The Huffington Post reports that Tuesday was a bad night for Mitt Romney, as former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum swept Missouri, Minnesota and Colorado in Republican presidential primaries.

Santorum won Missouri and Minnesota by large margins, capturing 55 percent of the vote in Missouri to Romney's 25 percent. Santorum also won Minnesota—a state that Romney won in the 2008 primaries—by capturing 45 percent of the vote there.

Santorum won all 114 Missouri counties.

"Conservatism is alive in Missouri and Minnesota," Santorum told a crowd attending his victory party at the Saint Charles Convention Center in St. Charles, MO.

"I hope you have been listening to our message," he said in his victory speech. "Mitt Romney has the same positions as Barack Obama."

Santorum said that he isn't claiming to be the conservative alternative to Romney, but he is claiming to be the conservative alternative to Obama.

With 99.6 percent of Missouri precincts reporting, the totals in Missouri were:

• Rick Santorum         138,680 (55.2%)
• Mitt Romney              63,709 (25.3%)
• Ron Paul                    30,582 (12.2%)

This article originally appeared on the Peters Patch.

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