Minnesota was one of three states to hold primary contests today, the others being Missouri and Colorado.

Before this election, I suspected that Rick Santorum would do well in Minnesota. Rick Santorum had won Iowa by a narrow margin, and since Minnesota is an adjacent state with similar demographics and politics, it seemed likely that Santorum would do well there. Since it was a caucus state, it seemed that the more motivated voters would turn out to support either Santorum or Ron Paul. However, I still thought that due to his position as "Front Runner", Romney would manage to do well with middle class, moderate voters in the Minneapolis/Saint Paul area. However, the night turned out to be even more of a success for Santorum than I (and possibly anyone) guessed, with (at the time of this writing, and with a few counties still outstanding) Santorum winning 45 percent of the vote, Paul coming second with 27 percent of the vote, and Romney getting a little less than 17% of the vote. Santorum also did well across the state. The half-dozen counties he did not win were won by Ron Paul.

While this race has several times had reverses, and it is hard to extrapolate about Rick Santorum's success in surrounding states based just on how he did in Minnesota, there is a good chance that the race will turn into a regional race, with Newt Gingrich winning southern states, and Mitt Romney winning the Northeast and possibly the Pacific Coast.

But all that can really be said about Minnesota is that the race has become a lot more interesting.

Log in or register to write something here or to contact authors.