Santorum Wins Alabama, Mississippi

UPDATE: It appears as though Newt Gingrich is going to hold off Mitt Romney for second place in both Alabama and Mississippi, although that appears unlikely to change the immediate narrative about his Deep South losses on Tuesday.

According to the Associated Press's count, with 98.4 percent of precincts reporting in Alabama, Gingrich is up 29.3 percent to 29 percent on Romney, a difference of about 1,300 votes. Rick Santorum garnered 34.5 percent of the Alabama vote.

With 99.3 percent of precincts reporting in Mississippi, Gingrich is up 31.3 percent to 30.3 percent on Romney, a difference of about 4,500 votes. Santorum took first with 32.9 percent.

At this point, the AP is estimating that Santorum will take 13 of Mississippi's delegates, and Romney and Gingrich will each get 12. In Alabama, Santorum gets 18, Gingrich 12, and Romney 11.

Meanwhile, in Tuesday's other nominating contests, Romney won by a 20-percentage-point margin in Hawaii, and took all six of American Samoa's delegates.

As the Washington Post points out, the gains in Tuesday's smaller contests caught Romney up to Santorum's delegate wins: Romney won at least 41 delegates total yesterday, with Santorum taking at lest 35, Gingrich taking at least 24, and Ron Paul winning at least one.

Tuesday, March 13: Rick Santorum posted surprise primary wins in Alabama and Mississippi on Tuesday, handing the social conservative a pair of Deep South victories that are all but certain to amplify calls for Newt Gingrich to drop out of the GOP race.

NBC News called Alabama for the former Pennsylvania senator shortly before 10 p.m. EDT, nearly two hours after the polls closed there and in neighboring Mississippi. Roughly an hour later, CNN and other networks called the Magnolia State for the former senator.

It is still too early to tell whether Gingrich will hold off Mitt Romney for second place in either of the primaries. Regardless, the former House speaker is sure to face a growing chorus urging him to call it quits after he failed to secure a win in either of the contests, both of which his staff had previously marked as must-wins for his campaign.

Gingrich and his team were quick to rule out the possibility he would drop out of the race following his losses, however. In a speech to supporters late Tuesday, Gingrich repeatedly said that he and Santorum had succeeded in proving that Romney, "the so-called front-runner," was not the inevitable nominee.

While Mitt Romney kept things close in both states, ultimately he was denied a break-through win in the South, a region where his struggles to connect with GOP voters have been on full display in recent days. But what may have otherwise been a moral victory for the former governor was complicated by the fact that he ratcheted up expectations ahead of the contests by declaring that Santorum was "at the desperate end of his campaign," a comment that got heavy play on cable news during the evening's coverage.

Despite Santorum's momentum-boosting wins, and the bragging rights that go along with them, the top three candidates largely split the vote in both southern states—and will likewise likely share most of the 84 delegates up for grabs in the primaries.

Neither primary is a winner-take-all contest and, given the tight race in both, the evening's delegate tallies won't be settled until the final ballots are counted, likely sometime Wednesday.

You can check out the official vote tally as it comes in for Alabama here and Mississippi here.

Here's a look at the delegates at stake in the Deep South primaries:

ALABAMA

Delegates: 50 total, 47 of which are bound

How they're divvied up: 21 by congressional district; 26 proportionally based on the statewide results.

For the congressional results: The top vote-getter in each of the state's seven districts gets two delegates and the second-place finisher gets one delegate, assuming they earn at least 20 percent of the vote.

For the statewide results: The at-large delegates are split proportionally among any candidate who received at least 20 percent of the vote. Winner-take-all in the unlikely event one candidate earns a majority of the statewide vote.

Pre-primary polling: Real Clear Politics average of last four polls shows Gingrich with 28.5 percent to Romney's 28.3, Santorum's 25.8 and Paul's 6.7 percent.

MISSISSIPPI

Delegates: 40 total, 37 of which are bound

How they're divvied up: 12 by congressional district; 25 proportionally based on the statewide results.

For the congressional results: Three delegates are handed out proportionally in each district to any candidate earning at least 15 percent of the vote.

For the statewide results: The at-large delegates are allocated proportionally among any candidate who receives at least 15 percent of the statewide vote.

Pre-primary polling: PPP (March 10-11) had Gingrich leading with 33 percent to Romney's 31, Santorum's 27 and Paul's 7 percent; Rasmussen (March 8) had Romney with 35 percent, followed by Gingrich with Santorum with 27 percent apiece and Paul with 6 percent.

Hawaii and American Samoa also held nominating contests Tuesday, but both caucuses have largely been overshadowed by the more delegate-heavy Deep South primaries. (FWIW, the American Samoa GOP held its caucus at a local bar.) The time-zone difference also means those results won't be known until Wednesday on the east coast. Romney is expected to win both of those caucuses thanks in large part to his vast campaign infrastructure.