dakota. >> this was a big night. we have won in the west, the midwest and the south. and we're ready to win across this country. >> republicans in ten states have their say. hundreds of delegates are being awarded tonight. will the gop field change in any big way once the super tuesday dust settles? this campaign isn't over. more than half the states still haven't voted and no one has the gop nomination locked up yet. and welcome to the special edition of "ac 360." in ohio, win colossal cliffhanger. went to the early hours but cnn is now projecting ohio will go to mitt romney. the state now up on the map in romney red along with massachusetts, vermont, virginia, and idaho. rick santorum in purple scoring victories in north dakota, oklahoma and tennessee. newt gingrich picking up georgia, alaska still up for grabs at this hour. and john king has been following the count of all night. let's look at the stakes. >> the most important battleground, the biggest contested battleground, took us a while, but governor romney has won the state of ohio. we see 96% of the vote counted. we see the lead there in the ballpark of 12,000 votes statewide. santorum swept across the rural areas, big margins but governor romney won big. hamilton county, critical to governor romney tonight. this is the cincinnati area. in the suburbs around it. it's critical in the republican primaries an a pivotal swing county. come november, 20 points over santorum there. romney organization doing the job there. way up from the southwest corner of the state to the northeast part of the state, cuyahoga county where cleveland is, the very important suburbs along the lake up here. again, nearly a 20-point edge for governor romney in these areas. the big turnout there helping form governor romney when you pop it out. summit county where akron is, a big win for governor romney there. move down a little bit here against stark county. again, statewide, the romney wins in the urban areas, off setting a santorum sweep. what it gives you is it gives you a romney red in the middle of the country. the big battleground state of ohio. it's important for delegates and anderson, it's important for the romney campaign psychology to say we're up to 13 states. count 14 if alaska goes his way as we go into the morning. >> it's a big night, certainly not as big of a night as they would have liked. not clear wins as they would have liked. let's get some reaction from the democrats and republicans. ari fleischer, mitt romney is still losing among white evangelical voters. among strong tea party supporters and among people who say religion is important to them. what does he have to say? >> mitt romney's fundamental problem is like it was at the beginning. he still has a problem with the base. that base problem may make him more attractive to independents if he makes it to the general. but he hasn't been able to address and i suspect he never will unless he grinds it out. we go into basically a march lull. there really are no big nights left. there's one night where you have two contests but there's not a more than two contest a night primary night. until april. and that means that it does the potential the go on and romney has to grind it out. keep an eye on his money. if it starts to dry up he'll have some trouble. >> but a number of southern states coming up and this gives newt gingrich a little bit of an have a advantage going forward. >> you know, governor perry said tonight, this wasn't a super night for anyone. and the reason why is because mitt romney should have won ohio. it should not have gone until way past midnight to figure out if he could bring in more urban votes or more suburban votes. mitt romney has a fundamental problem. he cannot, you know, coalescing the right. he cannot win independent voters. so this race will continue to go on. he will accrue more delegates than the other guys, but that's not saying much in a field that's very weak. >> you know, i just -- i think this drags out for a while but i think with ohio, the inevitable will start setting in republicans came into iowa by a process that hadn't even started. they're more exhausted now. i'm seeing more and more conservatives who aren't romney fans starting to say, you know what, it's time to start fighting barack obama and stop fighting ourselves. i think coalescing will start happening. he has to get through a difficult time in march. i think "the new york times" they're morning stories is when does romney say, you know what, i may be winning but not winning well. do i need to make staff adjustments? >> you know, the time period is key here. it will be several more weeks before you get back to a big state that romney has a chance to overpower in illinois and missouri. but so, you know, my favorite part of the president's press conference today was when he wished mitt romney well tonight. i think it was because he was remembering back in 2008 his own primary which was a slog, you know, it took forever. i think that's what mitt romney has to look forward to. the difference though is as we heard yesterday in the wall street poll, is having a corrosive effect on the favorables. the unfavorable number is shooting up because all he's doing is spending the millions of dollars on negative advertising and it's that positive message is not getting through. that's why this primary is bad for romney. >> wolf, at the end of tonight, nobody is close to dropping out. >> no. let's see what happens next week. and just to be precise what the president of the united states said to mitt romney tonight was good luck as opposed to -- >> then he said really? >> but all he wanted to say, and so where do we go from here, gloria? >> well, we have the kansas caucus and we have learned that the santorum campaign buoyed by their wins are going to drop a million bucks into kansas. we have mississippi and alabama and hawaii and those are fertile areas for santorum. i think this race continues. i think everybody had a reason to live tonight. >> because newt gingrich thinks he'll do win in mississippi and alabama. he's won south carolina and georgia so far. >> that's right. newt gingrich is going head to head with santorum. i think romney will probably lose the states. mitt romney faces the prospect he's going to lose a few states here in the next few weeks. doesn't have a big one to get to. i think that point was made by hillary. but, you know, it's so interesting. coming here to ohio, you'll remember this, i think. but ohio, woody hayes and the ohio state football team. three yards and a cloud of dust. that was his offense. they ground it out and they won it. but it wasn't pretty and today's football teams are different. that's mitt romney's campaign. three yards and a cloud of dust. >> big, big delegate win tonight. this was important for us because we're counting delegates between idaho, massachusetts, virginia and santorum's problems in ohio. so but it's not dramatic. and it's not a coalescing in any way shape or form around mitt romney. it's kind of a grudging sort of -- across the finish line. >> he has a terrific organization compared to the three other opponents and he's got a lot more money. >> he's got a lot better organization and he did run once before. he's a much more mature candidate than then. >> the fact that he was on the virginia ballot and santorum was not and newt gingrich was not and the fact that santorum couldn't even get on all of the ballots in ohio. >> absolutely. i think that's right. and santorum continues to have a campaign that's underfinanced and not as organized as it should be. but the other thing that, wolf, that's starting to happen is that president obama is starting to get much more directly involved in campaigning almost directly against these guys. what's pretty obvious is for mitt romney is that obama is in a much higher league than what he's been competing in. and for him to compete against obama, he's going to have to get a lot more nimble. he has to be a lot more effective. obama is sort of dancing around. >> obama is great campaigner. he'll have hundreds of millions of dollars. get ready for a general election. anderson, if you think this has been tough so far, just wait. >> a lot more money to be poured in. our special coverage continues through it this hour. up next, john king crunching the numbers, showing how the night broke down. what it may mean for the candidates in the weeks ahead. later, a rare opportunity to hear from sarah palin on this network. we'll ask her her plans for the 2016 and the possible role in election 2012. weight loss programs can be expensive. so to save some money, i just got the popular girls from the local middle school to follow me around. ew. seriously? 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[ male announcer ] progresso. 40 soups 100 calories or less. our special coverage continues right now. ohio keeping us up pretty light. we're projecting that mitt romney will win the delegate count. santorum is keeping it close, but there are questions about whether he has the organizational stamina for a longer battle. the question about newt gingrich remains, did he win big enough in georgia to revive his national chances? you can write your own head line. here's what the candidates had to say. >> it's been a long road getting to super tuesday. let me be honest. and my opponents have worked very hard. >> everywhere we were when we won the vote went up. when wall street won, the vote went down. which i think is a pretty bad sign for this fall if we end up with a wall street candidate. >> there wasn't a single state in the list i just gave you where i spent more money than the people i was able to defeat to win that state. and every case we overcame the odds. >> so if you look at the candidates today, there is very little difference except for one. >> let me be very clear. i believe that i am the one candidate who has the ability to debate barack obama decisively. >> to the millions of americans who look around and can only see jobs they can't get, and bills that they can't pay, i have a message. you have not failed. you have a president that's failed you and that's going to change. >> it's one thing to defend a mandated top down government run healthcare program that you imposed on the people of your state. it's another thing to recommend and encourage the president of the united states to impose the same thing on the american people and it's another thing yet to go out and tell the american public that you didn't do it. >> these days, you're the president of this team they keep telling us that things are getting better. but 24 million americans are still struggling for work. they're high-fiving each other in the west wing, but my friends, the truth is 8% unemployment is not the best america can do. it's just the best that this administration can do. >> what i'm talking about are real cuts. actually cutting, but you can't do this unless you change policy. if you expect to have welfare benefits from cradle to grave, free meld cal care and free education, you can't do it. if you expect to be the policemen of the world and advocate preemptive war, if you want that kind of foreign policy, you can't do it. if we don't change policy we'll end up in a financial crash. >> remember when it was tim pawlenty who would crowd me out and michele bachmann and then our good friend, herman cain for the first time and then it was donald trump for an almost. then it was rick perry and then it was herman cain and now it's santorum. it's all right. there are lots of bunny rabbits that run through. i'm the tortoise. i take it one step at a time. >> the tortoise. exit polling in ohio shows romney had the edge among working women. and santorum had the other edge. working women may have cost santorum the race. the contraception has been front and center. and here's part of what they have said. >> no it's the denying them access to birth control. this is outrageous. the bottom line is you have the federal government now saying we'll give you a right and then saying by the way, we're going to tell you how to exercise that right. we're going to control you, a religious, a church affiliated group and if you don't like it, tough. because our rights to tell you what to do trumps your deeply held convictions about what your dollars should be spent for. >> just this last week, this same administration said that churches in the institutions they run such as schools and let's say adoption agencies, hospitals, that they have to provide for their employees free of charge contraceptives. think what that does to people in faiths who do not share those views. we must have a president who is willing to protect america's first right, a right to worship god. >> it's not about access to contraception. people who want to can get access to contraception every day. it is a question about whether or not a religiously affiliated institution should be forced by the federal government. >> but sort of along the line of the pills, creating the immorality, i don't see it that way. i think the immorality is wanting to create the pills. >> comments made by rush limbaugh took the debate in another direction. in terms of this whole issue on contraception and religious freedom, how do you think this has played out? do you think this did hurt rick santorum in ohio among single women voters can? >> well, based on exit polls, women went for mitt romney 42-38%. so it might be helping mitt romney especially in these states where he's winning by just a very slim margin. >> i would think looking at the exits, i think to the extent that it hurt rick santorum it was because santorum never went back to talking about job and the economy. he focused on the cultural issues and when he tried to pivot pack to the jobs issues, he went back to the prior statements. he didn't try to steer the message back to jobs and the economy in ohio. i think it hurt him in michigan to a degree. he focused on cultural issues to the expense of talk about jobs issues. not trying to handle them both. >> you know, mitt romney is basically doubled down on every single position rick santorum has taken. so there's this sort of perception that somehow santorum is nor conservative on these social issues. whereas romney has really said that he agrees with them that contraceptions shouldn't be available on choice. the key issue is people don't believe about mitt romney. it's a message frame that says we don't trust you. he believes it will help him move more to the center in the general election, but i think it will add to this message frame that he's somewhat insincere. from democratic perspective, the one interesting thing, we know from our internal polling on the democratic side that women weren't paying as much attention to this election as men were. women are now paying attention. that's really interesting. >> from the republican standpoint do you believe that romney has moved far to the right? >> no, i don't, not at all. >> he says he has. >> i think mitt romney has been staying pretty straight and true, especially on economics. i think he's a tactical changes on his tax plan. but for rick santorum -- >> are you serious? >> i think that rick santorum, he looking at tennessee's exit polls, he won the men by nine points, women by five points. he has a problem with women because of the way he talked about this issue. he has to address it if he -- >> but the point that he made is the point. he doesn't even believe mitt romney's positions himself. mitt romney has said on immigration he's as conservative as rick santorum. on contraception he's as conservative as rick santorum, but nobody believes him. >> but there's a way that you communicate that makes people attractive to you or pushed away from you. that's part of rick santorum's problem. i don't think romney has that. the other thing that you notice, it's so much harder to run for president than it was to run for senator or governor. everyone learns along the way. remember when clinton said she talked about getting off the plane and getting shot at by sniper fire and you can't get away with saying that. mitt romney and rick santorum have had their problems too. it's all stepping up to the presidential level. >> so you're saying he's grown on the issues? >> look, i'm not go -- i'm not going get into romney and positions because they change. but going into the point gloria made earlier, romney is winning on the electability argument. the grounds on which you're electable shift, but what i'm struck by what gloria said earlier tonight, santorum is winning with people who feel he connected with them. and romney is having hard time with the base of the republican party connecting with him. he's doing to go into this -- i think after ohio he is going to be the nominee. still going to be a slog for him, but he'll get it. when he goes into the general election what needs the people with him. will they call for him, will they phone bank, will they give money? the enthusiasm is going to be there to beat barack obama, but not -- >> we have to take a break. >> i'm laughing because in the age of twitter we have a video. >> a ve of what? >> of romney shifting further and further to the right. >> former governor romney did shift his position from being progay and pro-choice. i think that being shift took place years ago. and it's tainted him. and people wonder will he hold the view? >> he's shifted the position on healthcare. >> you're a man too. president obama -- >> i don't have a man. >> president obama has flip-flopped on so many issues himself. i think that's going to be -- >> that's always your fault line. oh, let's just blame the democrats. the point is that -- >> it's a campaign. >> the fault line, you can't talk about anybody. >> i want to give governor romney one little bit of credit tonight. he's winning the catholic vote. not my vote. but he's winning the catholic vote. >> all right. still ahead, ten states down. a long road ahead. all four candidates are vowing to fight to the end. john king is at the wall and he'll show us where it stands now is. and what can happen in tampa as the delegate fight goes on. we went up against enormous odds. not just here in the state of ohio where who knows how much we were outspend, but in every state. there wasn't a single state in the list that i just gave you where i spent more money than the people i was able to defeat to win that state. in every case, we overcame the odds. >> that was rick santorum tonight in ohio. ten states held votes today, 419 delegates were at stake. it takes 1,144 delegates to clinch the nomination. john king has been crunching the numbers all night at the wall. john? >> so here are the victories, anderson. 13 for romney so far. the santorum states are in purple. alaska still in play tonight. romney is leading. see what happens there. so you take the states you're winning, winning is one thing. what do you get for delegates is another. here's where we stand. governor romney started with 207 delegates. he'll end somewhere in the ballpark of 400. let's say for the sake of argument it holds up in alzheimer. and santorum would be in second place. now an important point to make. you need 1,144. a long way from victory, however, it's a long way ahead of anybody else. so the question is where do you go from here as we go forward? let's go a couple of stops forward. i don't want to overcomplicate this. a significant lead for romney. the kansas caucuses are next, the guam, the virgin islands i'll leave them out. let's assu