This was one the polls got right. 
 
 Heading into Ohio, various surveys showed the race there as a statistical tie, and it did not disappoint:Mitt Romney won, but just narrowly, over Rick Santorum, by a single percentage point. 
 
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 reset Winners & Losers in 60 seconds 
 
 And that wasn’t even the whole Super Tuesday story. Here are POLITICO’s five takeaways from the 10-state political extravaganza: 
 
 1. Win, no bounce, repeat, continued 
 
 It’s better to win ugly than to lose pretty, especially in a key fall battleground state like Ohio. But the victory that Mitt Romney eked out Tuesday night over Rick Santorum in Ohio was far closer than his campaign would have liked. 
 
 With six states captured on the night — Alaska, Idaho, Massachusetts, Ohio, Vermont and Virginia — the front-runner is poised to take a majority of the 437 delegates up for grabs on Super Tuesday. He remains the delegate leader, and he scored big in Massachusetts, Virginia and Idaho on that front. 
 
 (See also: 2012 delegate tracker) 
 
 And yet. 
 
 Romney, as we’ve written before, is likely heading into another bounce-free news cycle. The former Massachusetts governor’s campaign and its backers had hoped to use a strong night to start making the case that it’s time to wind this down, and his election night speech, delivered from Boston, was supposed to convey the aura of a nominee-in-waiting. 
 
 But in the end, he underperformed. He does not head into Wednesday with the spin on his side, and his campaign has done little to finesse expectations throughout this race. The muddled results Tuesday — Romney’s cache of victories, Newt Gingrich’s win in Georgia and Santorum’s surprisingly strong clinch in Tennessee accompanied by wins in Oklahoma and North Dakota — are going to do little to bring an immediate end to the primary. 
 
 The Ohio exit polls showed Romney is still struggling with working-class voters and evangelicals, as well as “very conservative” voters. He and his supporting super PAC also outspent Santorum 4 to 1 for a win of less than 15,000 votes. Losing Tennessee by a wide margin, after his campaign had hoped he would be competitive there, was also a blow: Had he taken the state, he could have essentially argued that, coupled with his Ohio win, the race was effectively over. 
 
 But he continues to have trouble in the South, traditional Republican territory. Romney now heads into a less-than-friendly patch of contests, with Kansas, Alabama and Mississippi up in the next week. That’s going to be a tough narrative for him to overcome. Worse, it will generate ongoing headlines about a failure to close the deal, even though most people — a majority of primary voters — agree that Romney is the eventual nominee. ||||| Justin Sullivan/Getty Images Mitt Romney won six states on Super Tuesday, but it wasn't enough to make Rick Santorum go away 
 
 Who says Mitt Romney isn't exciting? He's making the Republican presidential campaign really exciting. Every time he seems within reach of locking down his gains and retaking his place as the inevitable nominee, his campaign hits a rocky patch. 
 
 Romney won the Ohio primary by a prosciutto-thin margin, given that he out spent his rival Rick Santorum by 4-to-1. The victory in the most coveted Super Tuesday contest was the story of disaster narrowly averted. Santorum could tell a story of defying the odds and marvel at how far he'd come. He won three of the 10 races—with victories in Oklahoma, North Dakota, and Tennessee—and nearly claimed the big prize with a campaign operation held together by bailing wire and sturdy boards found at the roadside. 
 
 
 
 The Republican presidential campaign is now a battle between a movement and mathematics. Santorum has the energy and support of the noisy part of the party—the Tea Party stalwarts and evangelicals for whom conviction and shared values are everything. Romney's ugly win in Ohio only continues to raise doubts about the soundness of his enterprise: Is he only ahead, eking out these victories, because he has an enormous advantage in money and organization, two things he won't have against Barack Obama? 
 
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 But let's not get carried away by the cinematic drama of the underdog story on the main stage. Romney won six states and a whole lot of delegates on Super Tuesday. What Romney has going for him is the math and that's what will ultimately determine the nominee. He leads in the delegates—more than twice as many as Santorum—and is likely to keep that lead even if his victory trophies require tweezers to hold them aloft. 
 
 
 
 Before the Michigan primary last week, Romney said he wasn't willing to light his hair on fire to win the election. But in looking at Tuesday’s exit polls, he must at least be ready to pull his hair out. Fifty-four percent of voters said the economy was the most important issue in determining their vote, and they voted for Romney by 41 percent to Santorum’s 33 percent. Forty-two percent of voters in Ohio said they wanted a candidate who could beat Barack Obama. That was the top quality they sought in a candidate. Romney won in that group 52 percent to 27 percent. Voters also said they preferred a candidate with business experience over government experience by 64 percent to 27 percent. 
 
 All of that would suggest a big Romney win, right? Nope. Voters want something else, too. In Ohio, the other half of the electorate cared about who was the true conservative, and Santorum crushed Romney 51 percent to 13 percent on that score. The 21 percent who cared about moral character likewise went for Santorum by 40 points over Romney, 60 percent to 19 percent. Ohio voters also felt like Santorum shares their concerns more than Romney, a big problem for Romney in a key bellwether state. The state has picked the president since 1964. The Republican candidate will have to beat Obama on that important economic question. That Romney can't convince members of his own party—particularly blue-collar voters he'll need in the general election—is not a good sign. ||||| Mitt Romney and his wife, Ann, looked at an old campaign hat worn by his father, George, in Livonia, Mich., last night. 
 
 WASHINGTON - Mitt Romney completed another crucial defense in an important state last night. Once again, a combination of heavy spending, negative campaigning, and establishment backing staved off what could have been a crisis in his campaign. 
 
 But the narrow nature of the win in Michigan, where he was born and won handily in 2008, demonstrates continued weakness in his candidacy. And now he heads into a phase of the campaign where it will be difficult to land any knockout blows and clinch the nomination: Super Tuesday. 
 
 Continue reading below 
 
 The March 6 vote by 10 states, including Massachusetts, will preface a potentially agonizing spring for the Republicans. It is the proverbial “long slog’’ Romney’s campaign says it has been preparing for since last year. 
 
 “This is when things change a little bit. It’s not about winning, it’s about delegates,’’ acknowledged a key Romney supporter who requested anonymity so he could speak freely about campaign strategy. 
 
 Even though 437 delegates are up for grabs next Tuesday, by far the biggest haul of the season, it is probable no clear-cut winner will emerge. That is because Republicans this year are allocating delegates proportional to each state’s vote - in most states, if a candidate wins, for example, a quarter of the vote, he gets a quarter of the delegates, even though he is not the overall winner. 
 
 Continue reading it below 
 
 Splitting the pot that way is designed to prevent a candidate from locking up the nomination early by capturing a bunch of winner-take-all states, as John McCain did in 2008. 
 
 The quest for the 1,144 delegates needed to clinch the nomination now depends on strong finishes, not necessarily wins, in as many states as possible. 
 
 Although Romney leads in the delegate count for now, Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum are positioned to accumulate large numbers. Three conservative Super Tuesday states - Oklahoma, Tennessee, and Gingrich’s home state of Georgia - are especially unfriendly territory for the former Massachusetts governor. 
 
 Ohio, similar to Michigan in economic and political complexion, appears to be the biggest battleground state and will probably be the scene of the most intense struggle in coming days to define the Republican agenda. Romney wants to keep the focus on the economy and President Obama. His opponents keep pulling him into arguments about social issues and his own qualifications as a conservative. 
 
 Millionaires contributing unlimited sums to super PACs are helping both Santorum and Gingrich compete. 
 
 Gingrich’s chief sponsor, casino executive Sheldon Adelson, infused Gingrich’s cause with more millions this week. Gingrich forces assert they are poised for a Super Tuesday resurgence after losing in Florida and giving Santorum an opportunity to gain the mantle of top anti-Romney candidate. The super PAC supporting Gingrich said yesterday that it will air ads in four Super Tuesday states and three others, highlighting comments from voters who say Romney does not connect with them. 
 
 In addition to these problems, Romney has continued to commit gaffes that highlight his extraordinary wealth and make him appear insensitive to the concerns of regular people. Whether it be boasting of his wife’s Cadillacs or dismissing $375,000 in his speaking fees as “not very much,’’ he keeps generating negative sound bites. 
 
 At a prerace appearance at the Daytona 500 last weekend, he could have admitted he is not a huge fan of stock-car racing but is still excited by the speed and noise. Instead, he chose to relate to this red-state sport by saying he has wealthy pals who own NASCAR teams. 
 
 Such stumbles have begun to eclipse the economic proposals Romney wants to highlight. 
 
 Last Wednesday, he rolled out an aggressive plan for personal income tax cuts. He followed that up with a strong debate performance on Thursday. But then he spoke of Ann Romney’s Cadillacs in a near-empty Detroit football stadium on Friday. News coverage questioned his ability to connect with voters. 
 
 “The candidate sometimes makes some mistakes and so I’m trying to do better and work harder and make sure that we get our message across,’’ Romney said at a press conference in Michigan yesterday. 
 
 It all adds up to this: Romney fans hoping he can mimic McCain’s Super Tuesday feats in 2008 are almost certainly going to be disappointed. Four years ago, McCain mortally wounded or eliminated the competition on that day, which landed in February. Romney dropped out first, then Mike Huckabee. But that was with an abundance of winner-take-all states. 
 
 Given the new delegate rules, the geography of Super Tuesday, and the depth of Romney’s unpopularity among conservatives, the most likely scenario next week is a divided outcome. 
 
 “It will be less definitive’’ than 2008, said Barbara Norrander, a University of Arizona political science professor and specialist on primaries. The eventual outcome of the process, she said, “will depend on whether Santorum and Gingrich will behave like candidates in the past and drop out once they start to lag behind in delegate totals.’’ 
 
 The alternative is they do well enough to stay close to Romney and never quit, taking their fight to the Republican convention. 
 
 Romney should perform well in the moderate Northeast bastions of Massachusetts and Vermont next week. Santorum’s appeals to Christian conservatives will not play as well there. Romney also has a big edge in Virginia because only he and Ron Paul will appear on the ballot (Gingrich and Santorum failed to submit the necessary signatures) If Romney breaks the 50 percent mark, the state’s rules call for him to win all 49 delegates. 
 
 “If he’s able to win all the delegates there, that pretty much neutralizes all of his other losses across the South,’’ said Josh Putnam, a political scientist at North Carolina’s Davidson College who closely monitors the Byzantine rules of the GOP primary contest. 
 
 Romney will be focused on building an insurmountable lead in delegates, much as Barack Obama did against Hillary Clinton in 2008. The Democrats’ reliance on proportional distribution was a leading reason for that prolonged primary season. 
 
 “It’s an incremental process that slowly inches toward 1,144,’’ said Putnam. “We’re going to be into April and probably May until we can say that [Romney’s] lead is healthy enough to put enough pressure points on the other candidates to drop out.’’ 
 
 Specialists believe Ohio will be the premier battleground. 
 
 “Ohio really is a place that Romney needs to win, not only from the perspective of delegate counting, but Ohio, much like Michigan and other Midwestern states, really is a place that a candidate like Mitt Romney should be a natural fit with,’’ said David B. Cohen, a professor of political science at the University of Akron, in Ohio. 
 
 Santorum has been leading in the Buckeye State polls. A quirk of the rules gives Romney supporters hope for a strong showing in the delegate count, nonetheless. The state, like Michigan, awards a large percentage of delegates on a winner-take-all basis in individual congressional districts. That means Romney can pick up three delegates at a time around the state by winning liberal and moderate counties, such as Cuyahoga, which is home to Democrat-rich Cleveland. 
 
 Gerald Snyder, a financial planner in Brecksville and a member of the Cuyahoga Valley Republicans, is supporting Romney. To get back into strong front-runner status, said Snyder, Romney should stick to the nation’s financial picture. 
 
 “I think he got maybe trapped into the social-issue type situation, and started talking more along that line,’’ Snyder said. “He has come out of that, and he’s talking more about the economy and jobs and employment, and getting back to work.’’
– Super Tuesday began with four candidates in the mix, and it ended the same way. All four are focusing on what comes next: Rick Santorum, speaking before Ohio's results were in, said he would pick up a "couple of gold medals" tonight along with a "whole passel full of silver medals," a showing that he says proves he's a legitimate national candidate. “We have won in the West, the Midwest and the South, and we’re ready to win across this country.” More at the Tennessean. Mitt Romney, speaking before his Ohio win was confirmed gave a pretty standard stump speech, congratulated his opponents on their success, and promised to win. "I'm going to get this nomination," he told supporters. He focused most of his speech on President Obama, rather than his opponents, notes AP. Newt Gingrich gleefully celebrated his big win in Georgia, taking pains to tweak the "national elite, especially in the Republican party" who he says have repeatedly tried to torpedo his campaign, reports AP. "I'm the tortoise" who has survived "lots of bunny rabbits," he said, ticking off former rivals such as Herman Cain and Michele Bachmann. He also spent a good deal of his speech ridiculing President Obama's energy policy and high gas prices. Ron Paul, speaking just before the first polls closed, wasn't ready to anoint anybody, notes Politico. “Nobody's going to clinch the election tonight," he said. "Sorting all this delegate selection process, I think we have a little bit of time left before we declare anybody a winner."