six-point reg. the gender gap an important part of the win tonight. the most important issue in michigan, sdpo55% of primary vo said economy was the big issue. 47% for romney, 29% for senator santorum. there, a big win on the most important issue. a key factor in romney's win in michigan tonight. let's look at more about the electorate. 60% of the electorate described as a republican. michigan, an open primary, anyone can vote.

romney winning 49%. a 15% advantage over santorum. if you look, there's an interesting graphic, that disappeared, they all disappeared. we'll come back to that and exit poll data. every now and then, the wall has a mind of its own. how did it play out in the state? michigan first, a lot of purple. if you look at the map from a distance, you would think santorum who is purple covered michigan. except romney is doing well where the people live, in the major population centers. if you look at the margin state-wide, just under 30,000 votes. governor romney lived in oakland as a child, there's the margin, most of the state-wide margin, 29,000, coming from the one county that he lived in as a child, oakland county, in the state of michigan. you pop over and pull it out, come over to the state of arizona. a more convincing win here, 48% to 26%. just shy of 80% of the vote

counted, and you see across the state, wolf, that romney is sfiling in. no significant serious challenge here. as we prepare, wyoming is split up. 83% of the results coming in tonight. we'll get the official results final tomorrow night. governor romney winning wyoming. looks like he's going to carry that. santorum has four, romney came into the night with four. he'll leave the night with six. the big question, to doo the two wins tonight give romney momentum heading into the ten contest all over the map, east, westering sou west, south, and north. >> i yauwant to go to jim acost. he's covering rick santorum's campaign. you had a chance to catch up with him after he spoke tonight. did he give you any indication of what his plans are for the next few days? >> wolf, i asked him exactly that. he said he's moving on to tennessee and ohio.

those are two states where he's doing very well, according to the latest polls in those states, and after all of the talk this evening about whether or not rick santorum missed an opportunity here, whether it was talking about the social issues when perhaps he should have been talking about fishing the economy in a state that has been hard hit in the economy like michigan. i went up to rick santorum after his speech and ask eed him, are you thinking about recalibrating your message, do you think the robo call was a mistake? here heis what he had to say. do you think you're going to recalibrate your message. >> it did well. >> you think the robo call was a mistake? >> i don't think it had anything to do with it. where do you go from here? >> going to tennessee and ohio. >> those states are pretty

favorable to you. you're doing well in a lot of them. >> we're doing great, great. thank you. >> are you proud of the victory, the fact you came so close to beati beating? >> pretty close. >> you got the resources to keep going, senator? >> and i don't know if you could hear at the very end of that sound there, we heard rick santorum say i think it's pretty clear now this is a two-person race. i want to share with you, just a few moments before i came on and was talking to you about the quick interview we got with santorum, a santorum aide came up to me and said, hey, keep in mind we're looking at the delegate math coming out of michigan. there's a chance, obviously, a long night in determining this, but there's a chance they feel that they could split the

delegate vote total coming out of this state. they feel like that is as big a win in this state as if they had come out on top in the popular vote. obviously, they're spinning this as best they can. they're looking for silver linings after what is a disappointing loss. >> that's their responsibility. they have to spin it as positively as they can, but there will be a split, no doubt, of the delegates in michigan, given the way they divide up the delegates. it won't happen in arizona where romney gets all 29 delegates. candy crowley is standing by at mitt romney's headquarters right now. they must be totally relieved, pretty happy, but it was a relatively thin margin in his home state of michigan, candy. >> it was. but i have to tell you that i spoke to someone close to the romney campaign and said, boy, you know, you barely squeaked by, three, four, five points. he said, what would you be saying if we lost three, four, five points? it was a monumental loss.

they're happy to take it at this point. how happy are they? mitt romney said, a long time to thank the folks in the room. these are campaign workers the folks who knocked on doors. some of the high officials in michigan, and there were many who supported him. obviously, they're quite grateful. as for his margin of win, mitt romney told the crowd he's quite satisfied. >> and in this room are the people who knocked on the doors and made the calls and went to the polls. and it made an enormous difference. we didn't win by a lot but we won by enough and that's all that counts. >> now, of course, the problem in this primary race all along is that there's really been no big mo, as george bush the father called it, momentum coming out of a particular race. almost every time we thought someone had momentum, they fell in the next contest. next week, super tuesday, and the romney campaign knows full well that you're only as good as

the election in front of you. wolf? >> he's not going to waste any time, candy, i'm told. tomorrow morning he's going to be speaking in toledo, ohio. that's not far away from detroit. he's speaking at a rally there. he's obviously very concerned about ohio one week from today. >> sure. he absoluty is, but they're aware here as we all are that these polls tend to reflect the moment. so watch the polls in ohio over the next couple of days, as certainly the romney campaign will be, they do expect to get bounce in the polls in that state in particular, but there are a lot of states out there, and they need to do better than just ohio. but i have to tell you, ohio is pretty much the crown jewel of next tuesday. so that's where they're going to concentrate a lot of their attention. >> and in november, ohio will be critical as well. a key battleground state as we know. candy, thanks very much. it's on to super tuesday right now, and one state stands out as candy said, from the others. we're talking about the battleground state of ohio.

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well, the race now moves on to super tuesday. one critical state, battleground state, ohio. that's where tom foreman is tonight, in columbus, ohio, with a group of undecided republican voters. they have been watching and listening to all of the candidates make speeches and giving us their instant reactions. we have been playing them at the bottom of the screen. what was the reaction to governor romney talking tonight? >> anderson, this is one of the most fascinating ones to watch, how the groups respond to it. i want you to look at how these people responded when mitt romney was speaking,

specifically, specifically when he went after president obama with one of his own lines, listen to this and watch the lines grow. >> he thinks he deserves a second term. he says, we can't wait, to which i say, oh, yes we can. >> huge, huge support for that when he said -- when he attacked the yes we can line. let me talk to somebody here. did you like that line, the notion of him saying that, and if so, why? >> yes, i thought mitt finally got the difference between himself and obama, and i think he was very clear and articulate, and i loved the speech. >> when you say he finally got the difference, he's been saying a lot of this stuff. what's the difference tonight? >> he came out powerfully. he spoke with authority and conviction, and he was very true to himself. he did very well. >> do you feel he had done that before tonight? >> somewhat, but i thought he was kind of always a little bit

hesitant. just this time, i thought he was very strong. i liked him tonight. >> let me reach to the fellow back here, what was your reaction to all of this, did you think strongly about romney before tonight and how do you feel now? >> not so much before tonight, but tonight, he spoke like a winner. he won the state of michigan. he won arizona. and it seems like he feels like he's on a roll. and he's just going to start rolling and just keep going. >> you know, anderson, this is something that we were talking about earlier tonight with everybody here. many people here -- show me your hands, a lot of your, you're undecided, a lot of you were in favor of santorum, show me how many raised your hands when you said you liked santorum earlier. a lot of people, anderson, but i will tell you this, when we were polling people throughout the process, time and again, what this group said was they thought mitt romney could win, and you

can hear the talk now. after hearing him tonight, after all four speeches, clearly, clearly, anderson, i'm telling you, the lines jumped all over the place for romney. a lot of support, a lot of excitement, not nearly so much for the other candidates. >> let's take a look at some sof the reactions to what rick santorum had to say. >> absolutely. rick santorum in particular, one of the best lines was a general, let's stand up for the basic principles of what republicans believe in, conservatives believe in. watch by comparison how the lines moved for him. >> are we a country that believes in big government, do we believe in the smart and elite in this country to manage us, or do you believe in free people and a free economy and building a great america from the bottom up? what do you say? >> so, let me ask you this, i'm going to work some of the back of the crowd. what did you think of santorum

before tonight and what did you think of him now? >> i'm still stuck in not liking him. >> not liking him? >> right. >> why? >> he comes off kind of phony to me. i've never liked his politics. the piece about the education just really bothered me last week when he talked about education not being important for low income kids, and then tonight, he spoke of his mother having an education, himself having an education, his wife having an education, and i think education and vocational programs are important for young people to succeed in the american dream in this country. >> someone here who is a tea party supporter? in the back row there? let me slip down the row and ask you a question about this. if you're a tea party supporter in all of this, mitt romney -- rick santorum was one of the

people that a lot of very conservative people are leaning toward. do you feel differently tonight after watching his speech, seeing the showing in arizona and michigan? >> i do. i like rick santorum. i really was very undeseeded on what i thought about him versus romney, and i still believe romney has a better chance of winning, but i do like santorum. he comes off as being more of a family man. >> you raise a key question that we have seen in focus groups all over the country as we have traveled around. this basic question of what is more important to you right now? voting for somebody who you believe in or voting for somebody whom you believe can win? >> i want somebody who can win. i think that's what it boils down to. i think it's important for the republican base to rally around somebody who can take obama down. >> even if that means turning your back on somebody who you

would rather have on the job? >> i don't know that any of the candidates are far enough from my believes to say one is a betrayal of my believes. i think elements of every one of them are parts that i believe in, and all of them have flaws. for me, if any of them rises up as a candidate that can take obama out, that's the guy i am going to support. >> do we have a ron paul supporter? let me splip past you. what about you? some portion of the group, i want to point out, when we were asking the questions, there was some portion of the group, about a quarter of you, maybe, who said most of you said whoever gets the nomination for the republicans you'll back. about a quarter, if i'm not mistaken, we're asking the folks from southern baptist university, who said they would not necessarily support the candidate if it wasn't their choice. i'm guessing some of the ron paul people are among that, maybe. how did you feel after what you

saw tonight? >> well, i really disliked the environmental aspects of the other candidates, especially when it comes to energy usage for america. just fraking is not a viable action, and that for me is -- i couldn't vote -- >> based on that, can you -- would you simply stick with ron paul all the way through or not vote or refuse to vote for the candidate? what would you do? >> ron paul all the way through seems very sincere with what he said, and everything he stands for. the other candidates -- >> i'm talking about the general election, once you get past the lection, let's say he doesn't get the nomination, can you bring yourself to vote for mitt romney or will you not vote or vote for barack obama? >> i might have to vote for a third party. in that circumstance. i dislike obama's socialist

tendencies. >> i think he might run as an independent if he doesn't get the republican nomination. >> i want to take a wide picture here and show you something else, which i think you'll find very interesting. show your hands here for a minute, how many of you think this is still a four -- put your hands up really high. how many of you think this is a four-person race for the republican nomination? is that it? one? how many of you think this is a two-person race? and i'm presumeing the two you mean are rick santorum and mitt romney. do you think at this point that anybody should drop out? >> i can't say that anyone should drop out. because if they do, then that will, i think, overwhelmingly throw the race to romney.

but i think that anyone who does stay in, they're going to really have to pick up the pace, really get specific, and tell me why i should vote for them, not why i shouldn't vote for the other guy. >> all right, we're going to come back with our group later on, and we're going to show you the metamorphosis that has happened here. everybody came in undecided. some leaning one way and some the other, but there was definite movement as all of the speeches were made, as we watched the results come in. i can tell you there are dirnlss in the group from what we saw just a few hour s ago. later on, we're show you what that is. >> i appreciate all of the folks for participating in this. we'll check in a little later on with you. let's go over to some of our analysts here. david gergen, gloria borger. it's interesting to hear their perspectives and saying no

matter what, they want somebody who can win against president obama. >> we have seen that time and time again in all of the primaries. the undecided gentleman who said i want someone who can win. and mitt romney, the central premises of his campaign has been that he is the electable candidate. and that's what he's gone about proving this evening, by winning the state of michigan. i would argue that he still has problems with his base, but what he has to do heading into super tuesday is continue to prove the premise that he's electable by winning somewhere in the midwest, which would of course be the state of ohio that you folks were talking about. but i would also argue that he can't write off the south. and that there are a burch of southern primaries coming up. i was kroundicorresponding with republican strategist who said haley barbour is probably on speed dial, very powerful in the south, mitt romney could use him. and as much as endorsements matter, he could get out his

political operative to help romney win somewhere in the south. this is part of proving that he's the electable republican. >> there were a couple things for romney, but i thought what was interesting is coming out of the victory tonight, he gave a much better speech than he has been. >> and they responded to that. >> they responded to that. you know, there was a time between south carolina and florida he changed his debate coach, and he was much, much better in florida. i have to wonder, does he have a new speechwriter. there was a pithy phrase that i thought for the first time captured in a few words what he's trying to say he's about. more jobs, less debt, smaller government. and he repeated that another time. that kind of approach, if he could finally get through to people about what he's about and have this sense of being a winner as he came out of tonight in michigan and arizona, you could begin to get the things moving. and alex's point, he could get

himself back on track. >> he had a teleprompter tonight, but he didn't say -- i don't want to say robotic, but reading the teleprompter as much. >> i thought he was more -- there were a series of things working. >> ten states voting at one time. we're talking about super tuesday. could it finally bring claire ate to the republican presidential race? we'll talk about that ahead. we'll look at which contests will be most competitive. [ male announcer ] at home, you play a lot of roles.

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important win for mitt romney tonight in arizona and michigan. he desperately needed to win michigan to keep this momentum going. it look said like he's doing really well in wyoming. we won't get the final results of the wyoming caucuses until tomorrow. as important after the races tonight were, a week from today,

super tuesday, ten really important contests. >> this is about delegates at the moment. if some candidate can run off a bunch of wins, maybe it becomes momentum, but the race is at 1144. that's what you need to clinch the nomination. romney started at 127, you see gingrich, santorum, paul. factor in arizona. santorum will get some, we estimate a third. that could change a bit. romney gets them all in arizona. you see him beginning to pull open the delegate lead. 176, we need 1144. let's take a look ahead. the wyoming caucus. we have most of the vote. let's assign that to romney. a few proportionately may go to senator santorum and paul. and then the washington caucus on saturday, we're going to project ron paul, a hypothetical, that would be his first win if that happens. others will pick up a few delegates proportionately.

now we come to here, this is next tuesday and all of the country is voting, new england states, the south, the midwest states. this is hypothetical, if you're watching at home, you won't like some of this. gingrich could come back and win oklahoma, win tennessee, and his home state of georgia, he would jump up into second place. if you look at the polling, let's say the polling holds and we give this to senator santorum, bring it purple, there we go. tennessee, a recent poll, santorum ahead there. let's change this one here, make it a santorum state. if you do that, senator santorum will start moving up. this is the biggest battle ground. we're going to assign michigan to romney, romney and paul on the ballot -- >> you mean virginia. >> yes. thank you, ohio, if romney wins it, he would pull open a big lead, what would happen if speaker gingrich won it? if it's not romney, people think it could be santorum. romney would be in the lead, but santorum would jump to second

place. there are a number of scenarios as you play this out, it's who can win the bulk of the ten, does somebody win three, somebody win three, or does one candidate gets momeantm? i'm going to leave this up for now. imagine if super tuesday played out like that, santorum would have momentum as you move on. then you have a relatively light day on march 10th. kansas would be the prize there. gingrich, i'll play it over to romney for the sake of argument there, then you come here. these are two states, super tuesday is going to have a huge impact on the race. the question being this, can speaker gingrich come back? win georgia big, find someplace else to win? if that's the case, you have to say he would be a major factor when you get to alabama and mississippi. if he's not, if he has a bad super tuesday, what happens down here? gloria mentioned this, this is the strength of the republican party in a national election. romney won florida. you don't see him right now

winning the deep south states, as you consider them, after that, who else is viable? santorum, gingrich, are they all still in, and what happens down here? after that, after march 13th, these are going to go to gingrich. after march 13th, missouri voted in a beauty contest, but has to vote delegates, you see arkansas, louisiana, super tuesday will say a lot about if this goes on deep into march, into april, conceivably into may, who is viable. >> play it out because this magic number of 1,144 is possible. you play it all out through the summer, nobody gets that magic number. >> watch me play this out again. this is based on earlier projections when gingrich was doing well. i'm going to leave the states right now, let's play it out, louisiana, if we have essentially a regional breakdown, santorum winning in the midwest, gingrich winning in the south, you keep playing it out, romney winning, this gave

romney the sate of wisconsin, play out more, romney gets new england, this gives santorum his home state of pennsylvania. let's fill it out, more quickly, again, if you're watching at home, you're saying my state isn't going to go that way, this is a hypothetical. romney has done in the west, boom, he did win there. under that scenario, romney just made the finish line. we're at the end, utah. just got to the finish line at the end. but pick a state, pick a state, go on, let's say that goes another way, santorum wins that, that's only ten delegates. you get to the convention ten delegates shy, you can cut a deal. let's say california went another way, that would pull out a bunch of delegates there. as you do the hypothetical, this is why next tuesday is so important. ten states on the ballot will determine who has viability as you move on into the other southern states. will everybody stay in? if they stay in, are they viable? next news, especially in such a

volatile, unpredictable race, is crucial. >> gingrich said he needs to win georgia. if he doesn't win georgia, he's in deep, deep trouble. we're watch georgia, ohio, tennessee, all of these states, peter is in michigan right now. peter, you have been covering this from day one. political momentum is very, very important right now. what are you seeing? >> yeah, i mean, this is what john was just talking about. if romney does have some measure of momentum, it almost hit the wall on super tuesday. i have been on the phone with republicans in all ten of the states for the last several days asking who is up, who is down? there's no one with an across the map advantage on super tuesday. if you look at the big contests, take massachusetts off the board, romney wins there. take virginia off the board, romney wins there. the four biggest states are -- that will be contested on super tuesday are ohio, tennessee, jerja, and oklahoma.

romney is probably competitive only in one of those where he can pull out a win, that's ohio. he has real problems on super tuesday, as gloria mentioned. he has not shown well in the south as he did in south carolina. he showed problems connecting with southern conservatives there. he might not have to win some of the southern states, but he has to show well because southern conservatives are the most reliable gop voting bloc in the general election. it looks tough for romney. he might also, wolf, look for a win in idaho, perhaps. i was talking to one operative who expects the mormon vote to be north of 30%, possibly 40% in idaho. delegates are nominated by county. romney could do well out there. ohio and idaho, massachusetts and virginia look good for romney, wolf. >> virginia, only two candidates on the ballot. the other two did not get on, santorum and newt gingrich.

peter, thanks very much. jessica yellin is our white house correspondent. she's been getting reaction not only from officials i assume at the white house, but other democrats as well. what are you seeing and hearing? >> hi, wolf. democrat officials, not just from the democratic national committee but also in the state and particularly ohio who are already attacking mitt romney and focusing their fire on him. they're once again seeing him as the likely republican opponent in the general election. and their primary message, wolf, is obviously about the auto bailout in ohio. but focusing on this theme that romney is out of touch and that he is, in the words of multiple democrats, an elitist who can't connection. the reason i'm emphasizing this is time after time, i have seen the democratic national committee put out a message that they initially instigate as their attack line, and then within a week, it becomes the

attack you hear from either gingrich or santorum or maybe both as their lead attack on mitt romney. whether it was over health care or jobs or mitt romney's taxes, the dnc tends to put out these attacks. it goes quiet for a while, and then you start hearing it from the other opponents. the latest attack is that mitt romney's gaffe over time shows he's not just a gaffe machine in their wards, and a weak candidate, but this is his true nature and he's out of touch and an elitist. something you have heard before, but i'll be curious to see if the other republican candidates pick that up on the trail to super tuesday. >> a very, very intensive week. jessica, thanks. anderson, i can tellia from my own reporting that a lot of democrats in the obama re-election campaign, they certainly fear mitt romney the most among potential challengers going into a general election. >> why do you think that is?

is it that lose rr most electable in their eyes? >> he polls strongest against barack obama compared to the rest in the race. his appeal was stronger earlier. it's gone more to the right, i think the whole in-fighting of the republican party. here is one big thing when you compare the data four years ago. i do have to say it, four years ago, the democrats lifted each other up. when you look at barack obama and hillary clinton, their numbers rose. republicans are dropping. republicans need to stay focused on the economic messages. when they talk about cultural issues or social issues, they need to do it in a positive way. >> what are you hear iing from e focus group and how one night of two wins for mitt romney and a decent, energized speech, they suddenly felt differently about him and viewed him as a winner.

interesting how one's eye changes with a win under one candidate's belt. >> what it tells us is it underscored how difficult it has been for mitt romney to convince republicans he is the one, even with the whole electability thing. because the whole notion of him being out of touch, i think people see it, they see his gaffe, it's not just one, it's two, three, four, it's five, it's a list, and i think in republicans' minds, that gives them pause to really believe that he is the one who can go up against barack obama, and i have to say, the anybody but romney folks, it's almost like they have been trying out for who can actually keep the spotlight in being the front runner. that's where they have all failed and that's why romney apparently is the front-runner. >> romney may have the wrong strategy. it's that obsessed with winning, generally when a party is obsessed with winning, they'll make compromises on their

ideology. that's what george w. bush did in 2000. he ran as a compassionate conservative, he wanted more involvement in education. he did not run to the extreme right in the primaries. he seemed to have the eye on the prize the whole time. bill clinton, that's what he did, too. romney may have had a chance to do the same thing. and he may have squandered it. >> i'm surprised that on the one hand, we're criticizing mitt romney for being too far right, and on the other hand, he's not getting the right, santorum is. so i think the truth is somewhere in between. romney has -- romney hasn't moved to the right that far in this primary process at all. he's still, for example, even on immigration, the candidate who never gives a speech where he doesn't talk about immigration, doesn't say legal immigration, a good thing, expand. >> extreme candidate. he used to be for the dream act,

for comprehensive immigration reform. >> the dream act is not a good idea for a lot of republicans. >> he used to support it. >> nevertheless, i think it's hard to have it both ways that he's on the one hand, so extreme, but it doesn't show up, even in the general election surveys if you ask if he's too conservative, no. i thought the interesting story from the focus group was strength. we've always said for the past year, the last election may have been about hope and change, but this is about strength and certainty because the world is coming apart, economy, foreign policy, and this group saw, that was a strong guy. that's not something we have heard up to this point about mitt romney. i'm not sure it was that much of a speech as it was he won. he went into a tough state, he went into a state where he had stood on an issue, on the bailout, for example, against some of the sentiment in the state, and he stuck to his guns and he won. >> stand by to hear from mitt

romney about the double victory tonight. it may have been one of the best primary night speeches for him yet. we'll play some of that. >> announcer: this is the day. the day that we say to the world of identity thieves "enough."

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dana beige is in pontiac, michigan. she's got more news happening now. they completed the tally over there, dana? >> it just happened moments ago. we have been behind the scenes here. we want to show you, this is really democracy in action. joe is here, he's going to tell us what the final result are, 100% reporting here. >> we are 50% for mitt romney and 28% for rick santorum, all 541 prisiecincts have reported we're going to transfer that to the secretary of state and that will be available on the website. >> and kim here is going to hit

send, right? >> right. >> there you see the results officially going back to the state, and this shows you, the big, big margin exactly why mitt romney did so well in this state today. >> oakland, a hugely important county in michigan. thanks for the good reporting. let me play you a clip of what the winner of arizona and mi mishish mish, romney, had to say to his supporters tonight. >> great victory in arizona tonight. and thank you, michigan. what a win. this is a big night. thank you, guys. you know, a week ago, it was just a week ago that the pundits and the pollsters, they were ready to count us out, but across michigan and arizona, i kept on meeting moms and dads and students and grandparents, and they were concerned about what is happening to this great country of ours, and i was confident we could come together today and take a giant step

toward a brighter future. so tonight, their efforts have brought our cause a great victory and we celebrate with people across these states. thank you. now, tonight is also particularly special for me because this is a place where i was born. this is the place where i was raised. my mom and dad lived many years here and love this great state, and i know that michiganders in the room, we consider you all family. thank you so much for your help. and in this room are the people who knocked on the doors and made the calls and went to the polls, and it made an enormous difference. we didn't win by a lot, but we won by enough, and that's all that counts. and by the way, in arizona, special thank you to governor jan brewer there and senator john mccain. they were tireless, particularly john mccain, he's been all over the country helping. what a hero, thank you, senator.

thank you, governor. they're out there. we've got two sons out there that are celebrating with them. the great thing about having so many in our family, we can cover almost every race. so super tuesday will be stretched, but we'll find a way. our campaign, as you know, is about restoring the promise of america. last week, i unveiled a very bold economic plan that's going to jump start the economy and it's going to get michiganders back to work, get americans more jobs they're crying out for and we'll have less debt and smaller government and i'm going to deliver on more jobs, less debt, and smaller government. we have to hear that day in and day out. more jobs, less debt, smaller government. you know, there are a lot of people who were say figure you're running for office, you can't speak honestly to the american people. well, we did, and i will, and because this is the decisive moment, i believe this is a time

that requires real leadership in the country. times are tough. we need leaders who will live with integrity, have the courage to tell the truth, and have the experience to get our economy back on track. that's the kind of leader i aspire to be. that's the kind of leader i will be if i'm president of the united states. our campaign -- our campaign is about more than just replacing a president. it's about restoring america's promise. from generation to generation, americans have always known that the future would be brighter and better. americans have always believed in a tomorrow full of possibility and prosperity. that's what it means to be the land of opportunity. in america, you know if you work hard, you can build a better life. if you eteach your kids the right kind of values and help them make the right choices in life, you know their future will be prospering and security. and that deep confidence of a better tomorrow, it's a basic promise of tomorrow.

today that promise is being threatened by a faltering economy, and a failed presidency. four years ago, we warned that the prenz dns prenz dnsy was no on the job training. today, we have the economy to prove it. >> romney, he won the contest today. as we're standing by, the social media circuit, a person monitoring what is going on, let's make her blush. go ahead, take us what is going on. >> brooke has been monitoring it. >> romney won arizona and michigan, but like you and the panel have been talking, the margin of victory not huge. this is his home state. he recognized that specifically in his speech, this wasn't a landslide, he knew it. >> on this great state, and i know that michiganders in this room, we consider you all family. thank you so much for your help.

and in this room are the people who knocked on the doors and made the calls and wnent to the polls and it made a difference. we didn't win by a lot, but we won by enough and that's all that matters. >> that's all that matters is what he said. we're tracking specifically romney and santorum, and of course, pay attention to the red line as i advance this. you can see it slowly begin to slope northward, which means romney's faveerability above santorum. i want to read you three tweets about the margin of victory. miami herald reporter, mitt romney has done a good job of having little momentum from his wins. will super tuesday, ohio specifically, be different? that's one of the big questions. i advance this. this is talking about the polls here. looks like final romney margin in michigan may exceed all polls. polls were very close. so to review, in last week, mitt

had momentum, then santorum, then mitt crazy. who knows what can happen giving the roller coaster. and it was the ohio news network, they're going to be covering this next tuesday. he tweets, romney spend a lot of money getting michigan voters he loved them. now welcome to ohio, the archenemy of michigan. i think he's talking football specifically, sort of the archnemesis. i want to quote something santorum picked up. he said, tonight, this is going to be romney's night. the question was how big, and it wasn't very big. the size of the win matters. >> brooke, thanks very much for that. >> john, what do you make of tonight's final thoughts. >> i don't want to repeat that line, but it actually is true in the sense that when we're all done and counted we're going to probably have an even delegate split. delegates are awarded by

congressional districts. romney might get a slight edge. but whenever governor romney is backed against a wall, had to win in florida, they did. needed to win in nevada, they did. and it didn't count except when he needed the psychological boost, and they did. you have to tip your hats to the romney campaign. i want to add an observation that has almost nothing to do with the race. olympia snowe announced she's retiring today. all of the candidates running for president are having a hard time convincing the republican coalition they're the leader. this is the party in the middle of a fascinating transition that is being accelerated by the obama presidency, but none of the current generation quite fit with what is happening in their own party. >> a fascinating night, olympia snowe leaving. >> she said partisan politics makes it very difficult to get things done. >> her state is a very different place now than it was two orthree years ago.

>> a pivotal night, anderson. two weeks ago, mitt romney's campaign went into the ditch when he lost the three elections. and i think he showed resilience. he came back, won the debate, which is an important turning point. and even though it wasn't a big victory, turning back to santorum, it did three things, he got out of the ditch, he blunted santorum's momentum, and thi thirdly, he's turned it into a died a divide and conk. er. he has ten contests, he can get at least four. if he can get ohio, he'll have a big super tuesday. >> mitt romney avoided a huge crisis. his campaign didn't end tonight. it's going to continue. i would argue if he lost michigan, we would have been saying can this candidacy continue. the interesting thing about the republicans that john was talking about and we talked about earlier, this is a

different party. they're acting like a bunch of democrats because they're not sure where they are, and the party is split wide open. you have the tea partiers, the establishment republicans, the insurgents, and they have to come around to feeling comfortable with their candidate. mitt romney was not the likeliest person to become their nominee. i think he is now. >> there's a week between now and super tuesday. here's a couple things i'll be looking forward to seeing. i would have loved to own some of the television stations in ohio and tennessee because they're going to be spending millions and millions of doll dollars. super pacs, and all of them have super pacs. you're not going to be able to buy commercials in some of the battleground states looking forward to super tuesday. that's one thing i'm looking at. i under what if, what if there had been that super tuesday debate this thursday that had been canceled? they were going to televise it.

how that might have affected super tuesday. >> it would have been possibly a different race. no way to know. our coverage continues. super tuesday, just one week away. we're going to have full, live coverage, of course. piers morgan is next. for everyone at cnn, thanks very much. piers starts now. magnesium, r? you bet! phillips' caplets use magnesium. works more naturally than stimulant laxatives... for gentle relief of occasional constipation. can i get an autograph? [ female announcer ] live the regular life. phillips'. [ male announcer ] for our families... our neighbors... and our communities... america's beverage companies have created a wide range of new choices.

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