Presidential

Rarely has a Presidential primary hinged both on a news reporter’s question, as well as the word “maybe.” Yet, the combination of these two items less than 48 hours before Saturday’s balloting during the GOP debate provided the fuel for Newt Gingrich’s 40-28% victory over Mitt Romney in South Carolina. This basically was a landslide: Romney was reduced to pluralities in three (out of 46) counties, and Saturday’s 601K voter turnout was about 33% higher than it was in the 2008 Republican primary (it’s also worth noting that the Republican primary in New Hampshire had 5% higher turnout than in 2008).

Republicans like to point out that since 1980, the winner of the South Carolina primary has become the eventual Republican nominee. Will that be the case this year? It’s too early to tell. For one thing, the next contest will be the January 31 Florida primary. The results from this primary will arguably be a better foreshadowing of who the nominee will be, since the Florida Republican electorate is very diverse, with southerners in the Panhandle, Midwestern retirees along the southwestern Gulf Coast, northeastern retirees along the Atlantic coast, young families in Central Florida, and staunchly anti-Communist Cubans in Miami. Needless to say, building a successful coalition requires some political finesse and a lot of money, and the Gingrich campaign needs a quick infusion of funds if it wants to be competitive in a state with numerous media markets.

UPDATE 1/23 AM There is an additional factor at play here as well: Florida is a state whose voters tend to early vote, and it is estimated that 200K early votes have already been cast  (for comparisons sake, about 2 million voted in the 2008 Presidential primary), so the fact that ballots are being cast as we speak means that any surge in support for any of the remaining candidates will not necessarily be reflected in the January 31 results. In fact, the very same Rasmussen poll released today showing Newt Gingrich with a 41-32% lead over Romney also showed that 14% of those polled have already voted, and within that group, Romney leads by 11%.

While it is important for credibility’s sake for Romney to win in Florida, there is an intangible that in the short term works in his favor: the primary calendar. Between the Florida primary and March 6 (“Super Tuesday”) seven states have contests. In 2008, Romney was an active candidate in six of those states, and he carried five of those six (the sixth state was John McCain’s Arizona). Therefore, the ability to garner support from more independent minded voters who by default will likely support Romney will be a major challenge for Newt Gingrich or Rick Santorum – in a sense, the ability to gain this support will be “general election training.”

One factor which does not work in Romney’s favor: the Republican field has lost two contestants, as Jon Huntsman and Rick Perry left the race after New Hampshire. The reason this benefits Gingrich is that, despite Huntsman’s endorsing Romney, he didn’t have much of a national presence, and therefore didn’t bring much to the electoral table for Romney. Rick Perry, on the other hand, endorsed Gingrich, and his mostly Southern conservative supporters will fairly easily transfer over to Newt. This will certainly help on Super Tuesday, as four Southern states will be holding contests on that day, one of which being Texas.

At the present time, the only remaining question about the primaries is Rick Santorum’s electoral viability. While the recent endorsement of evangelicals (and his belated Iowa victory due to a recount) certainly didn’t hurt, he needs to be able to win a primary – or at a bare minimum, get a respectable percentage of the vote in upcoming contests. His third place finish in South Carolina with 17% of the vote keeps him in the race, but he has to be able to cut into Newt’s conservative support if he wants the coveted title of being the “anti Romney.”

Congressional

Even though Congressional primaries don’t commence until March 6 (in Ohio and Texas), there has been some recent action. The biggest news item was yesterday’s resignation of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords (D-Arizona), who was shot a year ago by a mentally deranged constituent. This will necessitate an April primary and a June election for her Republican leaning seat that gave John McCain 55% of the vote.

In other news, candidate filing recently has closed in Maryland, Alabama, and Mississippi, and in those three states, there were no last minute retirements and/or unopposed candidates. One curious incident: in northern Alabama, former Congressman/party switcher Parker Griffith is seeking a rematch against the Republican who soundly defeated him in the primary.

Outside of those states, two Republican Congressman in California (which has a March 9 filing deadline) have chosen to retire, and there are rumors of additional retirements. Similarly, in New York, a ten term Democratic incumbent has decided not to seek re-election, and a six term Pennsylvania Republican recently decided not to run again.

In the upcoming weeks, Kentucky, West Virginia, and North Carolina have filing deadlines, so there may be some last minute surprises there. Overall, before a single ballot has been cast, we know the partisan composition in 8 Congressional seats: 5 seats only have Republicans running, while Democrats are guaranteed to win 3 seats based on the candidates who filed thus far. We also know that 33 House members (20 Democrats and 13 Republicans) are not returning, while 9 Senators (7 Democrats and 2 Republicans) have decided not to run again. These numbers can only increase, since as of today, candidate filing has only closed in five states.

Finally, there is a special Congressional election in Oregon on January 31 in a 61% Obama district that has been held by the Democrats since 1974. While this is a Democratic leaning district, it does contain the affluent suburbs of Portland, so it will be interesting to see the extent to which economic issues can play a part in the outcome.