Peggy Noonan: “The next king is the firstborn son of the current king. In political terms, the guy who came in second in the last presidential cycle stands most likely to be crowned and anointed in the current one. Republicans, for all their drama, still tend toward the orderly and still credit experience.”

An Associated Press analysis of the presidential battleground finds Mitt Romney likely has 188 electorate votes in states that are either solidly Republican or leaning Republican while President Obama has 242 electoral votes in safe Democratic or likely Democratic states.

That leaves 104 electoral votes in states that are purely tossups: Colorado, Florida, Iowa, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Nevada, North Carolina, Ohio and Virginia.

270 electoral votes are needed to win.

Fred Barnes suggests Mitt Romney “would be wise to move away from his harsh position” on immigration in the primaries because he “can’t afford to lose the Hispanic vote as decisively as John McCain — who won just 31% of it — did in 2008.”

“According to a Romney adviser, his private view of immigration isn’t as anti-immigrant as he often sounded.”

E.J. Dionne: “How many other ‘private’ positions does Romney hold that we don’t know about?”

“If you’re looking for something to go after in a political sense, just listen to the Vice President. He’s got plenty of material for us.”

— Mitt Romney, quoted by NBC News.

“I think the mistakes made in 2008 will have a big effect, as they should in 2012. The 2008 process was evaluated almost entirely through a political prism.”

— GOP strategist Steve Schmidt, quoted by the Washington Post, who oversaw Sen. John McCain’s selection of Sarah Palin as his running mate.

Joshua Spivak reports the four Democratic state Senate hopefuls in Wisconsin will all face “fake” primary opponents. Republican leaders confirmed the tactic which they also used in last year’s recall races.

“The goal is to push the election so it is on the same day as the Walker recall — otherwise, the Democrats may have had a serious advantage in those races (as their votes would be more likely to come out for the Gubernatorial primary vote).”

A new Rasmussen survey in Wisconsin finds Mitt Romney with a double-digit lead over Rick Santorum in next week’s GOP presidential primary, 44% to 34%, with Newt Gingrich and Ron Paul each at 7%.