Santorum claims Michigan vote tied

DETROIT – Putting a positive spin on its loss in Tuesday’s Michigan Republican primary, Rick Santorum’s campaign claimed Michigan was a tie, noting that – as it stood late Wednesday afternoon – Santorum and the statewide winner Mitt Romney may evenly split the 30 delegates who’ll vote to nominate a candidate.

The Santorum claim was among the issues lingering after the hard-fought, fractious presidential primary in which Michigan native Romney beat back a Santorum surge to win by 3 percentage points – avoiding what could have been a humiliating loss.

As Santorum’s staff argued for a tie, Romney’s forces brought out a video using Santorum’s pitch for Democratic support against him as the campaigns turn to next week’s Super Tuesday primaries and caucuses.

“If the only way Rick Santorum thinks he can win an election is to recruit Democrats to vote against Mitt Romney, he needs to re-evaluate why he is even in this race,” said Romney campaign manager Matt Rhoades.

Santorum’s advisers acknowledged this week that they were behind robo-calls asking Democrats for support in Michigan’s open primary.

There were clear indications that the Democratic vote – about 10 percent of those voting in Tuesday’s Republican primary – held down Romney’s vote totals.

Romney’s pollster said Wednesday that his margin of victory would have been twice as large if Democrats hadn’t participated. An exit poll showed Santorum won more than half of the Democratic votes, while Romney had fewer than 20 percent. Romney had about a 32,000 vote margin statewide.