Santorum to Declare Candidacy Today

Former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum, one of several dark-horse candidates seeking the Republican presidential nomination, will make it official later today.

The former senator will formally declare his candidacy for president in Somerset County in western Pennsylvania, close to a coal mine where his grandfather worked after migrating to the United States from Italy.

Fresh from a victory in New Hampshire’s Conservative Future PAC’s straw poll in Nashua on Sunday — his second major win in a Republican straw poll — the 53-year-old Santorum is regarded as a long shot to win his party’s presidential nomination.

Earlier this spring, the former two-term senator made headlines by winning a closely-watched straw poll at the Greenville County, South Carolina, Republican convention.