13 March 2012updated 27 Sep 2015 5:36am

GOP in the South: 3 things to know

Will Mississippi and Alabama residents give Mitt Romney his long-expected breakthrough?

With Super Tuesday not so decisive as promised by its name, the votes available to Republican candidates today are as vital as any before them. The 90 delegates offered by the Deep South states Alabama and Mississippi — plus 20 from the liberal Pacific island of Hawaii — could deliver a sizable boost to the Mitt Romney campaign. But this is the conservative heartland; so what for Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich?

1) Mitt: Southern man, ya’ll?

Despite Romney’s remark last week that the states were “a bit of an away game” for him, Alabama and Mississippi’s delegates are very much in play for the frontrunner. Romney’s health in the polls, though, may or may not have something to do with the vote-hustling techniques he’s practiced in recent days:

2) The Dixie Vote’s worth to Santorum/Gingrich

Polling Monday showed Romney and Gingrich neck-in-neck, with any leads within the margin of error. This resurgence for Newt complicates matters for Santorum: if Romney is to be denied the nomination, a clear second candidate should already be gathering momentum with US demographics other than those they’ve previously relied on. Yet since his two-week charge in February, the Santorum campaign has stalled. And now if he can’t take the southern heartland, notable for its evangelical population and social conservativism, Rick looks unlikely to be man the GOP want. A win for Gingrich, meanwhile, would hardly clarify the race.

3) Obama, Rush and Darwin in the South

Some of the most interesting figures from two new polls by PPP are unrelated to the Republican candidates, such as those demonstrating the continued damage to the Rush Limbaugh brand and the views of Dixie Americans on interracial marriage.

One poll of note, though, does tell us something about the electorate drawn to each GOP candidate: in Mississippi, Gingrich is far ahead with the “Obama is a Muslim” voters, while in both states the comparatively more enlightened Republicans who believe “Obama is a Christian” are largely backing Romney. Just how enlightened they are is another question; only 26 per cent of Republican Alabamans and fewer Mississippians (22 per cent) believe in evolution. And who wins the votes of those who don’t? That’s largely Rick.