High-spending Mitt Romney pleads for campaign cash as Republican presidential battle rolls on Mr Romney and his rivals began campaigning in earnest yesterday for 'Super Tuesday', the most important single day of the nomination contest calendar. Polls suggest that Mr Romney and Mr Santorum will split most of the ten states due to vote, while Newt Gingrich, a former House Speaker, may win Georgia, the state that he represented in Congress. Mr Santorum suffered a disappointing Tuesday having been tied with Mr Romney for the lead in closing Michigan polls. He polled disproportionately badly among women after repeatedly highlighting his strict Catholic stances on contraception and abortion rights. Addressing supporters in Grand Rapids, he paid tribute to his 92-year-old mother, his working wife Karen and his daughter Elizabeth in an apparent attempt to repair the damage done. Mr Santorum currently leads Mr Romney by eight percentage points in polls in Ohio, a bellwether state that is set to be the day's key battleground. However Mr Romney will look to use his double win on Tuesday to claw back. His campaign and 'Restore Our Future', the political action group backing him, have already spent an estimated $3.4 million (£2.1 million) there, more than six times the outlay of Mr Santorum and his own so-called 'Super PAC', the Red White and Blue Fund. Official figures last month showed that Mr Romney's campaign was spending almost three times as much as it was receiving, as it fought to reverse surges in support for Mr Santorum and Mr Gingrich with expensive attack advertising in the earliest-voting states. Mr Romney raised a total of $6.5 million (£4 million) in January. Democrats pointed out this was dwarfed by the $32 million (£20 million) raised by Mr Obama in January 2008, as he fought Hillary Clinton for his own party's presidential nomination. Worse still for Mr Romney, half of his haul came from people giving the maximum $2,500 (£1,569), meaning that they cannot donate again. Almost half of Mr Obama's donations by contrast, came from people giving $200 or less, meaning that they could be tapped for more funds as the race continued.