Video: After losing all three primaries on Tuesday, Rick Santorum rallied supporters in Pennsylvania. The Post's Felicia Sonmez looks at whether a win in his home state could save Santorum's campaign.
MARS, Pa. — In Pennsylvania, the next big battleground state in the Republican presidential contest, Rick Santorum has a lot more at stake than a few dozen delegates.
In the past year, Santorum has moved far beyond the image of his historic defeat in 2006, a humiliating 18-point loss in the race for his U.S. Senate seat. Another setback in his home state could erase much of what he has won back, leaving a tarnish that could darken his political future.
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A win, however, could provide a measure of redemption for the former senator, who has spent much of the presidential campaign trying to live down that loss six years ago and prove to voters that he is more electable than front-runner Mitt Romney.
When he refers to his 2006 loss in speeches, he casts himself as a victim of the deep anti-Republican sentiment that prevailed at the time — and of his own unwavering conservatism. He has called it a humbling but constructive experience that gave him an opportunity to see Washington from an outsider’s perspective.
“The people of Pennsylvania didn’t always give me what I wanted, but they always gave me what I needed,” Santorum said, explaining that he got too wrapped up in the “sausage-making” during his time in the Senate and that, in defeating him, the voters gave him “a great gift.”
As Santorum returned to kick off his campaign Tuesday in Pennsylvania, many Republican activists and strategists, including some who back Romney, say the former senator has reason to be optimistic about the April 24 contest — despite polls showing a close race, with the former Massachusetts governor catching up, and successive losses to Romney in other Rust Belt states. Santorum sustained a blow when he lost to Romney in Wisconsin, Maryland and the District on Tuesday.
Pennsylvania voters, they say, have been pleasantly surprised by Santorum’s stronger-than-expected showing in the primary season. The thinking is that voters have been reminded about what they initially saw in Santorum, who first won a congressional seat in 1990 as an upstart young politician who exhaustively knocked on doors and inspired passion in his supporters.
“When Rick is an underdog, he’s at his best as a candidate,” said Alan Novak, former chairman of the Pennsylvania Republican Party. Novak has endorsed Romney but believes Santorum has the edge in the state. “He’s energetic . . . speaks from the heart, and he taps into the feelings of voters.”
Pushed by the tea party movement, the Republican Party in Pennsylvania has grown more conservative since 2006, a shift likely to favor Santorum. His positions remain virtually unchanged from his earlier political life. And loyalty still runs deep for the grandson of a western Pennsylvania coal miner.
“We are so excited. From where he was and how far he’s come, it’s just unbelievable,” said Vickie Case, 62, a longtime supporter, taking a break from her task opening mail Tuesday afternoon at a Santorum office in Pittsburgh, in an area that was once Santorum’s House district.
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