Carolina battle may decide GOP nomination race
Despite fierce attacks from his rivals, the former Massachusetts governor captured New Hampshire’s primary 16 percentage points ahead of the rest of the field on Tuesday to go two-for-two at the start of the Republican nomination race after his narrow victory in Iowa’s caucuses a week earlier.
The victory felt “like Christmas Day”, Romney told reporters as his plane left for South Carolina.
A Romney victory in the January 21 primary, the next in a series of state-by-state contests, could extinguish his rivals’ hopes of keeping him from becoming the nominee to take on Democratic President Barack Obama in the November 6 general election.
Romney’s campaign added to the other contenders’ worries by announcing he had raised $24 million (€18.9m) in the last three months of 2011, just hours after his victory in New Hampshire. That haul will almost certainly far outstrip the war chests of any of the party’s other presidential contenders.
Romney has led in polls in the southern state, but could face a tough time convincing its religious conservatives and those hit hard by the economic downturn that he is their best bet to defeat Obama.
He finished toward the back of the pack in the state’s primary in 2008, when Arizona Senator John McCain became the Republican nominee.
“With regards to South Carolina, last time I came in fourth,” said Romney. “Our team recognises this is going to be a challenge.”
In his narrow win in Iowa, Romney’s Mormon faith was a stumbling block for some evangelical Christians, who also make up a large percentage of the South Carolina electorate.
Trying desperately to stop Romney, his rivals have blasted him as a heartless corporate raider who enjoyed cutting jobs while amassing a fortune as a private equity executive, and have assailed him as not being a true conservative.
“The issue is ultimately going to be between a Reagan conservative and a Massachusetts moderate, and I think, as his record is better known, he will grow weaker and weaker very fast,” Newt Gingrich, who is pinning his campaign hopes on South Carolina, told reporters.
In New Hampshire, Romney won 39% of the vote, outpacing Ron Paul, a US congressman from Texas known for libertarian views who came in second with 23%. He was followed by Jon Huntsman, a moderate former ambassador to China and former governor of Utah who had focused his campaign on New Hampshire. Huntsman won 17%.
Gingrich and Texas governor Rick Perry have lashed out at Romney for his record at Bain Capital — an unusual debate in the business-friendly Republican Party. Both men are from southern states, which they hope will help win over South Carolinians.
Romney said he was proud of his business record. He dismissed the attacks as good practice for what is expected to be a bruising fight against Obama.
“It’s going to be all guns blazing in my direction and I’ve got broad shoulders,” said Romeny. “I can handle that. I’m not worried about it.”
Romney became the first Republican who is not an incumbent president to win both Iowa and New Hampshire. He may now find it easier to convince sceptics that he is the strongest Republican to take on Obama, despite qualms about moderate policies he pursued as Massachusetts governor.
The winner of the South Carolina primary has become the nominee in every presidential election since 1980. South Carolina is also the only one of the early-voting states that is reliably Republican in presidential elections.
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