Former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum continues to ride his polling momentum into Ohio where he leads Mitt Romney by nearly two-to-one in the first Rasmussen Reports survey of Republicans in the state.

The new statewide telephone survey of Likely Republican Primary voters shows Santorum picking up 42% of the vote to Romney’s 24%. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich draws 13% support, while Texas Congressman Ron Paul picks up 10%. Three percent (3%) prefer some other candidate, and eight percent (8%) are undecided. (To see survey question wording,click here.)

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Alaska’s Republican primary caucus will be held on March 6, 2012, otherwise known as Super Tuesday. Other primaries that day include Georgia, Idaho, Massachusetts, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Vermont and Virginia.

In preparation for Alaska, Mitt Romney launched a steering committee, which includes less than conservative favorite, Senator Lisa Murkowski. The full list is available at Romney’s website. There are 27 delegates at stake.

Mitt Romney may be taking a whipping from the far right flank of the Republican Party this week — first, across the Midwest in the Colorado and Minnesota primaries, and continuing currently at CPAC 2012 — but he’s already looking toward Super Tuesday and the bevy of delegates up for grabs in March, including those of Alaska.

Romney on Thursday announced members of his Alaska Steering Committee. And there a few major league Alaska politicians and other civic leaders going to bat for the former Massachusetts governor.

Romney won Alaska in 2008, receiving 44% of 14,000 votes cast for a total of 12 delegates. Senator John McCain finished last behind Huckabee and Paul, who is said to still have strong support in the state. Romney won it as the not John McCain, which suggests there’s no guarantee that he’ll win it again this year as the current GOP moderate and supposed front-runner.

Alaska’s delegates are poised to play a surprisingly big role in the 2012 race. The 49th state’s true-blue Republicans were faithful to the party leadership’s nominating schedule. And while the majority of Alaskans identify as independents, Alaska still maintains a sizable Republican voting bloc and a center-right electorate. In party politics, all these things play well for Alaska.

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From The Richmond Times-Dispatch:

The state Republican Party will require voters to sign a loyalty oath in order to participate in the March 6 presidential primary.

Anyone who wants to vote must sign a form at the polling place pledging to support the eventual Republican nominee for president. Anyone who refuses to sign will be barred from voting in the primary.

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Four of the six leading Republican candidates were given lumps of electoral coal this Christmas season when they failed to gather the signatures necessary to qualify for the Virginia Republican primary held on March 6. This leaves only Governor Mitt Romney and Representative Ron Paul on the Old Dominion’s ballot a few months ahead of the Super Tuesday primary.

Newt Gingrich leads the polls in Virginia, but Michael Krull, his national campaign director, actually compared the “set-back” to the Japanese sneak attack on Pearl Harbor. The Gingrich campaign naturally plotted a counter-attack–an aggressive write-in campaign–but that will be of limited success because Virginia law bans write-in votes in primary elections. Not one write-in ballot was counted in 2008.

For now, Gingrich is left to grumble about the “system” of authenticating signatures in the Virginia primary. He may have a point.  Candidates are required not only to collect over 10,000 signatures to get on the ballot but have to have at least 400 from each of the state’s eleven congressional districts. Both Perry and Gingrich cleared the first hurdle by at least a thousand signatures, but it appears they may have stumbled on clearing the second. We don’t know this for certain — the Va. GOP hasn’t explained why Gingrich and Perry failed to qualify– but this seems likely.

Gathering enough signatures from enough of the different districts proved too tricky. In at least one district that’s a tall order. Virginia’s 3rd and 8th congressional district, for example, are among the most Democratic in the country, with a PVI score of D+20 and D+16, respectively. Woody Allen may be right when he said 90% of success is just showing up, but it is hard to show up when there is effectively no Republican party in some congressional districts.

Worse yet, Virginia’s House of Delegates complicated matters further when voters may not know which congressional district they live in thanks to an ongoing state-wide fight over redistricting. Virginia Republicans submitted a map in April 2011, but Virginia Democrats seemed insistent on pushing the matter to January 2012 and then to federal court if they don’t enough black–and therefore Democratic–congressional districts. They would sue the state under the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and toss the matter of redistricting over to the federal courts.

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WASHINGTON (AP) – Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich has failed to qualify for Virginia’s March 6 Republican primary, a development that complicates his bid to win the GOP presidential nomination.

“After verification, RPV has determined that Newt Gingrich did not submit required 10k signatures and has not qualified for the VA primary,” the Republican Party of Virginia announced early Saturday on its Twitter website.

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From the Richmond Times-Dispatch:

Four Republican presidential candidates – Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich, Rick Perry and Ron Paul — submitted paper work in time to qualify for Virginia’s March 6 primary ballot.

No other GOP contender will be on the Virginia ballot. Rep. Michele Bachmann, former Sen. Rick Santorum and former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman did not submit signatures with Virginia’s State Board of Elections by today’s [Thursday] 5 p.m. deadline.

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Though the five months between now and Election Day might seem like an eternity in politics, at least one thing is clear: Top tier Republican candidates are solidifying the playing field and ensuring that the GOP will challenge more than enough Democrat-held seats to put the majority in play.

As we enter the height of the campaign season, both the field of candidates and the issues at hand are becoming crystal clear and they all bode poorly for Democrats. A significant number of Republican candidates in targeted races have cleared the final hurdle before the general election. They are now ready to dedicate the next five months to holding their opponents accountable for an agenda that has been entirely ineffective in stemming the tide of a devastating recession and, in the eyes of many voters, has actually made the situation worse. Combined with a political environment that grows more turbulent by the day, Democrats will be on the run from now until November.

GOP CANDIDATES ALREADY CAMPAIGNING FOR NOVEMBER

With 50 percent of the country’s primaries now behind us, top-tier Republican candidates are already playing offense against Democrats in over 40 seats – a larger number than we need to win back the majority. These top-tier candidates have either already won their primaries or are on pace to win the Republican nomination, which will allow them to focus on their path to victory with an eye toward November.

Contrary to assertions that recent contested primaries have left the GOP divided, we need to look no further than last night’s results to see that strong candidates have emerged to give Republicans the best possible chance for victory in November. By-and-large the primary contests that have taken place have served to strengthen the respective candidacies of those like Robert Hurt and Scott Rigell in Virginia. In these districts and countless others, Republicans and independents are quickly coalescing around GOP nominees in a concerted effort to send Democrats a message on Election Day.

From a district-by-district standpoint, the numbers are stacked against the Democrats. The Cook Political Report has consistently predicted “a very tough political environment for Democrats come November, with severe losses likely, significantly greater than the average first-term midterm loss of 16 seats in the House.”

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Today, voters in 12 states go to the polls to decide party nominees for this fall’s elections. Among the biggest state races to watch are California, Nevada and South Carolina. Also on tap tonight, Sen. Blanche Lincoln will likely lose her party’s nomination for reelection. It is going to be that kind of year for incumbents.

The always informative RealClearPolitics looks at other races to watch in today’s Super Tuesday primaries:

Today’s elections feature top-tier Senate and gubernatorial races in California and Nevada, as well as a Senate runoff in Arkansas and competitive GOP primary in the South Carolina governor’s race. Those are just the highlights of a full slate of primaries, but there are a handful of intriguing races that will likely fly under the radar as the results pour in tonight.

Here are five races that may not make major newspaper headlines but are certainly ones to keep an eye on:

Iowa’s 3rd District GOP Primary

The Iowa Republican Party is preparing to hold a July 10 convention to decide the nominee in the 3rd district, where no one in Tuesday’s crowded primary is expected to meet the 35 percent threshold to win the nomination. The GOP sees the district has a potential pick-up opportunity, as Democrat Leonard Boswell runs for an eighth term in office.

One could also be necessary in the 2nd district, where four Republicans are vying to take on second-term Democrat Dave Loebsack.

Conventions are in many ways much different animals than primaries. As state GOP Chairman Matt Strawn said last week on local TV, “It’s not the kind of campaign that’s waged on the airwaves, but literally hand to hand and house to house.” The winner will be decided by 422 previously elected district delegates.

By most accounts, the three leading candidates in the 3rd district are aviation security consultant Dave Funk, financial adviser and former Iowa State wrestling coach Jim Gibbons and state Sen. Brad Zaun.

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