The 2012 primary race just got more interesting. 
 
 Rick Santorum was the toast of the GOP last night and Mitt Romney went home without any gold medals in one of the most surprising evenings yet in the presidential nominating contest. Santorum broke out the broom and had a clean sweep of the three races in Colorado, Missouri and Minnesota. 
 
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 reset Allen and VandeHei break down Santorum’s big win 
 
 Below are POLITICO’s seven takeaways from the results: 
 
 1) Boston, we have a problem 
 
 Romney is still by far the likely nominee. He is still the only candidate with resources and an organized team. Tuesday’s elections were “non-binding beauty contests.” And this is likely a temporary stall: Mitt Romney will regain momentum heading into Arizona, Michigan and Super Tuesday. 
 
 But Romney was locked out of first place in all three races Tuesday night, including Colorado, a state where he won more than 60 percent in 2008. He was expected to win two of the races a few days ago and viewed as the likely victor in Colorado a few hours before voting began. 
 
 Even with the Romney campaign’s pre-spinning of the losses, the Rick Santorum clean sweep was a stinging rebuke of the front-runner. In the end, he got just over half the percentage he took in Colorado four years ago. 
 
 The expectation heading into February was that this would be a strong month for the former Massachusetts governor. 
 
 But his Florida momentum evaporated with his comments about concern for the “very poor,” which may have turned off conservative voters in these races. 
 
 Now, Santorum has more statewide wins than Romney, and Arizona — which has a sizable Mormon population but also a conservative-leaning GOP electorate — is the stage of the next big Republican battle. 
 
 Romney’s ongoing struggles with the conservative base of his party may not matter once he becomes the nominee. But it’s going to be awfully hard for Romney boosters to argue those problems are being overhyped by the news media in light of Tuesday night’s outcome and the lack of enthusiasm it speaks to. 
 
 This is not a near-death experience for Romney like his loss in South Carolina. But it underscores the fact that his team is still searching for a message — and for a candidate who has done limited conservative outreach. 
 
 His election night speech — his wife, Ann, was not on hand for this one — was muted. He spoke in platitudes and campaign slogans but offered up little that was new — save for anecdotes about his father as a from-the-ground-up success, which was noticeable given how often Santorum speaks about his own humble beginnings. 
 
 Romney’s campaign, as the results in Minnesota and Missouri came in, sent out an op-ed he has written focusing on deficit reduction, an issue that will play well with fiscal hawks. But given how little meat he’s put on the bones of his own message, he’s going to be pressed to put out more by way of policy and his ideas for how to lead the nation. 
 
 2) Santorum pressed the reset button with gusto 
 
 Santorum’s wins Tuesday night let him claim some of the spoils he lost when he was called the runner-up in Iowa on caucus night, only to be declared the winner well after the fact. 
 
 Santorum’s task now is to try to get any semblance of a bounce out of his win. That eluded him after Iowa, despite the fact that he made the race extremely close on a shoestring budget and after being largely ignored by the political press throughout 2011. 

 Rick Santorum ’s victories on Tuesday represent his first breakout moments in the Republican presidential contest since he belatedly scraped to the top in Iowa more than a month ago. 
 
 They certainly give him bragging rights. They will probably earn him a second look from voters who had once dismissed him. They may help him raise money. Down the road, they will add to his delegate count. 
 
 But how much they will matter to Mr. Santorum in the long run remains unclear. 
 
 He now faces two major questions: Can he eclipse his immediate rival, Newt Gingrich, and become the conservative alternative to Mitt Romney? And will he be able to pose a realistic threat to Mr. Romney, who remains better financed and better organized in other states? 
 
 Mr. Santorum, a former senator from Pennsylvania, has sought to put both questions to rest. After Mr. Gingrich finished a distant second to Mr. Romney in Nevada on Saturday, Mr. Santorum, who came in fourth, said Mr. Gingrich had “had his chance” to challenge Mr. Romney and had come up short. 
 
 In his victory speech on Tuesday night, Mr. Santorum looked past his Republican rivals and focused on President Obama. His theme was that Mr. Obama might have been listening to his speech but did not normally listen to the American people. 
 
 “He thinks he knows better,” Mr. Santorum said of the president. “He thinks he’s smarter than you. He thinks he’s someone who is a privileged person who should be able to rule over all of you.” 
 
 The Republican presidential contest dips into a lull now. The candidates will not have a chance to rekindle their supporters’ enthusiasm until a debate in Arizona on Feb. 22, and the next voting will not be until Feb. 28, when Arizona and Michigan hold primaries. 
 
 As of now, those two states do not appear to be particularly strong for Mr. Santorum, so he is looking ahead to Super Tuesday, March 6, for another breakout moment. 
 
 His scheduling reveals as much. While Mr. Santorum delivered his victory speech from Missouri on Tuesday night, he was heading to Texas on Wednesday and to Oklahoma on Thursday. 
 
 Oklahoma does not vote until Super Tuesday, and Texas not until April 3. Like the other candidates, Mr. Santorum will use this lull to raise money and build organizations in those states. 
 
 Mr. Gingrich, who was not on the ballot in Missouri and did not contest Colorado or Minnesota, shows no signs of bowing out. He, too, is looking toward Super Tuesday and spent time in Ohio this week. 
 
 Mr. Gingrich and Mr. Santorum are equally disadvantaged on Super Tuesday by having failed to qualify for the ballot in Virginia. But Mr. Gingrich may have a leg up that day because he can probably count on strong support from Georgia. 
 
 If both remain in the race, the likely beneficiary will be Mr. Romney. 
 
 One thing Mr. Santorum has going for him right now is his relatively high favorability rating. 
 
 “Santorum’s personal popularity is the main reason for his sudden re-emergence as a relevant player in the G.O.P. race,” Tom Jensen, a Democratic pollster and director of Public Policy Polling, wrote in an analysis of Tuesday’s votes. 
 
 Until recently, he added, Mr. Romney and Mr. Gingrich had ignored Mr. Santorum, leaving his reputation largely intact. But that is changing quickly. Tim Pawlenty, a former Minnesota governor who is backing Mr. Romney, dismissed Mr. Santorum this week as “a nice guy” but not one who is ready to be president. 
 
 Mr. Santorum continues to insist that Mr. Romney would be a weak nominee in the general election, saying he would not present a strong contrast to Mr. Obama. On Tuesday night, he declared himself the “conservative alternative” not only to Mr. Romney, but also to Mr. Obama. 

 The Missouri primary is the only so-called “beauty contest” in the Republican presidential race this year. 
 
 But it might be remembered as where things got a little ugly for Mitt Romney. 
 
 Rick Santorum’s massive win in the meaningless Show Me State primary on Tuesday highlighted a strong day overall for the former Pennsylvania senator. 
 
 
 
 With big wins in Missouri and Minnesota — two of the three states holding contests Tuesday — Santorum has cast at least some doubt on Romney’s presumptive nominee status for the entire three-week lull period before another state casts its votes. 
 
 And Missouri, despite being the most inconsequential race of the day when it comes to the GOP delegate race, may actually have been the most important to the narrative going forward. 
 
 The reason: Missouri is a confluence of odd circumstances that all seemed to play into Santorum’s hands. 
 
 First, the state legislature failed to move a Feb. 7 primary date that violates Republican party rules that prohibit most states from holding primaries before March. Instead, the party set a caucus for March and, to avoid being penalized, made it so Tuesday’s primary had no bearing on the state’s delegates. 
 
 Then, Newt Gingrich didn’t qualify for the ballot. 
 
 We didn’t know it at the time, but this created a near-perfect setup for Santorum in the current four-way matchup. 
 
 Gingrich didn’t compete because he couldn’t, Ron Paul didn’t compete in the state because there were no delegates at stake (he’s got a delegate-focused strategy), and Romney didn’t compete in the state because it was supposed to be pointless. 
 
 But Santorum didn’t see it that way. In fact, he saw it as a great way to make a point. 
 
 Given his win in the neighboring Iowa caucuses, his strength with Midwestern voters, the low turnout that was expected Tuesday, and the fact that Romney invested basically nothing in the state, it fell to Santorum to pull out a victory to prove he can beat Romney head-to-head. 
 
 Romney’s campaign did a good job of setting expectations in the runup to its loss in Missouri and the other states Tuesday, noting that there were no delegates at stake in Missouri and the caucus in Minnesota doesn’t directly lead to delegate allocation either. Because of this, many reporters and analysts declared before Tuesday’s elections that they were effectively meaningless. 
 
 That’s an entirely fair argument. After all, if Romney were to have mobilized his full campaign in Missouri, we likely would have seen a far different outcome. But he didn’t. 
 
 Thus, his campaign has a headache on its hands — especially given that he lost by 30 full points in Missouri and close to that amount in Minnesota. 
 
 At this point in the presidential race, it’s about expectations and momentum. And the perceptions of both have changed post-Missouri at least somewhat. 
 
 By winning in Missouri, Santorum proved three things: 
 
 1) That Romney can lose 
 
 2) That he can beat Romney head-to-head under the right set of circumstances 
 
 3) That this race isn’t yet over 
 
 Santorum is not a front-runner yet; that’s still clearly Romney. But the former Pennsylvania senator did do something to call into question Romney’s coronation. 
 
 On Wednesday morning, there will be a bigger sliver of doubt about that coronation than there was on Tuesday morning. And Santorum, rather than Gingrich, will at least momentarily take the role of the guy who can fill the void. 
 
 Even if he didn’t win any delegates on Tuesday, that’s a victory nonetheless. 

 Remember the second Florida GOP debate on Thursday night, January 26, in Jacksonville? Mitt Romney came out pummeling Newt Gingrich, Gingrich was ineffectual in response, and Romney sailed on to a decisive victory five days later in Florida. This was soon followed by Romney's easy triumph in Nevada last Saturday. The Romney inevitabilists were once again out in force. 
 
 And once again they were premature. Or perhaps even wrong? Could it be that the most significant feature of the Jacksonville debate will turn out not to have been Romney's thumping of Gingrich early on, but the exchange late in the debate between Rick Santorum and Romney on health care? Santorum effectively prosecuted the case against Romneycare that night, and he's kept at it aggressively ever since, arguing that Romneycare disables Romney from prosecuting the crucial case against Obamacare. 
 
 Santorum has now won landslide victories in Missouri and Minnesota. It's true no delegates were at stake in Missouri—but it's also true that about 240,000 people cast ballots there. And now, though Romney of course remains ahead in delegates and in total votes, and Gingrich and Paul will continue to fight, we have a situation where Santorum has won in three states, Romney in three, and Gingrich in one (I'm writing before the results in Colorado are known). 

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– Rick Santorum's stunning sweep of Colorado, Minnesota, and Missouri yesterday has thrown another plot twist into the Republican nominating contest. Here's what you need to know: Santorum may finally get the bounce that largely eluded him after Iowa, helping him raise money and pique voter interest, the New York Times predicts. His first order of business is staying ahead of Newt Gingrich. After Nevada, he said Gingrich had "had his chance" to beat Romney. While the Colorado and Minnesota caucuses were non-binding, if delegates do honor them Santorum picks up 28 convention votes, vaulting him into second place with 45 delegates by the AP's count. Gingrich has 32, while Romney boasts 107. Missouri awarded no delegates, but wasn't meaningless after all, the Washington Post observes. With Gingrich off the ballot, Santorum proved he could beat Romney in a head-to-head race. Of course, Romney didn't exactly break a sweat in the state, but his 30-point loss looks really ugly. This is "not a near-death experience for Romney," who is still the most likely nominee, writes Maggie Haberman at Politico. But it makes it really hard to argue that his problems with conservatives are being overhyped, and puts a serious dent in his aura of inevitability. William Kristol of the Weekly Standard is convinced Romney lost because of Santorum's assault on Romneycare. Another possible explanation: Romney's super PAC didn't blanket any of these states with ads. Gingrich emerges looking irrelevant, having won one state to Santorum's four. He's low on cash, and sources tell Politico that Sheldon Adelson isn't planning on another super PAC deposit ... perhaps because Adelson is weighing jumping ship. Voter turnout was down in all three states—a sign that Republicans aren't terribly excited to vote for any of these candidates. (Maybe they'd prefer the Sweet Meteor of Death.) Click to read Buzzfeed's top 10 GOP tweets in response to Santorum's sweep.