Romney can't seal the deal on Super Tuesday

Mitt Romney won six of the states with Republican delegates up for grabs on Tuesday, including a very slight edge over Rick Santorum in Ohio. But Santorum took Tennessee, Oklahoma and North Dakota and Newt Gingrich did what he had to in his home state of Georgia. So Romney "won the delegates, but not necessarily the argument," Jeff Zeleny writes in the New York Times news analysis.

Mr. Romney, who spent much of his life fixing troubled corporations, must now decide whether steps are necessary to repair his lethargic candidacy.

Mr. Romney had hoped that a string of Super Tuesday victories in contests from Vermont to Alaska would effectively bring the Republican race to a close.

But he found himself winning over Rick Santorum by only the slimmest of margins with almost all the votes counted in Ohio, the most coveted primary of the night, while losing other contests across the South.

The Republican race was always destined to plod on, considering that none of the candidates have reached even half of the 1,144 delegates needed to win the nomination. But the campaign is suddenly bracing for new questions about Mr. Romney’s ability to piece together a coalition needed to move closer to a general election fight with President Obama.