has the gop nomination locked up yet. welcome back to our viewers in the united states and around the world. i'm wolf blitzer reporting from the cnn election center. ohio, ohio, ohio. we have been talking about it all night. the biggest prize so far tonight, ten states on this super tuesday. take a look at the official numbers. 86% of the vote in ohio in. you see santorum is ahead by votes, but they don't have the official numbers we received from our own dana bash in hamilton county. that's cincinnati. it shows a 6,000 vote lead for romney right now. we haven't included those in the official numbers yet. they haven't been reported to

the republican party headquarters. by our estimate, romney slightly ahead of santorum in ohio, but still, plenty of time for stuff to happen. we're watching ohio very, very closely. you can see how close it is right there, by our estimate, once again, mitt romney slightly ahead of rick santorum. let's take a look at idaho right now. we have not projected a winner in idaho even though romney is way ahead of everybody else with 12% of the vote in. romney with 78%, 11% for ron paul, 8% for rick santorum, 3% for newt gingrich. let's go to john king and talk ability ohio. the numbers show santorum slightly ahead, but for viewers just tuning in, we say this, and we say it boldly, and we say it exclusively. romney is really slightly ahead of rick santorum. >> by about 3,000 votes by our count because we're going to show you the numbers here. this is the official count, 78% from hamilton county shows romney with a big lead.

we have from dana bash more updated numbers that get us overrateover a 80% where romney got a huge jump. you see a 10,000 edge in the county. we all know that he has a bigger edge by our hamilton county numbers to give him a boost of about 3,000 state-wide. now the question is, are there places where santorum can make it up, and are there more places where romney can get votes. this was blank a bit earlier. medina county, romney with 6% of the vote in, with a slight lead. rough and tumble. he might add a little. that's not a comeback place for santorum. here is the hard one. cuyahoga county, still at 41%. been there for a long time, but a big mitt romney lead. we need to clean this up. we're waiting for a lot of votes here. this is a place we would expect at 41%, romney to get more votes. you start looking at the map and

say, is there anywhere elsewhere santorum can pick up? he could if things change up there, but it's unlikely. start looking at places where santorum is winning, 100% of the vote is in, 100% of the vote is in, across the state, if you look at this, 4% of the vote in this county, but a very tiny county. santorum, maybe a couple doesn't votes to add to the count. doesn't look like enough. more votes to come in here. might be 20, 50, 100 votes, but then you come back out to the map and you're looking at a state where without question, santorum will win more counties in ohio, but where is romney winning? the population centers, columbus, cincinnati, akron, places where you have the major tv markets, and he very much t outspent on ads. those run across the state. but as you look through, 98% of the voting here, not a place

where santorum is going to have a comeback. thas a romney county. why they're so slow? if you look around them -- >> what about youngstown. he grew up in pittsburgh, which is not far away. how does that look? >> tis has to be a disappointment for santorum. if you look at the youngstown, not a big margin like some of the other places, but romney winning in the youngstown area, 37% to 34%. if you pop up, romney winning in trumble county. another county, akron, summit county, where santorum wanted to do better. you see the edge here. one way to look at this. if you go back in time, the republican race, forgive me, republicans, is playing out like the democratic race did back in time. go back to the democratic primary, hillary clinton won ohio last time. look where senator obama did well. in columbus and in the suburbs, in cincinnati down here, and up here. hillary clinton won everywhere

else. here, here senator clinton, not obama did well in akron and youngstown. now look at 2012, the republican race. this is an area where rick santorum who is the blue collar candidate like clinton needed to do well, and he did not. otherwise, his votes are tracking obama's. this is the count, you see very narrow. actually, for romney, has passed into the lead in our count at 86%. and we know it's bigger than that. >> let's put it on the big screen because for the first time in a while, this is official. let's go over here and take a look. take a look at these numbers now. and we're going to show our viewers what's going on. 86% of the vote is now in, and romney is ahead of santorum, 1,425 votes ahead of santorum. first time in a while we have seen the official count.

we're not surprised. there nn viewersvi s should not surprised because we see what is going on. we saw the exclusive numbers coming in from dana bash in hamilton county. these don't include the numbers, the numbers in hamilton county. so it would presumably be at least another 3,000 or 4 thon vote advantage for romney over santorum, but romney taking the lead. it's growing. 1837 vote lead with 87% of the vote in. that's a significant development in ohio. we're watching it closely, and you're seeing it unfold as we do ourselves. idaho, let's go to boise. shannon travis is standing by. tell our viewers what is going on. you have the huge taco bell arena. 10,000 folks that have gathered to participate in the caucuses. >> that's right, absolutely. just under 10,000. almost 10,000 there, wolf. it's packed. a lot of the people here, they

have already voted, but let me show you what the next step in the process is. you see a lot of the volunteers lined up. they have on white shirts and dark pants. in those buckets right there are coins. coins for different candidates. you see on the top of that one, romney. you see the two other there, ron paul and newt gingrich. there's rick santorum over there. they have tape over the top of them now. basically, what the caucusgoers did was had a coin, and they dropped them into the buckets. now, those buckets will be called up to the stage, and there are some people upstage, up there who are counting all of the tokens. this is not a paper ballot process. a little different from what we have seen in previous caucuses before. cnn has a camera trained on the counting of the coins exclusivi exclusivively. and one last thing, the person who wins the caucus has to get at least 50% plus one. if no one gets 50% plus one in the first counting of the tokens, the process starts

again. the lowest vote getter is dropped off, or anyone who has 50%, and all of the people in here, 9,000 of them, have to vote again. >> shannon, thank you very much. boise state university, taco bell arena there. let's update you on the maps right now. show you what's going on there. you can see we're still awaiting ohio. but romney now, we say, has a slight lead over rick santorum in ohio. we're waiting for the final results to come in from idaho. we don't have those results in yet. in alaska, they closed the caucuses at midnight eastern, less than an hour from now. we'll go and see what is going on in alaska at the right moment as well. let me pult up ohio right flow. show you what is going on. put it up on the screen. we'll show you what is going on in ohio. romney maintaining a slight lead. 86% of the vote is in. we estimate that lead is more

significant, that does not include the votes, that does not include the votes from hamilton county, cincinnati, where dana bash reported to us based on republican party officials, that santorum is way behind in that county. there's a significant advantage for romney. we'll continue to watch what is going on in ohio. if romney manages to pull out a win in ohio, great news for him. he's going to certainly get more delegates in ohio because santorum couldn't get on the ballots in some of the congressional districts. stay with us.

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here's a picture of rick santorum watching the returns coming in. it was tweeted by alice stewart, his press secretary over there, you can see santorum watching what is going on. if he's watching cnn, he knew this about a half hour ago or so, 87% of the vote is in. romney is ahead by 4,067 votes.

408,541 to 403,074 for santorum. these numbers finally do include hamilton county, the cincinnati area. dana b dana bash showed us the numbers a while ago. romney has a lead of 5,467 votes with 87% of the votes in. going to be difficult for santorum to make the number up given what is going on in some of the populated areas like the cleveland area, cincinnati, akron, some of the other areas as well. anderson cooper is going to take us inside the decision making process. at what point will we be able to project a winner? >> that's always the question we want to ask at this time because we want to get out of here. let's talk to our political director, try to get a sense of when we may be able to finally make a call in ohio. how does it look? >> you know, right now, anderson, we don't know when

we're going to call. we don't even know if we can call it tonight. the fact of the matter is the race is so close, i just got off the phone with the secretary of state's office, they had no problems, but they're waiting for the numbers to come in. >> they haven't gotten the numbers in? >> they have, but it's slow. the question is is that where romney would do better than santorum. this is less than 1%, perhaps we don't call it tonight. it could go to tomorrow. and there could be absentee ballots a s provisional ballots could be in the mix. >> we're going to be on the air until 2:00 a.m. >> i think we are. >> we're on the air until 2:00 a.m., and we might not have an answer at the point. >> we'll keep following it. >> let's take a closer look. we're staying on the air. i want to go to cuyahoga county, the cleveland area.

let's take a look at cuyahoga county. only 40% of the vote. >> 60%. >> 60% in. what's taking them so long? they closed at 7:30. >> let's say they're being kaflt, deliberate. part of the county is involved in a congressional election. romney winning in the population centers. when we were at 40%, romney was trailing. when they went to 60%, you see his lead. he's got more than a 10,000 vote lete. that's double his margin state-wide. what happened? when the vote came in, when they jumped from 40% to 60%, that jumped romney up. and hamilton county is updated at 99%. this is the difference. hamilton county and cuyahoga county are going to make the difference in the state. mark preston said we cont call it because it's so close, but in the middle of the state, franklin county, still more

votes to come in. in the cincinnati area, winning in the major population centers and the suburbs around it. cleveland, akron, youngstown, you find the suburban areas, he's winning. can santorum come back. 100% of the vote in, 100% of the vote in. in the counties he's carrying, 56% of the vote here. he could make up a couple hundred votes, but we're looking at almost a 4,000 vote margin for romney now. when it comes in, it will come up more. when this comes in, most likely, assuming the percentages stay the same, and it could go up dramatically when the 40% comes in from the cleveland area. it's very hard, impossible looking at the places that are still out now, for in the vote count tonight, for me to see a path for santorum to coming ba. i understand very careful making the calls, but if you're looking county by county for a place to happen, but i can't find a

mathematical road for santorum to get back. >> everybody wants to be coshing because it's 38% to 37%, but it's really only a half of 1% state-wide difference between the two candidates, romney and santorum. and i'm sure the santorum campaign is asking themselves, why didn't they spend more money in ohio. they got outspent enormously by romney. if they would have spend more money, the delegate count might not have made a difference, but the bragging rights, the political momentum, the ability to raise a lot more money, to say i won ohio, the most delegates, the most votes in ohio, that would be critical because it's such a key battleground state. >> fgo back four years, eight years, 12 years, we say ohio, ohio, ohio, a big state in general elections. a big state in nominating contests. i want to pull over the c congressional map. some are awarded on the

state-wide count unless they get 50%, nobody will. delegates are going to go state-wide. they're going to go the state-wide delegates to romney and santorum. then the congressional delegates. these are the congressional districts. all these exclamation points are places where even if he wins the congressional district, you see the counties in here, all for santorum, he won't get all of the delegates because he has no delegates or a full slate of delegates. where you see this exclamation point. the organizational shortcomings are going to count the delegates in this race. this is a close race, i look at the map, where the vote is out, i see a narrow romney victory. that's john king speaking, we have to be careful, let the votes come in, before we can make a projection. if we end up tomorrow or whenever we have an official call with this romney red, the psychological difference in this race, people will say it's

close, people will say romney outspent santorum by so much, he's weak. he'll say, i won. he will say, i won. if you look at the map right now, if thing said hold up like this, and romney gets idaho, santorum has won north dakota, tennessee, oklahoma. you have half the states will have voted when we wake up tomorrow. romney has 13 wins, santorum has seven, gingrich has two, alaska is ron paul's only hope left tonight to get on the win board as we wait for the votes to come in there. romney has more states than anybody else and will end up with significantly more delegates than anyone else. when we wake up tomorrow, is it enough? he said he's staying in. we heard santorum tell jim acosta he's staying in. advantage romney, but we're early in march. i think we're going to say hello in april, order breakfast in may. >> gingrich sounded like he was a winner following his win in

georgia. >> he was talking uchbt debating president obama. it's hard to look at that and say that. but one reason he's staying in is if you look at the regional impact of the race, he's doing well in the south. next tuesday, we'll talk about alabama and miss miss. if you're speaker gingrich, you think, okay, advantage romney, santorum, second place. >> and gingrich is looking ahead to texas. >> louisiana, arkansas to go, north carolina, the south is still in play as long as the south is in place, ginch rf things there's a window to get back. >> we're watching ohio very, very closely. will we be able to make a projection in ohio? there are still votes outstanding there. our coverage will continue in a moment. [ man ] predicting the future is hard.

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and welcome back to our continuing coverage. an incredibly exciting night shaping up in ohio. exciting and close. take a look add the numbers. mitt romney in the lead by 5,119 votes. got 38% of the vote to rick santorum's 37%. 90% of the votes in. you heard from john king saying that he does not see a path by which santorum can win in ohio. although that's not an official call yet by cnn. ari fleischer, you have been talking to people on the phone. what have you heard? >> i got a phone call from the chairman of the ohio campaign for mitt romney, senator rob portman who is from hamilton county, he said they feel good about things in ohio. they predicted they're going to win. he said we're going to win ohio. >> and all of our contributors on the left and right, eric erickson joining us, hillary rosen as well as donna brazile. as you watch, your first time at

the table tonight. you thing it's going to be a win for romney, but a painful one. >> a painful win. when you spend 5.5 times as much money as rick santorum and eke out a win in ohio, a rust belt state that went overwhelmingly for the republicans in 2010, and they're not quite sold on you and across the board, you have lost evangelicals,self-described conservatives, the south, he could be the nominee, and since dukakis was the nominee in '88, dividing up the stuff, but is that the kind of candidate we want as a front runner? >> as far as the states coming up next, they don't look great for romney. >> when you look at the states that are coming up, it's probably several weeks before romney pulls out another win, and you know, everybody is talking about ohio right now, and that's important, but sitting in the back room, i was focused on virginia for two reasons, when you look at ron paul getting over 40% in virginia, ron paul, that's an

anti-romney vote. when you think, if there were only two candidates in there, romney and santorum, santorum would be taking more of the states. and that's such a critical issue right now for newt gingrich, for santorum, and for the republicans. >> virginia was an odd example because voter turnout was low and the other candidates weren't on the ballot. >> you only had one alternative to romney, and that alternative nobody thinks could be president, and he got 41% of the vote. if that was a santorum alte alternative, you would have santorum as a competitive choice to romney. >> in virginia, virginia is an anomaly. the turnout is dramatically down. nobody showed up because virginiaens pertold there's no contest there, no campaign. mitt romney has not solidified

things, he's got problems, but i don't think virginia is an indication of what the problems are. >> 41% of the people came out to vote against romney. there was energy against romney, ari. >> there may be energy against romney, but with this messy win in ohio, i think he largely becomes now in people's mind, the nominee. whether or not i like it or not, and i'm no fan of his, i think we're going to have several more weeks where he's going to have a difficult time with alabama, mississippi, louisiana. >> i worked on a lot of campa n campaigns in my day. i never thought i would be sitting up at night waiting for cuyahoga, cleveland, urban cities in order to help the republicans figure out what the nominee is. that's the problem with romney. even his sporter e supporters a holding his nose. they have credibility problems, a enthusiasm gap, but at the end of the day, a win is a win.

he'll likely pull it off, but he spent, what did you tell me? >> 5.5 to 1. >> that's lunch money for him, but that's still a lot of money to barely win a state that is a must-win in the fall. >> donna raises a really good point about ohio, which is a key state in nevada. and he's not going to win the cities in ohio. he's got to win rurally. those are the counties that went against him. >> it's a very different electorate coming up. >> to your points, romney is winning in the areas where republicans are likely to lose in the fall, and he's losing in the areas that republicans need to win. and you know, john king, can you make me honest on this? because if you go back to 2008 -- >> how much money do you got? let's hear -- this is gloria's point. look down here. let me go around. romney in the southwest corner of the state, in the center of the state, romney up here, toledo, and romney up here along

the lake, cleveland, the suburbs, down into youngstown. very impressive in winning the major population centers. this is your republican primary tonight. now, we're going to go back in time. go back in time here to the presidential contest here in 2008. barack obama, 52%. mccain, 47%. both senators at the time. down here, romney up here. but democrats counties, look at all this, and i understand if we go to hamilton county right now, we can get the latest results from dana bash. let me come back to 2012. bring up hamilton county. we're at 99%. dana, do you have us to 100%. >> 100%, that's what we've got. more exclusive information. phil is going to zoom in so we can give you the raw numbers. romney, 39,020. and santorum, 23,367. so we just crunched the numbers, and we'll give it to you.

basically, this is a net gain of 222 votes in this county for mitt romney. overall, generally, that might not matter, but in this kind of raz razor thin margin, it could make a difference. >> 222 votes make a big difference when you're in this close of a race. those numbers are going to shrink as i go state-wide. add 222 votes. romney will take it when he's winning the race. you start adding the numbers. 100 there, 200 there, 222 out of hamilton county, it gets hard as the map fills in and you look where the vote is still out, to see a rick santorum comeback. he'll call it a tie, but romney will be happy no matter how narrow to call it a victory if the numbers hold up. >> i want to go to boise, idaho, because we haven't been able to make a projection in idaho. the taco bell arena at boise state university.

shannon travis is standing by. almost 10,000 people in that arena that have gathered. what a huge caucus in boise. tell us what's going on. >> yeah, it's a huge caucus gathering. the largest in the state. some people here are arguing it's possibly the largest of the season. we need to verify that, but however, we know -- we have been trying to ascertain the numbers of the vote county that has been going on so far. we talked to multiple people. they're keeping it a closely guarding secret right up on the stage. we have a camera up there that is actually monitoring the vote count, wolf. but they're not releasing numbers to us at all. again, we have tried several times just to get a sense of where this 9,000 plus person crowd is moving, in what direction. they are saying, though, that they will start putting up numbers on the jumbotron up there, in about 10 to 15 minutes. so we're standing here, closely monitoring what that jumbotron will say. if you look at it now, they just have totals up there for some of

the other states with some of the other primaries and contests. we're going to continue to monitor this, work our socs and see what numbers we can get out of them. >> shannon, as you were speaking, our experts here at cnn were crunching the numbers in idaho. get ready for this. >> all right, cnn can now make a projection in idaho. mitt romney, the former governor of massachusetts, we project he wins the idaho caucuses. that gives him another win tonight. that is his fourth win of the night. the earlier one, virginia, massachusetts, vermont, now idaho. four wins for mitt romney. take a look at the votes. you can see the yellow in the middle to the right, that's ohio. we have not yet made a projection in ohio. ten states were voting today. ohio, we're waiting for. alaska, they closed their caucuses at the top of the hour, midnight eastern time.

we'll see what is happening in alaska. but right now, we're waiting for ohio. we're getting very close to a determination on what is going on in ohio. it's close, but romney has a slight lead right now. you have been watching that lead expand exclusively. we're getting the numbers before anyone else here on cnn. stay with us. our coverage will resume in a moment. ♪ ( whirring and crackling sounds )

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let me update you on what is going on in ohio. we have nauot yet made a projection in ohio, but romney is ahead of santorum with 91% of the vote in. almost 6,000 votes ahead of santorum. 38% to 37%. newt gingrich and ron paul, way, way behind. 9% of the vote outstanding.

it's going to be difficult for santorum based on the counties where the vote is outstanding. it's going to be difficult for santorum to make up the difference. right now, 5,882 votes. that's what romney is ahead of right now. let's go to jim acosta. he's covering the campaign in ohio. what's going on. >> it might be an indication of where the night is heading for santorum in ohio. we heard from one of the senior advisers for the santorum campaign. he said the santorums are getting ready to leave their war om here in steubenville, ohio. it was the high school weight room, as the campaign told us earlier this evening. but they were in that war room earlier tonight, watching the returns come in. alice stewart, the press secretary tweeted out a picture of santorum watching the votes come in. earlier, not too long before the announcement, we were told by alice stewart, that santorum, there was a possibility he could

come out here later tonight and talk about what is happening here in ohio. they advised us to keep the camera focused on the podium behind me just in case, but now they're telling me that's not going to happen. rick santorum will not be making another speech here. they're heading home to get some rests. >> jim acosta in steubenville, ohio. looks like the santorums are leaving the high school over there. let's go back to john king, talk more about ohio. let's talk also about the delegates because it's delegates, delegates, delegates. as important at the popular vote is, the delegates vote, getting to 1,144, getting the nomination at the convention in tampa, that's key. >> to the point eric erickson was making, a lot of rnens don't like romney, at some point, the delegate map becomes obvious. let's look at the state of play. we have not officially called ohio, but romney is leading. we have not officially called idaho, but romney is leading. if this stays as it is, the only

other super tuesday state is alaska. >> we did call idaho. >> romney wins idaho. alaska is the big one, and ohio we're waiting to call. it's 13 states for romney, assuming ohio stays this way, seven for santorum. a bit of an asterisk because missouri is a beauty contest. none for ron paul as we wait for alaska. what are the delegates? you're winning 13 states, you're ahead in the delegate math. this is roughly where we were a wile ago. i want to say this was a santorum state. so we turn that over there, and this is a romney state. these are not exact numbers. this is based on a percentage. this is a rough estimate. if you're watching at home, you're going to find something you can take issue with. look at this. this puts romney in the ballpark

of 313, gingrich, 90, santorum, 123, paul in the ballpark of 56. a long way to 1144, no question, but if this is the finish line, romney is a lot closer to it than anyone else. that's still a long way to go. what do we still have on the board tonight? if this were to go to romney, he would get at least that many. might get a little more out of ohio because of the problem santorum had. then what do you have? people will say romney is weak. then you have to say they're at the moment weaker. and if it's all about delegates in the end. so the question is how do you catch up? how do you catch up? we can gain this out as you go forward. if you want to keep going through states. you keep going on this way. kansas, who will win kansas? not a lot of delegates. santorum makes up a little ground. but if you look at me as i switch this over, let's say gingrich wins. you're not changing the delegate

math a whole lot. then you go down the road. i'm going to play it out. let's give these down here to gingrich. winning in the south. let's give them to speaker gingrich, come back in here. that would have him now jump over into passing santorum. that's a conversation a week from now. but again, remember, proportional states, romney still picking up delegates. then you go out here, missouri, we'll leave that in santorum's hands. that's a big question mark, but we'll leave it with santorum. illinois we think will go for romney. louisiana, will it be santorum. if it is, somewhere here. if it's gingrich, you have a southern issue. something like that, you start clicking this through, the question is, can romney get to the finish line? this is our conversation with others earlier. i'm going to play this through, give santorum his home state of pennsylvania. romney has been winning in these areas, west virginia could go another way. that's for the sake of argument, say okay, we don't want to be too pro-romney.

he's been winning out west, we'll leave those like that. come through, giving those states. this is a question, speaker gingrich still a viable candidate. arkansas and kentucky. we'll give them to arkansas. let's give them -- let's try to be fair to the other candidates and play it out. look what is happening. you're seeing a lot of pirm filling in the map. can he get to the finish line? if he keeps winning out west, california will be big. this is where we're getting ahead of ourselves. but to anyone saying we're going to have a broken convention, yes, it's possible. it's certainly possible. when you get to the big states, you're getting ahead of yours f yourself. if you come back and fill in what has happened today, you get to a more reasonable big romney lead, we know that. big romney lead, long way to go. >> we assume, all of us assume these four candidates remain. one or two could potentially

drop out at some point. we don't know what is happening. >> they're having fun, not going anywhere. >> stand by. ohio, are we going to be able to make a projection in ohio? romney slightly ahead of santorum right now. after santorum was leading for most of the night. the votes are still being counted. we'll update you on what we know right after this. people with a machine. what ? customers didn't like it. so why do banks do it ? hello ? hello ?! if your bank doesn't let you talk to a real person 24/7, you need an ally. hello ? ally bank. no nonsense. just people sense.

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and welcome back. 92% of the votes now in in the state of ohio. mitt romney well ahead with 6,365. it has not -- we have not called the state yet for romney, although all indications right now seem to be looking good for the former governor. in terms of where the race goes next, what would you see down the road? mississippi, louisiana.

>> we're getting cles to the cajun primary, and i'm excited. who knew at some point, i could take ari home and we could have a po'boy. newt gingg rf is going to alabama tomorrow, mississippi on thursday, heading to kansas. he's going to try to pick up more delegates. m mitt romney has the money and momentum and organization to continue and accumulate more delegate strength, but i think rick santorum tonight, i was surprised he won north dakota. there's no question that rick santorum will be able based on the tie, i mean, mitt romney might win ohio, but and get most of the delegates, but rick santorum will have a lot of momentum coming out with three wins tonight. >> for democrats watching tonight, whether it's in the obama white house or elsewhere, is this a good night? >> well, it's a good night when mitt romney outspends the other

candidates almost 5 to 1, and still loses half the states. and i think that that means two things, one, it's probably good for democrats that this primary is going to keep going. that rick santorum, if you're rick santorum tonight and you're newt gingrich, there's nothing that happened tonight thereat ts you to go home, and that's critical. and the other thing was what we were talking about earlier. the places that mitt romney is weak is places that a republican nominee are going to have to win come november. because barack obama is going to win those urban areas, he's going to win significant states, and if you look at some of the states where romney is losing, that doesn't spell enthusiasm for a republican nominee in november. >> i'm going to bring in jessica yellin. from the white house perspective, they have to be happy. >> the longer this goes on, the happier they are they get to stay out of it. one of the, you know, developing

storylines we see is that as much as romney remains the toughest challenger in the general election, they still expect romney to be the challenger, there is this emerging idea that if santorum, you know, were to ultimately challenge him, he has certain attributes that could cause more problems for the president because he does play better with low college -- less educated voters, white, working class voters. he plays well where the president is weak. it looks like that is less likely to be the case, so the white house, you know, is going to be able to breathe a sigh of relief, they think. but there is, you know, a growing awareness that if santorum were the candidate, they can't just shrug that off as something that would be an insignificant concern. >> democrats want this to go on and on. >> i get the feeling there's a real disconnect between the

political class paying attention to all of this and what the public thinks. it feels to so many of us that it's hurting republicans rrk but a gallup poll shows that republicans are more inthooent e enthusiastic about the election than democrats. and as for if romney's performance is a sign of things to come. hillary won in three states, and barack obama won. it's not an indication of what is going to hap in in the general, and the final point i make is where romney is running well in ohio and where he's running weak. the assumption is he's not going to do well in the fall. >> look, first of all, eric knows better than i know in terms of whether republicans will land in the conservative base, but given the turnout across the board, and airy and i

have different numbers, but the republicans are not turning out. they're not enthusiastic about the choices they see on the ballot. they're not participating in the preprimary or pree caucus activities that normally indicate that there's some enthusiasm in the party. i think this is a weak field, and once again tonight, we see ohio. voters are basically holding their nose. >> turnout has been up in ohio this year versus 2008. >> it was down in georgia. >> about 100,000. >> ohio is the only state it's up. >> south carolina, iowa. >> gung rch won sauth carolina and georgia. he couldn't break 50% in his home state of georgia. what does he do now? does sheldon aidalson stop giving him money. you're going to hear him referrroughe

referred to as the spoiler. there are going to be a lot of people wondering, should he do this for santorum. i got alabama, i got mississippi. two weeks ago, he thought he had tennessee and oklahoma. >> there doesn't seem to be any indication he's going to bow out to give something to santorum. >> no, no, he's not bowing out and he's not bowing to santorum, and he's not bowing to mitt romney, and i was just e-mailing with somebody in the santorum campaign, and they're about to dump $1 million in ads, in ad money in kansas, mississippi, and alabama. so they've got that cash on hand. they're pouring it in there. i think they might be wondering, why didn't they spend more of their own money in ohio since ohio was so close and maybe they think it wasn't such a great decision. so we've got the kansas caucuses coming up. mississippi and alabama, which are certainly ripe ground for santorum, as well as for

gingrich. but neither one of them is going away. >> does anybody know if the obama administration is counting all of the jobs created or saved by the republican primary. we could employ sizable numbers of people in these states. >> in the objective measure, if we knew romney would win five states, you would say he had a decent night. it's the way it's played out. this long, drawn-out county in ohio. looked like he was going to lose it. i think psychologically and the way the media is interpreting it as, he dodged a bullet. he should have had a decisive win and close this down. and the bad new said for romney is this is going to play out and play out. and there are people around the country who agree with barbara bush, who made the argument, this is the worst campaign she has ever seen, and she thinks it's derning people off. that's what i think he's got to compat. >> she's critical that the word

compromise is a dirty word. >> she has been through six presidential campaigns as a wife or as a mother. think of that. she's been deeply engaged in six of these campaigns and said, this is the worst. >> how do you square that with what gallup found when they said republicans are more enthusiastic than democrats. >> but they say the republicans are going down like this. i think different polls tell you different things. >> it's a snapshot in time. in the general election, barack obama could get republicans enthusiastic again. >> i want to go to wolf and john. >> thanks very much. you know, john, if you take a look at what's going on in ohio right now, the margin that romney is ahead of santorum is actually growing. it's 7,549 votes.

7,500 margin vote. it's going to be by my account and yours as well, hard for santorum to make up 7,500 votes. >> why did it happen? santorum was ahead early on. hamilton county, here's your big difference. 16,000 votes right there in that county. that's a big cushion. where else? cuyahoga county. this could be impossible for santorum to come brark romney is winning by a huge margin here, and we still have roughly 20% of the vote to come in from the one county. assuming romney still wins, even if he doesn't keep the margin. it's hard to see the math. and that the bulk of the vote that is still out. remember how big of an area that is. 12% of the state population. that's the bulk of the population. that county sin, guess what, when the rest of the county comes in, it's going to push you

close to 100%. summit county, large area. stark county, romney winning again. the story of the night is santorum winning in the small, rural counties. governor romney with the narrow state-wide lead in the urban areas and the areas around them. >> columbus, akron, cleveland, youngstown, that's where they spend all of the money on the ads. and guess who is winning those markets. stand by. i want to take a quick break. we're going to get more information. they're closing in alaska in a few moments, too. we'll tell you what's going on there. stay with us. ya know, your rates and fees aren't exactly competitive. who do you think i am, quicken loans? [ spokesman ] when you refinance your mortgage with quicken loans, you'll find that our rates and fees are extremely competitive. because the last thing you want is to spend too much on your mortgage. one more way quicken loans is engineered to amaze.

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the priceline negotiator went down in that fiery bus crash. yes i was. we lost a beautiful man that day. but we gained the knowledge that priceline has thousands and thousands of hotels on sale every day. so i can choose the perfect one for me without bidding. is it hard for you to think back to that day? oh my, this one has an infinity pool. i love those they just... and then drop off, kinda like the negotiator. welcome back. we're watching the tense battle for ohio right now. mitt romney is leading santorum, but the dramatic race could keep going for a while. right now, voting is winding down in alaska.