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As Rick Santorum desperately tries to make a dent in Mitt Romney’s formidable delegate lead, he faces an unlikely obstacle on the primary calendar: his home state of Pennsylvania.
Yes, Santorum is currently favored — though hardly a lock — to win the popular vote in the state he represented in Congress for 16 years.
But Pennsylvania’s non-binding primary rules for distributing delegates raise the prospect that Santorum, who has said he’ll win the vast majority of the state’s delegates, could actually come away from next month’s primary empty-handed at a time when he can ill-afford it.
Which means the April 24 primary could represent yet another chance for Romney — who kicked off his Pennsylvania campaign this week by trotting out supportive Republican leaders — to finally deal Santorum a knockout blow.
“Winning the state doesn’t mean you get the delegates,” said Alan Novak, a former state GOP chairman who’s supporting Romney. “Most of the delegates will be political professionals, and it’s not their first rodeo.”
The problem for Santorum springs from the fact that potential delegates in Pennsylvania run on a primary ballot uncommitted to any presidential candidate — meaning voters won’t know who they’ll support at the convention this summer.
Traditionally, state Republican leadership has exercised enormous sway in getting its own members and supporters elected to delegate slots.
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