Romney Wins In New Hampshire, Can Wrap Things Up In SC

Posted by Ashish on 01.10.2012

Analysis of the state of the GOP race following Romney's New Hampshire win...

Main takeaways from Romney's solid, though not spectacular, New Hampshire win:

* The nomination is now Romney's to lose. If he wins in South Carolina, it's over.
* The Bain attacks may backfire. We don't have a lot to go off of in terms of the New Hampshire results since it's a much different state than South Carolina and Romney is so strong in New Hampshire, but Newt Gingrich seems to be getting more flack from Rush Limbaugh and FOX News than gaining support from these attacks. Romney won late deciders tonight, a sign that the last two days of attacks against him had no impact. The Bain attacks inherently anti-Republican. You can't say you're for free markets and anti-regulation, then say venture capital firms like Bain can't lay people off. It's a hypocritical argument and has the potential to rally to Romney the exact types of conservatives that so far have been so lukewarm towards him.
* The Bain attacks would be better served in a general election, where that type of portrayal would find sympethetic ears among Democrats and Independents. The Obama campaign will definitely portray Romney as the exact Wall Street CEO type who has been in the news, cashing in on millions in bonuses at the expense of employees. But in a Republican primary, doesn't make a lot of sense.
* Jon Huntsman's performance turned out to be fairly disappointing. He'll stay in, but he'll get demolished in South Carolina.
* Rick Santorum's Iowa momentum is now basically gone and I don't expect him to be much of a factor going forward.
* Turnout was down. About 220,000 people voted in New Hampshire tonight, compared to 240,000 in the 2008 Republican primary. Again, turnout in Iowa and New Hampshire have not indicated much enthusiasm or excitement among GOP voters, a bad sign going into the general election.

As we go into South Carolina, Romney is in prime position to win the state and wrap up the nomination because none of his rivals have any momentum. Gingrich and Santorum, the two guys who you would think would be strong in a state like South Carolina, actually appear to be losing momentum while eating into each other's votes. Gingrich is launching what amounts to a suicide attack in GOP primary -- attacking the nature of free enterprise, those attacks, even if they do hurt Romney, won't help Gingrich. Santorum is sinking, leaving the tiniest window open for someone like Perry to capitalize on the blowback from the Gingrich/Romney shootout. But given Perry's current standing, that is a scenario with very little chance of actually happening.

In other words, Romney has this thing just about wrapped up. Things will get very dirty in South Carolina, no doubt about it, and he will have to take some punches, but the only person who can beat Romney now is himself. It will take a major fumble on his part to lose the nomination.