And that translated into a bad night for Mitt Romney. While Romney grabbed Utah as expected, along with Minnesota, Colorado and his home state of Massachusetts, it was McCain who claimed the biggest prizes, with Mike Huckabee playing a supporting role.
Romney vowed publicly to trudge on despite the series of disappointing losses; even after his wife, Ann, said that "The one thing that's clear tonight is that nothing's clear."
"I think she's wrong; one thing that's clear is this campaign is going on," Romney told supporters in Boston. "I think there's some people that thought it was all going to be done tonight, but it's not done tonight."
McCain, meanwhile, relished his new spot as the leader after many pundits had declared his candidacy dead last year.
"Tonight I think we must get used to the idea that we are the Republican Party frontrunner for the nomination of the president of the United States. And I really don't mind that one bit," McCain told a revved-up crowd in Arizona that included Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr.
With Romney taking so few of the key states on Super Tuesday, political observers were doubting the former head of the 2002 Winter Olympics could turn around his campaign from the trouncing he sustained.
Romney may plan to continue on, but the GOP establishment likely will be calling on him to suspend his campaign, says Allan Lichtman, a professor of history at American University in Washington.
"There's going to be a tremendous push in the Republican Party to unite behind the front-runner," Lichtman says. McCain may not be the establishment's dream nominee, but it's better to seem unified and not fractured, Lichtman added.
Romney is "young" and can run again if he wants, Lichtman says, guessing he probably doesn't want to burn a second chance at a run.
"With the small caveat that strange things can happen, I think we're looking at the end of the Republican race," Lichtman says.
McCain carried the largest states on Tuesday, including California and New York, and also won contests across the map.
"McCain should come out of this with a lot of momentum that will be hard to catch up with," says Jennifer Duffy, senior editor of the Washington-based Cook Political Report.
But Romney still may soldier on, she adds, because he has tremendous financial resources.
"What keeps Romney in this game is money, his ability to fund the campaign, keep the lights on," Duffy says. "It's hard for him to make a case after today [to continue], but my guess is he may."
Huckabee, on the other hand, surprised many pundits on Tuesday, nabbing more states than expected and taking a delegate lead over Romney.
Huckabee lobbed veiled shots at Romney in his victory speech in Little Rock, Ark., taking away his rival's line that the race is a two-man contest between Romney and McCain.
"Over the past few days, a lot of people have been trying to say this is a two-man race," Huckabee said. "Well, you know what? It is - and we're in it."
Huckabee, who has been running a shoe-string campaign, also dinged Romney for spending millions to try to buy the election.
"Tonight we are making sure America understands that sometimes one small smooth stone is a whole lot more effective than a ton of armor," Huckabee said.
The hostility between the Romney camp and the McCain and Huckabee campaigns boiled over earlier Tuesday after Romney's campaign manager slammed the other competitors for a "backroom deal" to win the West Virginia delegates.
Romney won the first balloting there but didn't grab enough of the votes. On a second ballot McCain supporters switched to backing Huckabee.
"Sadly, Senator McCain cut a Washington backroom deal in a way that once again underscores his legacy of working against Republicans who are interested in championing conservative policies and rebuilding the party," Romney campaign manager Beth Myers said.
A McCain campaign spokesman shot back that it was disappointing the Romney camp spent "so much gold for yet another silver" - a retort aimed at Romney's use of Olympic imagery to describe his earlier wins and second-place showings.
"At the end of the day, West Virginia Republicans sent a message: they don't trust Mitt Romney," said McCain spokesman Brian Rogers. "They proved again that you can't buy an election and you can't trust a politician whose positions on core issues seem to change with the political winds."
Huckabee's campaign sniped that Romney lost because of his flip-flops on various issues and that voters were turned off by the millions Romney has spent of his own money seeking the nomination.
"Once again, conservatives have rejected Romney's conviction-less campaign," said Huckabee's campaign manager, Chip Saltsman. "No amount of Mitt's money is going to overcome what a growing number of Americans - and the Wall Street Journal - are seeing first hand: Mitt has no convictions at all."
