A report released today by Rick Santorum's campaign says that the GOP primary tabulations assembled by the media are wrong, and the former Pennsylvania senator actually is much closer to former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney than is being portrayed.
The report said Santorum will follow what always was expected to be a "difficult" month of April with the possibility of up to seven victories in May, which would leave him "heading into the June 5th primaries with a freight train of momentum."
The report by Strategic National was released this afternoon by the campaign.
The report says a much more accurate assessment of the delegate totals in the GOP nomination race at this point is 571 for Romney, 342 for Santorum, 158 for Newt Gingrich and 91 for Ron Paul.
The Wall Street Journal, on the other hand, lists 658 for Romeny, 281 for Santorum, 135 for Gingrich and 51 for Ron Paul. Real Clear Politics lists 655 for Romney, 272 for Santorum, 140 for Gingrich and 67 for Paul..
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The report released by Santorum's campaign said, "There are a couple of fundamental flaws with the delegate counts that the media keeps that reveals that this race is much closer than they report."
The report said Florida, Arizona and "possibly Puerto Rico" will be recalculated to disperse their delegates on a proportional basis. Those counts now go wholly to Romney.
"They broke RNC rules by going winner take all before the window and therefore RNC members and/or the convention will enforce the rules and make the delegations proportional. This will reduce Romney's delegate total substantially and increase the other three candidates' respective delegate totals," the report said.
It also said national convention delegates are elected at county, district and state conventions, rather than "the initial beauty contests" in many states, and that could change totals.
"The Santorum and Paul campaigns are working together in Washington state and the result will be more delegates for Santorum and Paul and a dramatic decrease in delegates for Romney."
The report also said media reports add "unbound delegates" to their counts, but those "should not be counted as if they are bound."
"The month of April was always going to be difficult but the calendar gets much more friendly for Rick Santorum in May," the report said. "North Carolina, Indiana, West Virginia, Nebraska, Oregon, Kentucky, Arkansas, and Texas might lead to Santorum winning roughly 7 out of 8 states in May, and heading into the June 5th primaries with a freight train of momentum."
And the Santorum campaign continues to "reach out" to the Gingrich campaign to work together to prevent Romney from achieving 1,144, needed to claim the nomination, and to elect a conservative majority of delegates, the report said.
"This race is much closer than the media and establishment Republicans would like to report," the report said.
Fox News analyst Karl Rove also listed Romney's delegate total at 658 and gave him a 377-delegate lead over Santorum.
He said Santorum's strategy "won't work."
"Santorum has what amounts to a five-part strategy to achieve victory: (1) disqualify the Romney delegations from Florida and Arizona's winner-take-all primaries; (2) run up his total in states that select delegates by conventions, not primaries; (3) carry his home state of Pennsylvania; (4) take advantage of 'the map in May' which, as Mr. Santorum told 'Fox News Sunday' moderator Chris Wallace this weeks, 'looks very, very good'; and (5) swing over uncommitted delegates."
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