What Did South Carolina Tell Us?
Tony McNulty looks forward to the Florida primary.
28 Jan 2012, 10:39
Newt Gingrich
After the third contest in this year’s race for the Republican Presidential nominee, the only certainty is that there is no certainty. If the frontrunner, Mitt Romney, cannot claim outright victory or, at least, that he has momentum on his side, then he looks much diminished. We have now had three different winner/runner-up combinations in the three different contests – Santorum/Romney in Iowa, Romney/Huntsman in New Hampshire and now Gingrich/Romney in South Carolina. The only racing certainty is that this process is set to continue for a long while yet – which is bad news for the eventual nominee and bad news for the Republican Party. Each of the four remaining candidates has reasons to stay in the contest, if they can, at least until the Super Tuesday set of contests on March 6th.
There is no doubt that Newt Gingrich’s victory in South Carolina was spectacular. It wasn’t a shock, as most polls had picked up the shift to Gingrich in the last week before the vote. What was surprising was the manner and scale of the victory – Gingrich won in 43 out of the 46 counties in South Carolina and by a stunning range of 40 to Romney’s 28%. Just two weeks before the vote, Romney led Gingrich in the polls in South Carolina by 41-19, with Santorum vying with Gingrich for second place. All the exit polls indicate that voters who decided at the last minute, tended to vote for Gingrich. It is the emphatic nature of the victory that should really worry the Romney camp. It gives Gingrich the momentum. Reportedly, his campaign received over $1million in donations within the first day after the victory. Gingrich won against a better-organised, better-resourced Romney campaign – crucially, according to the exit polls, because of his performance in the two debates in South Carolina. The debates were important certainly, but it difficult to gauge the importance of other issues such as Bain Capital, Romney’s Mormon faith and Gingrich’s retaliatory negative ads aimed at Romney.
South Carolina has given Gingrich a much needed boost, but victory is a two-edged sword that can not only inspire your own base and supporters, but also bring greater scrutiny by the media and your enemies. His claim that he was a ‘politician of the South, who understood the South’ appears to have been vindicated. Although buoyant, the Gingrich camp should also be very wary – his success has heightened the volatility of the whole campaign. There are already signs that his momentum from South Carolina is starting to fade. Gingrich initially went to Florida with a poll lead there too – a recent InsiderAdvantage poll of registered Republicans put him on 34% compared to 26% for Romney. However, partly because of a much stronger performance in the first Florida debate last Monday, Romney has been closing the gap. Most recent polls show a spread from a two-point Romney lead to a six point Gingrich lead, but with the momentum slipping back to Romney who has also spent big in Florida’s expensive media market.
Commentators have said that South Carolina also helped Gingrich is one crucial area – electability. For months now, Gingrich has been seeking to be the candidate of the Conservative Right and it is here that he has had the most competition, but also, to date, the most success. But he has been seen in polls to be far behind Romney when it comes to electability, ironically partially because of his successful appeal to the right. Indeed, until recently Romney had a 22% lead as the candidate most likely to beat Obama. Now, after South Carolina, Gingrich would argue that there is no longer an issue about national electability and some polls endorse this. In one poll straight after South Carolina, Gingrich had a 3% lead over Romney as the candidate most likely to beat Obama. This ground has also shifted. In a Suffolk University poll on 24th January, Romney was 5% ahead of Obama – 47-42%, whilst Obama led Gingrich 49-40%. A Quinnipiac University poll on the 26th January put Romney and Obama on 45% each, but gave Obama a resounding 50-39% lead over Gingrich. More tellingly for Gingrich, a Suffolk University poll of the 26th January gave Romney a 5% lead over Obama in Florida, whilst Obama had a 9% lead over Gingrich. Some polls show Gingrich drawing closer to Obama in the national match up.
Despite the fact that Gingrich has said that “If I win the Florida primary, I believe I will be the Republican nominee”, even with such a victory, he will struggle to do so. Gingrich’s ability to travel well throughout the USA might be as fanciful as his idea of an American colony on the moon by the end of his second term. What plays well with the Tea Party infiltrated electorates of South Carolina and Florida will not necessarily travel to the rest of the states – not least those that vote on Super Tuesday. It might play well in South Carolina to dismiss the first ever African-American President as the “food stamp President” and then react in mock disbelief when criticised – but it will not play in many northern states.
Gingrich has been written off before many times, so it will be interesting to see if he can rise to the challenge of becoming a national candidate, as well as a serious one. To some it is a concern that it took him so long to emerge as the strongest right-wing candidate in terrain as favourable as South Carolina. He will certainly stay in the race – whatever happens in Florida – but he needs to win and win well to build momentum and prolong the race.
It is now clear that the opening three contests have been an unmitigated disaster for Romney. Not that long ago, he approached South Carolina with a massive lead in the polls there and with Iowa and New Hampshire already under his belt. It wasn’t too fanciful to imagine that a good result in South Carolina would be the knock-out blow for any serious challenger. Since then, his Iowa victory has been taken away from him, the New Hampshire win has been discounted as inevitable, South Carolina declared a disaster and Romney limps into Florida seriously wounded. As ever in primary races, things are not so simple. Romney was only ahead in South Carolina polls because the conservative right was split in at least three different directions. Once Gingrich emerged as the darling of the right in South Carolina, Romney was always going to be in trouble. South Carolina was never going to be fertile territory for Romney against a single right wing challenge. Romney’s strongest asset remains that he is the only electable centrist in a field of assorted right-wing partisans. Despite South Carolina, this remains his strength as he is closing in on Gingrich in all of the most recent polls in Florida and is still the strongest candidate in national contest with Obama.
Florida is shaping up to be a contest between the ‘anyone but Mitt’ party and the ‘anyone but Newt’ party. Romney has the money to spend in Florida’s very expensive media market and has already begun to increase his spend there. Romney’s weaknesses – cardboard cut-out image, charisma by-pass, Bain Capital, tax declarations, his Mormon faith – have all been brutally exposed. There is hope in the Romney camp that it is time for Gingrich to experience the real heat of press scrutiny in ways that he hasn’t to date. They also know that Florida will not be definitive. The race will move on regardless of who wins Florida, but the very latest polls before the next debate put Romney on 36% and Gingrich on 34%. Four days ago, just after South Carolina, Gingrich had a nine point lead in Florida. It really is neck and neck. The Florida primary allows early voting – so many may have already voted before the increasing volatility of the polls. Also, even in the latest polls, Santorum and Paul supporters made up some 20% of the vote – and at least some of this vote will break for the two main candidates – with Gingrich being favoured over Romney. Paul has long decided to resist the allure of Florida and his vote is really up for grabs.
Everyone knows that this is now a two-horse race. Rick Santorum and Ron Paul have their reasons for hanging on beyond Florida, but neither expects a surge in support. They are both finished as serious contenders for the republican crown. Santorum will hold on to consolidate his emerging role as a serious voice of the republican right and for a prominent speaking slot at the convention. He may consider himself to be a potential vice presidential nominee – if Romney wins – as Pennsylvania is a key state and he would balance the ticket, although the West would feel forgotten. Ron Paul is altogether more interesting. He has made clear that he is concentrating on the next few caucuses after Florida in Maine and Nevada. They have been many noises from within his camp about a third party challenge if he is dissatisfied with the eventual nominee. He couldn’t care less about convention speaking slots or a vice presidential positions, but should not be dismissed as a potential third party threat. If this happened, Paul would potentially block republican success, rather as Ralph Nader did for the Democrats against Bush in the 2000s.
So what did South Carolina tell us? It told us that Romney is not yet strong enough to prevail, but he probably will. It told us that Gingrich is a formidable opponent and his capacity to inspire and disgust in equal measure remains undiminished. Gingrich will prolong the race long after Florida. It told us that Santorum and Paul will have to decide when to quit the race and what they can get out of it, but both are long dead as candidates. The real winner of South Carolina remains, in Gingrich’s offensive and dog whistle term, the ‘food stamp’ President – Barack Obama.
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