Donors turn to Santorum ‘super PAC’ after upset victories

A day after former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum scored a trio of upset victories, a “super PAC” working on behalf of the GOP presidential hopeful said it was flooded with calls from donors who wanted to back its efforts.

“We’ve been working at a speed faster than any other day the super PAC has seen in this election season,” Stuart Roy, a political advisor to the Red White and Blue Fund, wrote in an email to the Los Angeles Times/Tribune Washington Bureau. “We haven’t made a single fundraising call today because potential donors have been the ones calling us.”

He declined to say how much money the super PAC -- which raised $729,000 last year -- had received in new commitments. The organization has spent nearly $2.2 million on Santorum’s behalf so far. Its major benefactor has been Foster Friess, a wealthy former mutal fund investor based in Wyoming who joined Santorum on stage at his victory party in Missouri on Tuesday night.

Roy said the incoming resources would allow the super PAC to do voter advocacy and polling in states it had not originally planned to target.

“The final decisions haven’t yet been made on television ad placement but we are taking a hard look at states that may have previously been viewed as completely uphill…both ways,” Roy wrote. “For instance, a couple of the Southern states are in play since [Mitt] Romney’s Northeastern politics don’t play well there. And although [Newt] Gingrich may look a bit like Paula Deen, politically he’s no Southerner.”

matea.gold@latimes.com