Romney: ‘we didn’t win by a lot, but we won by enough’

It’ll be a relieved Mitt Romney and a deflated Rick Santorum who head to Ohio ahead of next week’s Super Tuesday primaries. Romney scored an impressive 21-point victory in Arizona — exceeding the already high expectations for him there. This win provides him with a significant boost in the delegate count — a factor that becomes more important the longer the race drags on — as Arizona assigns all of its 29 delegates to the winner. But more important for Romney was the three-point margin he secured over Santorum in Michigan.

Winning Michigan may not help Romney extend his lead in delegates — he and Santorum might well come away with 15 each from the state — but his victory there was crucial in setting the media narrative in the run-up to Super Tuesday. It has provided Romney with some much-needed positive headlines: the Wall Street Journal, somewhat self-fulfillingly, proclaims ‘Romney Regains Momentum’.