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Rick Santorum beat Mitt Romney in all three GOP presidential nominee events held yesterday, winning over 40% of the vote in Minnesota and Colorado, and over 50% of the Missouri vote. In Minnesota, Romney came in third after Ron Paul, who won second place with 27% of the vote. In his victory speech from St. Charles, Missouri, last night Santorum attacked Romney and set his sights on the general election, telling a jubilant crowd, “I don’t stand here to claim to be the conservative alternative to Mitt Romney. I stand here to be the conservative alternative to Barack Obama.” The lead-up to yesterday’s three state race was less charged than previous primaries. Newt Gingrich failed to make it onto the Missouri ballot and he did not campaign in Colorado or Minnesota, choosing instead to begin stumping for the March 6th Super Tuesday states. Yesterday’s races were unique, and the stakes were lower, because in all three states no delegates were actually assigned based on the final tally. Missouri, Colorado and Minnesota will hold subsequent events to assign delegates to the GOP national convention in late August. Missouri’s primary was dubbed a beauty contest because the results have no bearing on the state’s March 17th GOP party caucus. Instead, the Missouri primary was seen as an effort to attract media attention. Colorado and Minnesota each held precinct caucuses yesterday. The Colorado precinct caucus is only the first of 5 events, concluding in a state convention on April 14th when 36 delegates will be chosen. The Minnesota GOP assigns its 40 delegates by a similar, lengthy process. The next state to hold a caucus is Maine on February 11th, followed by primaries in Arizona and Michigan on February 28th and a caucus in Washington on March 3rd.

GUEST: Amanda Terkel, Senior Politics Reporter at the Huffington Post, and Uprising’s Election Analyst