Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich has won the South Carolina primary, opening the GOP to a protracted race for the presidential candidate campaign.
In a clean sweep to victory, Gingrich trounced his nearest rival and former front-runner Mitt Romney, gaining 40 percent of the votes to Romney’s 28 percent.
Gingrich, who mounted a concerted attack on Romney during debates in the lead up to the primary, was notably restrained in his victory speech in Columbia, commending his rivals and focusing instead on the theme of American exceptionalism that will underlie his presidential campaign.
In an indication that he would continue to take the fight to Mitt Romney, however, he made a swipe at Romney’s success as former CEO of private equity company Bain Capital, a strategy that has contributed to his resurgence in the polls after slumping to fourth place in Iowa and New Hampshire.
“We don’t have the kind of money that at least one of the candidates has,” Gingrich said referring to Romney. “But we do have ideas, and we do have people and we proved here in South Carolina that people power with the right ideas beats big money.”
The South Carolina primary is the first of the more conservative Southern states to go to the polls in U.S. elections and has successfully picked the Republican nominee every election since the 1980s.
While South Carolina had not been a surety for the former Massachusetts governor, the South Carolina loss will be a set back for Romney who would have been looking for a win to carry through into the more moderate Florida, the next primary Jan. 31, in the hope that it would seal his candidacy as the GOP presidential nominee.
“We are now three contests into a long primary season and a hard fight because there is so much worth fighting for,” he told supporters on Saturday night. “We’ve got a long way to go and a lot of work to do and tomorrow we’re going to move on to Florida!”
Struggling to gain ground against Newt Gingrich’s attacks on his business dealings, Romney indicated he was prepared to up the ante in the campaign, making a tilt at Gingrich by accusing him of aligning himself with President Obama in a “frontal assault on free enterprise.”
“I don’t shrink from competition. I embrace it,” he said. “I believe competition makes us all better and I know it is making our campaign stronger, and in the coming weeks the ideals of free enterprise and economic freedom will need a very strong defense and I intend to make it.”
Santorum Places Third
Rick Santorum, who had just two days before the South Carolina primary been declared the official winner in Iowa over the initial call of Mitt Romney, came in third in the primary, gaining 17 percent of the vote.
The former Pennsylvania senator had been expected to do well with the more conservative voters in South Carolina, but exit polling conducted by CNN indicated that Tea Party and evangelicals supported Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney before Santorum.
Santorum, however, was upbeat at the end of the night, declaring himself the only true conservative among the four contenders.
“Someone who can contrast on all of the issues that are important for America today, the ones that are going to decide this election, the ones of experiences on national security, the consistency on conservative principles that made this country great,” Santorum said. “It is a wide open race. Join the fight! Thank you.”
Libertarian conservative Texas Rep. Ron Paul placed fourth in South Carolina with 13 percent of the vote, but declared he would continue in his campaign, telling CNN at the end of the night that he had the funds, the organization, and the enthusiasm among supporters, to continue the race.
Friends Read Free