Campaigning in the small-town Midwest on Friday, Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum suggested Mitt Romney is too big-city to secure the Republican nomination.

The former Pennsylvania senator, addressing a crowd of more than 600 people at the Main Street Music Hall in Osage Beach, Missouri, said it’s too bad that political pundits are pushing the idea that the GOP needs a nominee “who’s more moderate, someone who can appeal to moderates and independents in New York City and Los Angeles.”

“If you look at where my Republican opponent has won,” he said, “it’s always in and around the cities. It almost looks like a Republican versus a Democrat when you look at these states. That he’s winning the areas the Democrats win, and I’m winning the areas the Republicans win, does that tell you something maybe?”

Heading into Missouri’s caucus on Saturday, Santorum is hoping for a showing that mirrors his runaway victory in the state’s beauty-contest primary last month. And though he’s slipping in the polls in neighboring Illinois, a delegate gold mine, he said on Friday, “I still think we have a chance of winning Illinois.”

Santorum told reporters he doesn’t “worry too much about polls,” pointing to his less-than-promising numbers leading up to Mississippi’s primary, which he won on Tuesday.

“Look, Illinois’s a tough state, I understand,” he said. “When you’re getting outspent 10-to-1, it’s hard. But we’re gonna keep working and do the best we can. And we’re fighting money, we’re fighting the organization, and we’re fighting a divided conservative vote. That’s a pretty hard hill, but we’ve been climbing it and doing well.”