Today, the mainstream media informs me, could be an absolute game-changer in the Republican primary race. Of course, that is what they have told me every other primary night so far this year, so you'll have to forgive me if I sound a little jaded at this point by such talk.

This time they may actually be right, though, if the results cause Newt Gingrich to finally admit he's never going to be president and give up his quixotic run. That would indeed classify as a major change in the game. Then again, even if Newt loses he can still soldier on as long as the money flows in from his Las Vegas Sugar Daddy, so even that's not a foregone conclusion.

There are actually four contests today, although you certainly wouldn't know this if you only relied on the mainstream media for your information. Good thing you have dropped by here to read this article, eh?

Ahem. Sorry, but the continuing disrespect over certain states which are farther away from the East Coast than a two-hour plane ride is one of my pet bugaboos this year. Now, American Samoa is merely a territory (not a state) so they literally are second-class citizens (who may vote in the primary season but not in the general election in November). The media at least has an excuse to ignore them, in other words. But Hawai'i is an actual state, and it ain't gettin' no respect, as the late great Rodney Dangerfield would have said. Hawai'i's problem, of course, is that they are many, many time zones to the west of the East Coast, and (therefore) by the time a winner is announced, the N.Y.C./D.C. media bubble will likely be asleep for the night (unless the returns from the South are keeping everyone up).

We'll get to all of this in a moment, as well as those two states everyone's talking about, after a quick review of my personal stats for calling these contests.

Over the past weekend, four contests took place. When the results rolled in Saturday night, I thought I had swept up a perfect 4-for-4, calling Kansas for Santorum and all the islands for Mitt Romney. But later reports out of the Virgin Islands seems to indicate Ron Paul "won" his first contest. You'll see why quotation marks are necessary when you realize that Mitt Romney walked away from the Virgin Islands (well, maybe "flew away"... it's hard to walk away from an island, admittedly) with at least seven out of the nine delegates, and Ron Paul with only one. But the actual vote count is what is important, which is where it gets tricky (here's the full story for über-wonks). If you don't count the delegate who changed to Romney after the voting, then "Uncommitted" actually won the most votes, with Paul in second place and Romney in third. But since "Uncommitted" is not actually a person running, we're going to have to say that we agree with the technical argument and are going to count the Virgin Islands as a win for Ron Paul.

Meaning I only went 3-for-4 over the weekend. Which adds up to our running total:

Total correct 2012 primary picks so far: 33 for 50 -- 66%.

Which leads us to today's contests. The big prizes are the two Deep South states of Mississippi and Alabama. The polling in both states has shown an incredibly tight three-man race, meaning it is anyone's guess what will happen. With three men in the race, and two races, this means six possible outcomes: Romney wins both, Gingrich wins both, Santorum wins both, a Romney/Gingrich split, a Romney/Santorum split, or a Gingrich/Santorum split. Second and third place may become important as well, since if Gingrich beats Santorum (even if both lose to Romney), it may give him an excuse to stay in the race a bit longer.

We'll quickly run through these scenarios before calling today's races. If Mitt Romney wins both states, well, then the primary season is essentially over. Both Gingrich and Santorum will be "dead men walking," no matter how long they stay in the race. The pressure on both to exit the race will mount to epic proportions from the party bosses. If Romney even wins one state, then he won't be seen as quite as inevitable, but he will have finally chalked up a solid win in the South (Virginia and Florida don't really count, for different reasons). He will be able to claim he's the only candidate able to get votes nationwide, and he will be right.

If Rick Santorum has a good night tonight and wins both Southern states, then he may (at the very least) achieve his current objective of forcing Newt out of the race and having a clear shot at Romney for the rest of the race. If Rick wins one and Newt wins the other, he will still have a pretty good night (since Romney will be shown to be weak in the South either way). If Rick and Mitt take a state each, it could still force Newt out of the race (especially if Rick beats Newt in the state Mitt wins), but it won't change the dynamic between Mitt and Rick much.

If Gingrich wins both states, then (obviously) he'll likely stay in the race. He'll be able to boost his claim to being the candidate that the Republican base loves the most, with a strong regional base in the South that the others have only been able to dent. Look for Newt to brashly call for Santorum to get out of the race (and look for Santorum to ignore Newt's call). If Newt wins only one state tonight, it may not be enough for him to plausibly make the case for his continued campaign, and he still may decide to throw in the towel (or, more accurately, his Las Vegas Sugar Daddy may decide he's written enough pointless checks to Newt's campaign).

Whew! So many possibilities will be absolute catnip for the media, as we wait for the returns to trickle in. Let's move right along to my actual picks. Instead of going alphabetical, we're going to instead go in geographical order in our list (to counter the mainstream media bias towards the Southern states in today's race). From west to east:

American Samoa

I'm going to call this the same way I called the other island territories, and go with Mitt Romney as a safe bet. After all, he does his banking on islands, right? Heh.

Hawai'i

While Hawai'i is a bigger group of islands, it still is pretty downright liberal. Even the Republicans in Hawai'i resemble Democrats (ideologically, when compared to Republicans elsewhere). There's only one poll I could find out of Hawai'i, and it was months old, but it showed exactly what I would have guessed even with no such polling information: Mitt Romney so far out in front that he'll win big in the Aloha State.

Mississippi

The first of the two big races tonight has minimal polling information, which shows a tight race, with Santorum slightly back from Romney and Gingrich. On not much more than a hunch, I'm going to predict that Gingrich's late upward momentum carries the day for him, and Newt edges the other two out. Because these two races will be so closely watched, I will also predict that Mitt Romney comes in a surprising second place, and that Santorum has a bad night in Mississippi (only predicting the overall winner will count in future stats, however).

Alabama

Alabama has a decent amount of recent polling, but the race remains a virtual tie between Newt and Mitt, with Rick trailing a bit (but still in contention). The two most recent polls show a one point edge for Romney over Newt, but I'm going to toss caution to the winds and instead predict that Gingrich wins Alabama as well. Newt's poll numbers are rising faster than Mitt's, as more and more undecided voters make up their minds at the last minute. If this trend continues, Newt will likely score more last-minute votes than Mitt, and I'm betting it'll put him over the top. Mitt will come in a very close second, and Rick will be four or five points behind, at least.

So there you have it! A Newt Gingrich sweep in the South, and a Romney sweep in the islands. I'm not feeling particularly confident of those two Newt picks, though -- Romney could win either or both of them, and Santorum might just surprise everyone as well. But I've thrown my darts at the wall, for better or worse.

Those are my picks, what are yours?

[Previous states' picks:]
[IA] [NH] [SC] [FL] [NV] [CO, MN, and MO] [ME] [AZ and MI] [WA] [Super Tuesday: AK, GA, ID, MA, ND, OH, OK, TN, VT, and VA] [Guam, KS, Virgin Islands, Northern Marianas]

-- Chris Weigant

Follow Chris on Twitter: @ChrisWeigant