BILOXI, Miss – The Republican presidential primary candidates are preparing to add to their delegate totals Tuesday with two big-ticket states in the South, where Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich need to excel to stay competitive.

Mitt Romney, on the other hand, acknowledged he doesn't need to win Alabama or Mississippi to stay in the nomination hunt even as he expressed confidence -- backed by late polling -- that evangelical and socially conservative voters in the South think he's the one to win the White House back from President Obama.

"John McCain didn't win either of these states, Alabama or Mississippi," he told Fox News. "We are delighted that we are doing so well there. The polls are suggesting it is kind of a three-way tie.

After Florida's decision to leap-frog the RNC sanctioned primary calendar last week and set their new date on January 31st, South Carolina has decided over the weekend to hold their presidential primary election on January 21, 2012.

Statement from South Carolina GOP Chairman Chad Connelly:

"Last Friday, a nine person committee brought chaos to the 2012 calendar. Today, South Carolina is making things right.

South Carolina Republicans have a thirty year track record of picking the eventual Republican Presidential nominee. We will continue that historic tradition on January 21, 2012.

It will undoubtedly be a spirited campaign to make Barack Obama just the worst ONE term President in American history. South Carolina Republicans are united in this mission, and any candidate who ignores our state does so at great peril...

Florida decided Friday to hold its Republican presidential primary on Jan. 31, snubbing a party rule against fast-track delegate-selection for 2012 and triggering angry responses from traditional early voting states which will now likely rejigger their calendars to stay ahead.

The move actually thwarts efforts by both major political parties to delay presidential primaries and caucuses. Their aim has been to avoid a repeat of the 2008 scenario, when states jumped ahead of each other at that time in attempts to increase their influence in the process.

In Florida, a special nine-member committee appointed by legislative leaders and Gov. Rick Scott voted 7-2 to set the January date two days after House Speaker Dean Cannon announced that's what it was expected to do.

Cannon and other Florida GOP leaders said they didn't want to jump the traditional early states but wanted to make sure Florida was fifth, even the move was a violation of party rules...

2012 is just over the horizon and the GOP presidential primary calendar is once again deteriorating into a messy game of truth or dare.

South Carolina GOP Chairman Chad Connelly took to the statehouse steps in Columbia on Thursday and vented his frustrations with his colleagues at the Florida Republican party. "South Carolina will not set a date until Florida sets a date... The ball is in Florida's court," said Connelly.

GOP officials in the Sunshine State have long maintained that as a big, diverse and crucial swing state, Florida should have a greater role in the nominating process. To that end, in 2008 the Florida moved its primary up to late January, in violation of RNC rules.

Florida's gamble paid off in 2008, as Arizona Senator John McCain's win there all but sealed his path to the GOP presidential nomination. Later that year, after much wrangling, all of Florida's delegates were seated at the party's national convention...

Washington (AP) - Once, California Democrats led the way to a year of the women. Now, nearly two decades later, Republicans hope it's their turn.

Meg Whitman won the party's nomination for California governor on Tuesday and Carly Fiorina will carry the GOP banner into the fall campaign for a Senate seat, a pair of wealthy businesswomen and first-time candidates running against veteran politicians in a year of palpable anti-establishment sentiment.

In next-door Nevada, a third woman contender, Sharron Angle, won the right to oppose Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid in the fall...

Another round of key primaries will be held on Tuesday and incumbents are finding their seats challenged by political newcomers as well as local and state candidates in a political season marked by an anti-Washington mood.

Eleven states are holding primary contests Tuesday.

Arkansas - Sen. Blanche Lincoln faces off against Lt. Gov. Bill Halter in a Democratic primary runoff, while in Nevada Harry Reid will finally get an opponent in the Republican race to challenge the Senate majority leader.

California - Sen. Barbara Boxer, who is potentially endangered, will learn her challenger as voters in the state also decide who will win the Democratic and Republican nominations for the seat being vacated by term-limited two-term Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger....