Hat Trick Romney! So now what?

Mitt Romney waves to supporters in Wisconsin. Linked to source: newsobserver.com

Mitt Romney made a clean sweep last night and won in Maryland, DC, and Wisconsin for a grand total of ---

Romney 654
Santorum 270
Gingrich 137
Paul 71

So now what?
Will his challengers go quietly into the night?
Of course not.
Next up we have Pennsylvania, Rick Santorum's sort of stomping grounds. He was their Senator and Congressman for several terms, but really he lives in Virginia, and he was born in VA as well. It is also the state the soundly kicked his butt and didn't re-elect him in 2006.  But nonetheless, he ain't dropping out of this race until he's gone back to PA. In his "concession" speech last night he said we're at "half-time" in this race. If by half-time he means he now has less than half of the delegates Romney has, I guess that makes some sense.
So other than being Santorum's home state, what does Pennsylvania have to offer?
72 proportional delegates.
The primary is on April 24 along with Connecticut (28 proportional), Delaware (17 winner takes all), New York (95 proportional), and Rhode Island (19 proportional). Obviously, Pennsylvania isn't even the most profitable state that day, with NY on the calendar as well. The only reason it is a big deal is because it is Santorum's "home."
The PA polls are all over the place, thanks to super old data in them, but they do consistently show Santorum ahead.

click image to enlarge

Source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/election-2012/post/rick-santorum-pennsylvania-polls-showing-close-race-are-work-of-democratic-hack/2012/04/01/gIQA7yE2oS_blog.html

This second screen shot might be one of my favorite Santorum quotes ever. He's really showing his colors lately that when he doesn't like something someone says or does, he insults them. "...Democratic hack... has probably singularly gotten more polls wrong..."  And what was the hack's big offense? He only shows Santorum leading by 2 points. Heaven forbid. It's almost as if Santorum was winning in every single state, and the front runner, and suddenly somebody dared to say he has some competition.
Meanwhile, talking about really old data, check out the Real Clear Politics offerings for New York-

Click image to enlarge. Screen grab from Real Clear Politics.

Yes, that would be data from nearly a full year ago in the mix. And the most recent data is from February. So yeah, that's not too helpful either. And things aren't much more useful for CT and DE polling either.

On Wisconsin, On Wisconsin!

Tuesday will bring us the Wisconsin winner-take-all primary. The cheese heads have 42 delegates to offer the winner. Maryland (37 proportional) and DC (19 winner take all) will also hold primaries, but so far, no one seems to have noticed.

Things are looking pretty good for Romney in Wisconsin. He's holding on to a fairly stable lead there. He is also leading in MD and DC. If Romney can walk away with all 42 + 19 on Tuesday, and let's just say half of Maryland, for a grand total of 79 (we'll round up), and we'll be generous and give Santorum 17, that would bring the totals to---

Romney- 645

Santorum - 280

Gingrich - 140

That would put Romney well more than half way to the 1,140 needed to take the nomination. And puts Santorum just shy of half way to the half way point of getting the necessary delegates. 

Santorum still thinks he has enough friends in Pennsylvania to win there. Pennsylvania's primary is in 3 more weeks, and has 72 proportional delegates. If by some miracle he takes a clean sweep of the state, and gets all 72 delegates for himself, for a grand total of 355, he would only be 785 delegates short of the nomination. (Or in other words, he still wouldn't be close to winning.) 

Last week Gingrich laid off his staff and admitted he has no hope. But he also reminded everyone just how "grandiose" he can be by comparing himself to the University of Kansas men's basketball team, which squeaked past Ohio State on Saturday night to set up Monday's NCAA tournament championship showdown with top-seeded Kentucky.

After tomorrow, we the people and the media, get a nice little three week break. April 24 will bring us Pennsylvania, New York, Connecticut, Delaware and Rhode Island.