Romney, Santorum Locked In Bitter Battle For Win In Michigan GOP Primary Feb. 28, 2012: Mitt Romney, left, and Rick Santorum campaign on the day of the Michigan and Arizona primaries. Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum were fighting for their political lives Tuesday in the airtight Michigan primary -- an unlikely battleground that could hold considerable sway over the candidates' momentum at a critical juncture. The Michigan primary, along with another, less-suspenseful contest in Arizona, are among the final elections before 10 states weigh in with their bountiful supply of delegates in early March on what's known as Super Tuesday. A two-for-two performance from Romney in Michigan and Arizona would help him recover his status as front-runner going into the 10-state set. For weeks, he seemed poised to pocket well-timed victories in these two states. Romney, while popular in Arizona, has deep roots in Michigan which were expected to play to his advantage. He was born there, his father was governor there and he won the state in the 2008 GOP presidential primary. But Santorum's surge, and a decision by the former Pennsylvania senator to compete hard in the state, has put Michigan in pure toss-up territory. Santorum's campaign has demanded attention as he went from being sidelined at debates earlier in the year to winning the Iowa caucuses by a hai, and then picking up wins in Missouri, Minnesota and Colorado all in one night. Though Romney squeaked out a victory over Ron Paul in the low-key Maine caucuses earlier this month and maintains the overall delegate lead, Santorum has kept up the heat on Romney in Michigan. While Romney leads handily in most polls out of Arizona, the two candidates have traded the top spot in Michigan in polls leading up to Tuesday's primary. The closeness of the race has helped fuel a bitterly personal contest between the two candidates, with each accusing the other of being a false conservative. Romney, in an interview on Fox News, continued to slam Santorum for taking positions he claims are contrary to conservative principles -- such as voting repeatedly to raise the debt ceiling without offsetting cuts to spending. "This is a guy who's a far cry from a fiscal conservative, and if people want to have somebody who's a real conservative, they're going to vote for me," Romney said. He portrays himself in one way, but his voting record is very different. Santorum, meanwhile, kept his head up going into Tuesday's contests. We're going to get voters that we need to be able to win this election. And we're going to do that here in Michigan today," Santorum said, referring to blue collar voters with a history of swinging between the parties. If nothing else, the unexpected clash on Romney's home field dramatized that two months into the campaign season -- after nearly a dozen primaries and caucuses -- the GOP race to pick an opponent for President Obama was as unsettled as the day it began. The two other candidates in the race, Newt Gingrich and Paul, made little effort in either Michigan or Arizona, focusing instead on next week's 10-state collection of Super Tuesday primaries and caucuses. In all, there are 59 delegates at stake in the two states Tuesday. Arizona awards all 29 of its delegates to the winner of the statewide vote. In Michigan, by contrast, 30 delegates are apportioned according to the popular vote. Two are set aside for the winner of each of the state's 14 congressional districts. The remaining two delegates are likely to be divided between the top finishers in the statewide vote. Romney entered the night the delegate leader in The Associated Press count. He had 123, compared to 72 for Santorum, 32 for Gingrich and 19 for Paul. It takes 1,144 to win the nomination at the Republican National Convention in Tampa next summer. There are 40 delegates at stake in Washington caucuses on Saturday, followed by 419 on Super Tuesday.