Santorum looking to next round of contests after Nevada drubbing

Rick Santorum is banking on a better showing in the next three races Tuesday to reenergize his struggling campaign after his last-place drubbing in Nevada’s GOP caucuses Saturday.

The former Pennsylvania senator told Fox News Sunday that front-runner Mitt Romney, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and Texas Rep. Ron Paul had a “natural advantage” in the first five primary states after campaigning there in 2008. The next three contests – Missouri, Minnesota and Colorado – will get his campaign back on track, he said.

“The first five states were sort of cast in stone,” Santorum said from Minneapolis. “Now we're getting to the states where people don't have the natural advantage... We've got three states coming up on Tuesday (where) I think we're going to show that this race is moving again in a very different direction.”

Despite his optimism, Santorum said those races won't break his campaign if he does poorly.

“This race is a long, long way from being over,” he said.

The long-shot candidate drew some hope from the latest Rasmussen poll, which for the first time showed him as the only Republican beating Barack Obama (by one percentage point) in the general election. Santorum latched onto the poll to highlight the lackluster turnout at the races in Florida and Nevada, which Romney won handily.

“It's not about who can win the primary, who can win the general election?” he said. “And we have two candidates candidly that are flawed. Look at Florida and Nevada, the results were down as far as participation is concerned. This is not a good sign when the two candidates that everybody is talking about are not generating any energy in a Republican primary.”

Santorum has won 10 delegates so far, compared to 97 for Romney, 31 for Gingrich and 14 for Paul. A total of 1,144 are needed to win the nomination.

---