Rick Santorum was mining suburban St. Louis for last-minute support today, as Missouri Republicans began gathering in local caucuses that will help determine who gets the state's 52 presidential delegates up for grabs. Santorum won the state's nonbinding primary last month and was the only one of the four Republican presidential candidates visiting caucus sites today. Mitt Romney and Ron Paul also campaigned in Missouri earlier in the week, while Newt Gingrich skipped the state.
No winner will be declared today, and no straw poll is being conducted. Today's caucuses will elect people to attend party meetings in April and June, and it's those meetings that will determine where the delegates go. Romney leads Santorum in delegates nationwide 495 to 252, according to the latest AP count. In his caucus-site speech, Santorum noted he was being outspent by Romney but said he can overcome that. "We don't have the money," Santorum said. "We have you, and I'll tell you what—I'll take you over the money any day of the week." Click to see Santorum caught sunbathing in Puerto Rico. (More Rick Santorum 2012 stories.)