Santorum wins big in El Paso County, takes Colorado

Rick Santorum came out of nowhere.

Despite having won the Iowa caucuses by a slim margin last month, not many pundits expected the former Pennsylvania senator to gain as much momentum as he did Tuesday night.

Returns in Colorado from all the precincts showed Santorum with 40 percent of the vote to 35 for Romney. Gingrich had 13, and Paul claimed 12 percent.

He easily won El Paso County, beating former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney by more than 1,500 votes.

“This is very, very surprising to us,” said El Paso County GOP Chief Operating Officer Bill Roy.

With 183 of El Paso’s 199 Republican precincts reporting, Santorum was in the lead with 4,843 votes, Romney was in second with 3,141 votes, former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich was in third with 1,220 votes and Texas Congressman Ron Paul was last with 995 votes.

“Over the last 10 days, we had about 3,000 people call us for information about their caucuses, and that number was pretty split between Romney and Santorum,” Roy said. “We didn’t see this coming.”

Returns from 83 percent of Minnesota's precincts showed Santorum with 45 percent support, Texas Rep. Ron Paul with 27 percent and Romney — who won the state in his first try for the nomination four years ago — with 17 percent. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich trailed with 11 percent.

Romney showed no sign of disappointment in remarks to supporters.

"This was a good night for Rick Santorum. I want to congratulate Sen. Santorum, but I expect to become the nominee with your help," he told supporters in Denver.

If the night was good for Santorum, it was grim for Gingrich, who made scant effort in any of the states that voted during the day. He ran far off the pace in both caucus states, forced to watch from the sidelines while Santorum boasted of being the candidate with conservative appeal.

There were 37 Republican National Convention delegates at stake in Minnesota and 33 more in Colorado, and together, they accounted for the largest one-day combined total so far in the race for the GOP nomination.

The victories were the first for Santorum since he eked out a 34-vote win in the lead-off Iowa caucuses a month ago, and he reveled in the moment. "I don't stand here to be the conservative alternative to Mitt Romney. I stand here to be the conservative alternative to Barack Obama," he told his supporters.

Caucus goers in Colorado Springs said widely that Santorum had three things going for him: his strong conservative stance on social issues, the high amount of attention he paid to El Paso County, and the fact that he stayed out of the ongoing spat between Romney and Gingrich.

“Politicians a lot of times are very elite, and we in the middle class get lost in the mix,” said local Republican Susan Weixelman. “He feels like us to me.”

“Win or lose, he stays who he is,” added her husband Jim.

At Coronado High School, where several precincts caucused, Santorum won many precincts easily, often by double-digit margins. In one, he beat Romney 174 to 76. Gingrich took 73 in that vote and Paul took 32.

Voter Don McCurdy wasn’t surprised by the results.

“This neck of the woods is very conservative, and Santorum’s the most conservative of the non-nutsos,” he said, grinning.

Homemaker Julie Nay, who was later elected a delegate to the GOP county assembly, said many of the votes broke down with a pretty simple formula.

“It depends on who you talk to. If you’re from around the Kissing Camels area or somewhere like that, you’re probably going to support Romney or Newt. People who are new to the party often go for Ron Paul. And social conservatives want Santorum,” she said.

Arguments back and forth over the candidates at times got a bit heated. In one room, a caucus attendee called Gingrich “sleaze, sleaze, sleaze.” An elderly man countered that none of the presidents he’s seen in his life know “jack sh** about foreign policy,” but Gingrich does.

One woman criticized Romney for his health care policies in Massachusetts, which she said were too similar to President Barack Obama’s for her taste.

“If I have to, I’ll hold my nose and vote for him, but I won’t like it,” she said.

Santorum campaigned in Colorado multiple times over the last week, and made three stops in the Pikes Peak region. At two events in Colorado Springs, he spoke to packed rooms, and an event in Woodland Park last week was so full that organizers worried about obeying the fire code.

The Associated Press contributed to this story

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