South Carolina Primary Tomorrow

The South Carolina Primary will be held tomorrow, and its results are likely to get a lot of attention. For some time now, the media narrative has been that if Mitt Romney wins in South Carolina, the primary will be over. A less-pronounced narrative is that if Newt Gingrich wins South Carolina, the entire race will be transformed dramatically, and that it will become a long, grinding test of wills between the two candidates.

Initially, Romney's strong poll numbers in South Carolina gave many the impression that he was very likely to win there. Even the investors on Intrade for the South Carolina Primary market gave Romney more than a 90% chance to win there at one point.

Elephant Watcher was not convinced. Last week, we examined the probable scenarios for the South Carolina Primary. It was time for a reality check, as a favorable scenario for Gingrich was plainly visible: If Gingrich held a strong lead in the polls over Rick Santorum, the Anti-Romney vote would coalesce, stripping Santorum and Rick Perry of their support in the final week and giving Gingrich the edge.

That is precisely what has happened. Although Gingrich got good marks for his debate performance on Monday, the effect of the debate was overrated. Gingrich's upward movement was already taking place, and was largely due to the strategic shift of Perry/Santorum support over to Gingrich. Voting takes place tomorrow, and here is where we stand:

South Carolina Primary
01/19 PPP (D) -- Gingrich 36, Romney 30, Santorum 16, Paul 15
01/19 WeAskAmerica -- Gingrich 32, Romney 28, Paul 13, Santorum 9
01/18 Reuters -- Romney 35, Gingrich 23, Santorum 15, Paul 13
01/18 ARG -- Gingrich 33, Romney 32, Paul 19, Santorum 9
01/18 Rasmussen -- Gingrich 33, Romney 31, Paul 15, Santorum 11
01/18 PPP (D) -- Gingrich 34, Romney 28, Paul 15, Santorum 14
01/18 Insider Adv -- Gingrich 32, Romney 29, Paul 15, Santorum 11
01/18 Tarrance (R) -- Romney 37, Gingrich 30, Paul 11, Santorum 10

In most of the polls, Gingrich holds a narrow lead over Romney. He also has the momentum. What's more, Santorum is still holding onto a chunk of the voters. That means Gingrich's numbers can rise even further at Santorum's expense. As we observed in the review of last night's debate, Santorum gave a strong performance, but it's too late to reverse the process; he can only hope to stop the bleeding.

That would be enough to guarantee Gingrich victory, but an early "October surprise" adds some doubt: On Thursday, ABC aired a highly-publicized interview with Gingrich's second ex-wife, who made incendiary claims about Gingrich (most prominently, that Gingrich asked her to tolerate an open marriage).

Unfortunately, there is no time for any polling that will take this scandal into account. Thus, it's difficult to determine what impact it will have on the voting in South Carolina. With Herman Cain's scandals, we saw that its effect was not immediate; it caused a slow erosion of Cain's support. Cain lost support from women earlier, as they were more willing to take the scandals to heart, but in this case the effect would need to be almost overnight.

Our best guess is that adding Gingrich's momentum, the possibility of further Santorum defection, and Gingrich's preexisting lead should be enough to hand him South Carolina. However, it ought to be somewhat close. It will be closer if the Gingrich scandal has any impact.

A win by Gingrich in South Carolina will put a quick halt to Romney's aura of inevitability. As we explained earlier this week, however, Florida is the real test. That's because it will be the first opportunity for a single Anti-Romney to fight against Romney. The narrative thus far has been that Romney has won due to the split in his rivals' vote. If the Anti-Romney vote coalesces behind Gingrich and Romney still wins, that proves Romney is the clear favorite.

Romney will get bad press if he loses South Carolina, but it's easy to exaggerate the state's importance. South Carolina is one of Romney's worst states. In 2008, Romney got about twice the share of the vote in Florida as he did in South Carolina. If Romney is able to get 30% of the vote in an unfavorable state like South Carolina, that means he is greatly over-performing compared to his last run, and he should be very optimistic about his chances of winning the nomination.

Who Won the Republican Debate on January 19th?

Tonight's debate was unlike any of the previous ones. As the night wore on, it increasingly resembled kind of a political version of a war crimes tribunal: Rick Santorum was the chief prosecutor, and the other three candidates were in the dock. Santorum repeatedly challenged the conservative credentials of his foes, particularly Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich. They then defended themselves, but they didn't bother to counter-attack Santorum on his own credentials. As a result, Santorum was always on the offensive, which is a good thing in a debate, because the burden remains on the defender. At best, the defenders didn't get scored against; at worst, they lost points.

Clearly, Santorum was in the spotlight, and had opportunities to display his confidence and rhetorical skill. On some issues, Gingrich and Romney defended themselves well: Romney was particularly effective in defending his pro-life record as governor. On other issues, Santorum may have scored points. Romney vigorously defended himself against the attacks on Romneycare--this time one of his opponents had done research on it--but he may have lost points. Gingrich did not defend his own support of the individual mandate very well.

But the central issue facing Santorum is that his numbers have been in free fall. Voters seeking an alternative to Romney have seen Gingrich well ahead of Santorum in the polls, and they have been defecting from Santorum in large numbers. Can a strong debate performance by Santorum reverse that? It's too late. The only question is to what extent Santorum can staunch the bleeding. He may be aided by the Gingrich ex-wife scandal, but its effect cannot yet be measured.

In fact, the debate moderator decided to open the debate by asking Gingrich about the allegations made by his second ex-wife that Gingrich had asked her for an open marriage. Gingrich was in top form as he denounced CNN for opening a presidential debate in such a way. The crowd rose to its feet and gave him a standing ovation as he vented long-felt frustrations that conservatives have about the liberal media. Gingrich has frequently criticized moderators in past debates, and this one served as a perfect target.

...On the other hand, one can't help but remember how the debate audience also cheered Herman Cain when he denied his own sex scandal during a debate. They applauded Cain, and a few weeks later they completely abandoned him.

Otherwise, Gingrich was fairly unremarkable. Aside from his standout moment at the beginning of the debate, it was probably one of his weaker performances.

Romney's performance was mixed. Frequently, Romney was strong, and he served red meat to the base in defending capitalism and free enterprise. He easily waved aside questions about Bain Capital, and his opponents saw fit to the let the matter rest. Romney was weaker when asked about releasing his tax returns. At first, it seemed that Romney would get a pass: Of the four candidates on stage, only Gingrich had released his returns. Ron Paul and Santorum expressed no plans to release theirs, and Romney said he would release his in April. But when the moderator asked Romney if he would follow in his father's footsteps by releasing many years' worth of returns, Romney was taken by surprise, answering, "Maybe." He was evasive, and the moment may ruin an otherwise solid night for him, as it presents an interesting sound-bite for the media to replay.

Rick Perry Quits, Endorses Gingrich

Perry

Rick Perry announced that he was quitting the race today during a press conference in which he also endorsed Newt Gingrich. Perry was expected to quit the race after the South Carolina Primary this Saturday, in which he would have finished poorly. Perry's decision to quit early was likely based on his desire to avoid the embarrassment of taking last place in Saturday's contest. Now, Perry can at least make the claim that he was acting selflessly to help the conservative vote coalesce behind someone other than Mitt Romney.

How will this change the race? For some time now, Perry has had no chance of winning the nomination. His departure is beneficial to Gingrich, though not as much as one might expect: Perry was already polling in the mid-to-low single-digits. His remaining support would have eroded before voting day in each contest anyway, with most going to Gingrich. This occurred in New Hampshire, where Perry's few points of support went down to 1% on voting day; Jon Huntsman experienced the same effect in Iowa, where his few points went down to 1% on the day of the Iowa Caucus.

Gingrich at least benefits from the fact that someone other than Romney has now been endorsed by a departing candidate. Also, Gingrich no longer has to worry about Perry switching tactics to attack him, though Perry can no longer attack Romney, either. The downside for Gingrich is that Perry's departure raises expectations: Gingrich can't claim he's being handicapped by the conservative vote splitting among multiple candidates. He is only competing against Rick Santorum.

Perry's candidacy was a high-profile failure. Expectations for Perry were high. He was the first candidate to experience a surge and bust, having taken a big lead in all the polls (except in New Hampshire) during late August and early September. At that time, Perry was considered the frontrunner. But Elephant Watcher never gave Perry more than a 21% chance of winning the Republican nomination. Even so, Perry was considered competitive with Romney until the debates in September. As time went on, Perry grew worse in the debates and was decisively defeated by Romney after the third debate. Perry's support declined and was cannibalized by a series of other Anti-Romneys, including Herman Cain, Newt Gingrich, and Rick Santorum. Perry completely collapsed after his extraordinary "oops" gaffe during the debate on November 9th. He did not, and could not, recover after that.

Perry is likely to be remembered as one of the worst debaters in American political history. He enjoyed many advantages in the race: Plenty of executive experience, institutional support, money, ease with "retail poliics," and a strong conservative record. But nothing could overcome his poor debate performances. In the future, candidates will recognize the vital importance of the debates, and will hopefully take greater care to prepare for them.

The Campaign Status page has been updated to reflect Perry's departure. Judging by the tenacity of the remaining candidates, this could be the final time the Campaign Status page changes until a candidate secures victory.

Final Pre-South Carolina Debate Tomorrow

CNN will host the latest Republican primary debate tomorrow at 8:00pm Eastern. It will be the candidates' last chance to debate before voting takes place in South Carolina on Saturday. The dynamics of the debate will be similar to the debate on Monday: Mitt Romney is a big favorite to win the nomination and enjoys a comfortable lead in South Carolina polls, and it's up to the other candidates to take him down. The media narrative continues to suggest that if Romney wins in South Carolina, it's all over.

But there is a twist: Newt Gingrich got positive reviews for his debate performance on Monday, and the polls show Gingrich with a substantial lead over Rick Santorum in both South Carolina and Florida. This week, Gingrich said publicly that he would like Santorum and Rick Perry to drop out of the race and endorse him so that the Anti-Romney vote can unite. Santorum and Perry may now be more aware of the fact that it's not enough to take down Romney--they must stop Gingrich, as well. Though Perry knows his own situation is hopeless, Santorum may come to realize that the biggest threat to Santorum is Gingrich, not Romney. If Santorum trails Gingrich by too much, his candidacy will lose all support. But he can survive if he's close enough to Gingrich, even if they both lose to Romney.

It will therefore be important for Santorum to go on the attack against Gingrich. Santorum needs to prove that Gingrich is not the only candidate who can put in a strong debate performance. So far, Gingrich has done well in answering questions, but tends to be a bit weaker when confronted by other candidates in a back-and-forth exchange. Still, as we have seen in previous debates, just because a strategy is optimal doesn't mean a candidate will actually follow it. Santorum may very well continue to attack Romney.

As for Romney, he will once again need to play the role of the gracious frontrunner who is undisturbed by the attacks against him. On Monday, he skillfully parried the attacks against Bain Capital and his history of flip-flopping. He was more hesitant when asked about his tax returns. Since that got some attention, his rivals will surely focus on the tax return issue in tomorrow's debate. Chris Christie, who endorsed Romney and has campaigned for him, has said publicly that he thinks Romney should release the returns. Will Romney be able to effectively answer whether he'll release his tax returns? Romney is undoubtedly preparing for this line of questioning. If Romney has decided that he won't release them, it will be difficult for him to explain why not, without leading voters to worry that he has something to hide.

Finally, Romney must decide whether he should attack Gingrich. Romney has usually preferred to remain positive during the debates, in the belief that as frontrunner the status quo is beneficial. However, Romney may feel threatened enough by Gingrich that if Gingrich attacks him first, he will unleash a counterattack.

Gingrich Leads Santorum: Is It Enough?

Last week, we discussed a scenario in which Newt Gingrich could win South Carolina. For Gingrich to prevail, he needs to have polls showing him develop a substantial lead over Rick Santorum, so that the strategically-minded Anti-Romney vote coalesces behind Gingrich. Along with strong debate performances, a dramatic coalescing of the Anti-Romney vote could put Gingrich over the top. Let's look at the most recent South Carolina polls and see if that scenario is developing:

South Carolina Primary
01/15 Monmouth -- Romney 33, Gingrich 22, Santorum 14, Paul 12
01/15 WeAskAmerica -- Romney 31, Gingrich 18, Paul 12, Santorum 9
01/15 Insider Adv-- Romney 32, Gingrich 21, Paul 14, Santorum 13
01/13 Reuters -- Romney 37, Santorum 16, Paul 16, Gingrich 12
01/13 PPP (D) -- Romney 29, Gingrich 24, Paul 15, Santorum 14
01/12 ARG -- Romney 29, Gingrich 25, Paul 20, Perry 9
01/12 Rasmussen -- Romney 28, Gingrich 21, Santorum 16, Paul 16

Each poll shows Gingrich well behind Mitt Romney. However, Gingrich has a significant lead over Santorum in all but one of the polls (the Reuters poll on January 13th is the sole outlier). Notice also that Rick Perry fails to make the top four in all but one of the polls. If the Anti-Romney voters wish to be strategic, and if Gingrich motivates them enough in the week's two debates, they could rally behind Gingrich.

There are two holes in the scenario right now. First, there has been little or no media attention to the growing gap between Gingrich and Santorum. Recall that in the days before the Iowa Caucus, a lot of media attention was devoted to Santorum's sudden rise in the polls, as the media anticipated Santorum's long-awaited surge. Instead, the media have focused on the fact that Romney enjoys a lead over everyone else. There is still some time: If polls released in the next few days show Santorum dying off, the media will report it and lead to an even greater decline in Santorum's numbers.

The second hole is that Romney is doing quite well. He is not merely edging out Gingrich; he is leading by a significant margin. In some polls, Romney is dangerously close to being ahead by so much that even a significant defection of Santorum votes to Gingrich wouldn't be enough. A significant defection of Perry votes would help close the gap.

Now let's look at the Florida polls:

Florida Primary
01/16 PPP (D) -- Romney 41, Gingrich 26, Santorum 11, Paul 10
01/15 ARG -- Romney 42, Gingrich 25, Santorum 9, Paul 8
01/14 Sunshine/VSS -- Romney 46, Gingrich 20, Santorum 12, Paul 9
01/11 Rasmussen -- Romney 41, Gingrich 19, Santorum 15, Paul 9

Romney has a big lead, but Gingrich has an even bigger lead over Santorum here. Should Gingrich win South Carolina, or take second place there with a big lead over Santorum, he can become the chief Anti-Romney.

Most commentators say that if Romney wins South Carolina, it's all over. But if the Anti-Romney vote remains split in South Carolina, the final test will actually take place in Florida. Unless Gingrich and Santorum are close in South Carolina, Gingrich should be able to get the Anti-Romney vote behind him by Florida. That would be the first time Romney is forced to compete against one rival. If the Anti-Romney vote is united and Romney still wins, it's over, because what more can they do? In Florida, Romney is even closer to the point at which combining the Anti-Romney vote behind one opponent would still result in a Romney victory. Romney's margin would be reduced by a Gingrich win in South Carolina, so it could get interesting.

Who Won the Republican Debate on January 16th?

Tonight, each of the candidates did well in the debate. Newt Gingrich, in particular, got a lot of applause--but so did his opponents. Mitt Romney stands to benefit the most from this, as he would like to see his competition continue to block each other. It's unlikely, for example, that Gingrich's main competitor for the Anti-Romney vote--Rick Santorum--will lose as a result of this debate. Even Rick Perry, who has fared poorly in the debates, did well. Tonight was probably Perry's strongest performance thus far. Since Perry will not win South Carolina, that only serves to take votes from Romney's competition.

In the opening round, the debate moderators went immediately to the issue of the attacks against Bain. Gingrich did not backpedal, but he came close. Instead of pressing Romney on Bain, Gingrich said that he had merely been "asking questions." Romney took the opportunity to put the Bain issue to rest (at least in this debate). That wiped out the main line of attack that had been made against Romney.

In general, the candidates did not really attack Romney. At one point, Santorum threw his weight around by challenging Romney--but it was on the issue of allowing felons to vote. Romney, who was taken by surprise at the question, was against allowing felons to vote, while Santorum was in favor. Santorum wanted to know why Romney didn't change the law in Massachusetts to prevent felons from voting. Santorum looked confident, but it was on a completely tangential matter.

Though many candidates got applause, the problem faced by Romney's competitors is that they needed to either destroy Romney or destroy Romney's competition and become the chief Anti-Romney. In this debate, they failed to do either.

Huntsman Drops Out, Endorses Romney

Huntsman

Jon Huntsman announced today that he was dropping out of the race. He also immediately endorsed Mitt Romney. The Campaign Status page has been updated to reflect Huntsman's departure; there are now only five candidates remaining. Huntsman needed a win in New Hampshire to really propel his campaign forward, and he came nowhere close. However, he remained in the race for a few additional days as a way of showing appreciation to the 17% of New Hampshirites who voted for him.

Huntsman's departure will have little impact on the race. For some time now, he has had a 0% chance of winning the nomination, and he has been polling at near zero in the remaining states. Huntsman's endorsement of Romney does add a small amount to the impression that Romney is inevitable. Of the candidates that have either dropped out or decided not to run, those who have decided to endorse (e.g. Christie, Huntsman, Pawlenty) have all endorsed Romney. Huntsman no longer being in the race also means one less opponent to attack Romney during the debates.

Huntsman was one of a few candidates to be considered "highly electable." Romney is now the only one of those to remain. Despite his electability and some enthusiasm on the part of establishment Republicans, Huntsman was unable to get anywhere in this race. According to Elephant Watcher's calculations, Huntsman's odds of winning the nomination never exceeded 3%.

Why did Huntsman fail? Partly it's because Huntsman was in Romney's shadow and needed Romney to make a major mistake. The main problem was that Huntsman chose to run to the left of Romney. Candidates have some power over how they're perceived, particularly if the candidate is unknown. Huntsman chose to enter the race by touting his belief in evolution and global warming. This decision, along with the fact that Huntsman was already somewhat vulnerable to being characterized as a "RINO," meant that he would always be perceived as the candidate to Romney's left. There was simply no room. In New Hampshire, voters either liked where Romney stood or they wanted someone to Romney's right. The Anti-Romney voters have always perceived Romney as too moderate, so Huntsman was always off the table. Accordingly, Huntsman has the distinction of being the only candidate in the race who never enjoyed a big bounce in the polls.

Debate on Fox News Tomorrow

Fox News will host the next primary debate, which takes place tomorrow at 9:00pm Eastern. Tomorrow's debate will be one of two to be held prior to the South Carolina Primary. The second debate will be on Thursday, and the voting will take place in South Carolina on Saturday. It's an important week: By the end of it, we should have a better sense of whether a single opponent can coalesce the Anti-Romney vote, or if Mitt Romney will cruise to victory.

Obviously the two debates represent a final opportunity to derail Romney's candidacy before the South Carolina Primary. Romney will be facing numerous attacks from his opponents. Given the amount of attention focused on Bain over the last week, Romney will be given ample opportunity to defend his tenure at the private equity firm. And Romney's opponents--Newt Gingrich in particular--will be given ample opportunity to criticize what Romney did at Bain.

Romney's best strategy is to focus on the reasons why his experience at Bain makes him an expert at creating jobs. He should avoid being put on the defensive, quickly returning to a specific list of companies Bain helped start and the tens of thousands of jobs created by them. Finally, he should cap his explanation by drawing a contrast between capitalism (represented by Bain) and big-government socialism (represented by those who think capitalism should not involve the risk of failure). If questioned about inaccuracy in attack ads against him, Romney should be able to specifically enumerate the falsehoods.

Gingrich has no choice but to stand by his attacks against Bain. The attacks against Bain may have been ill-considered, since Romney has plenty of vulnerabilities and criticizing those instead wouldn't have backfired. But Gingrich has put too much time and money into the anti-Bain line. If he attempts to change horses midstream and runs away from the anti-Bain narrative, Gingrich will look like he's completely surrendering.

Gingrich must take great care in his attacks against Bain. If he appears to be criticizing capitalism, or appears in any way to be making his attacks from a leftist perspective, it could doom his chances. Remember, Gingrich is attempting to appeal to those voters who think Romney is too far to the left. The debates, particularly tomorrow's debate, will be a crucial test: When Gingrich attacks Bain, will the audience end up booing him? If so, he is in deep trouble.

Though the debate will focus on Romney and Bain, there is another (arguably more important) undercurrent, the battle between Gingrich and Rick Santorum. Each man wants the other to be out of the race so that he can coalesce the Anti-Romney vote. Some recent polling suggested Gingrich pulling ahead of Santorum in South Carolina, which would enable him to take sole possession the Anti-Romney mantle. But there was also a poll (a gross outlier) muddying the waters by showing Santorum ahead of Gingrich. Meanwhile, a group of influential social conservative leaders decided on Saturday that they would be supporting Santorum.

Once again, Romney benefits from that ambiguity. The polls over the next few days will be decisive. Gingrich needs the numbers to show him with a comfortable lead over Santorum. Santorum needs the numbers to show a very quick shift in the opposite direction, so that he can get a comfortable lead over Gingrich in time to get Gingrich's supporters to switch. Otherwise, the vote will end up as it did in New Hampshire, with the two men splitting the Anti-Romney vote and giving Romney a victory. If the polls don't cooperate, it's vital that one or the other demonstrate a clear superiority in the debates. Tomorrow's debate is arguably the more important, because a very strong contrast on Monday could move the poll numbers by the end of the week, while Thursday is too late (polling would take place on Friday and wouldn't be reported practically until the voting begins).

Why Are Early States Allowed to Choose the Nominee?

One of the most common complaints voters have about the primary system is the disproportionate influence that the early states have on the process. Particularly when a voter's favored candidate does poorly, a voter wants to know why a state like Iowa or New Hampshire has such power. This year, for example, many pundits observed that if Mitt Romney wins South Carolina, he wins the nomination. Voters in later states are sometimes upset by things like this, and they wonder why just a few states get to have input.

It's true that the results of the early contests have an influence on the later states. People like a winner, and they don't like a loser. Wins in the early states propel a candidate, and very poor finishes can doom a candidate. But the early states do not exercise as much power as it may appear. The reason is that collectively, early states vote pretty much the same way that later states would collectively vote if given the opportunity. The results of early contests don't simply influence the rest of the country, they also reveal how the country in general will vote.

The early states represent different regions of the country: The Midwest (Iowa), Northeast (New Hampshire), South (South Carolina), and West (Nevada). Aside from South Carolina, they are swing states. Aside from Florida, they are small enough states for most candidates to be able to compete in without needing a lot of money. If one were to switch out Iowa for another Midwestern state, or South Carolina for another Southern state, the results might be a little different, but not that much different.

To factor out any peculiarities in an early state, voters weigh results differently. Where a state is really uniquely favorable to a candidate (e.g., if a former governor of Iowa wins Iowa, or if a black candidate wins South Carolina), people give the state's result less weight. Similarly, they take results more seriously if a candidate wins on unfavorable turf. In the present primary year, South Carolina is one of the most inhospitable states in the country for Romney. That's part of the reason political observers say it's the last chance for Romney to lose: If he can win in an anti-Romney state, he's likely to sweep most of the country.

One more thought about the way early contests reveal how the later states would vote anyway, if given the chance: Imagine a deck of playing cards divided into four stacks of thirteen cards each. The "spades" stack contains mostly spades and a few clubs; the "clubs" stack is mostly clubs and a few spades; the "hearts" stack is mostly hearts and a few diamonds; the "diamonds" stack is mostly diamonds and a few hearts. One of the four stacks is selected at random and represents the winner of the contest. The first two cards of that winning stack are flipped over, revealing two diamonds. At this point, even though only two of the 13 cards have been shown, we can immediately see that "spades" and "clubs" are not going to be the winner. This is analogous to the way the early contests winnow out a few obvious losers. We can also guess that it's very likely that "diamonds" is going to be the winner, though we can't be 100% sure yet.

If the third card is flipped and also shows a diamond, it's almost guaranteed that we are dealing with the "diamonds" stack. We don't need to go down the line and turn over the 10th, 11th, 12th, and 13th cards. By the time we're just a few cards in, we know what the later cards will reveal anyway. The only situation in which we would need to see every last card in the stack is if the stack were split almost evenly, with the final card breaking the tie. For our analogy, that would be like a presidential primary where two candidates are extremely close. (For reasons beyond the scope of this post, such a situation is extremely rare. Even in 2008, where Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama fought to the end, Obama was essentially guaranteed to win months before Clinton dropped out.)

Although politically-minded individuals in the later states may wish they got to participate earlier in the primary, they can rest assured that if the order of the states was shuffled, the final outcome would be no different.

South Carolina Scenarios

In the wake of a first place win (or tie) in Iowa, Mitt Romney vaulted to the top of the polls in South Carolina. It was the first time South Carolina had been polled since December 19th, when Newt Gingrich was still falling from his mid-December highs in the polls. The South Carolina polls had shown big leads for Gingrich for about a month, beginning in late November. Prior to that, Herman Cain was the leader in most South Carolina polls, benefiting from Rick Perry's decline in September. Romney only enjoyed a lead in South Carolina during the summer months, after Mike Huckabee announced he was out of the race, and before Perry announced he was in.

Romney's early-January leads in South Carolina polls contribute to the impression that he is an unstoppable frontrunner. The Intrade market even had Romney as a big favorite to win the South Carolina Primary. But is this realistic? What might unfold in the coming days?

Let's consider the range of possibilities. Romney's preferred scenario, naturally, would be to win South Carolina. He would also like Gingrich and Rick Santorum to finish very close together, as they did in New Hampshire. Maintaining a split between his two main rivals would continue to be very useful in Florida. If Romney were to win South Carolina and Florida by anything approaching convincing margins, the competition would essentially be over.

Polling in South Carolina suggests this could happen:

South Carolina Primary
01/11 Insider Adv -- Romney 23, Gingrich 21, Santorum 14, Paul 13
01/09 WeAskAmerica -- Romney 26, Gingrich 21, Santorum 13, Paul 8
01/07 PPP (D) -- Romney 30, Gingrich 23, Santorum 19, Paul 9
01/05 CNN/Time -- Romney 37, Santorum 19, Gingrich 18, Paul 12
01/05 ARG -- Romney 31, Santorum 24, Gingrich 24, Paul 9
01/05 Rasmussen -- Romney 27, Santorum 24, Gingrich 18, Paul 11

The numbers are good for Romney. The earlier polls in this group even show Gingrich and Santorum running close together. And Romney has broken through his mythical 25% ceiling. (Just days ago, it was still popular for pundits to believe in the ceiling; see the Elephant Watcher post from two months ago debunking the myth of Romney's 25-point ceiling.)

All that aside, a reality check is in order. Of the early primary states, South Carolina is the most inhospitable territory for Romney. In 2008, Romney got 25% in Iowa, about 30% in New Hampshire, 30% in Florida...and just 15% in South Carolina, a fourth-place finish. Granted, Romney had devoted fewer resources in South Carolina. Granted also that in 2008, Romney had just lost in Iowa and New Hampshire, as opposed to winning those two states this time around. But in 2008, Romney got twice his South Carolina vote share in Florida, and that was after three losses.

What this means is that if Romney does win, it is likely to be close. Under the circumstances, that would be a big accomplishment. However, the alternative scenario South Carolina presents is also a likely one, and it would unfold something like this:

Romney's worst-case scenario is that by the middle of next week, new polling makes it clear that Gingrich and Santorum are no longer close in South Carolina. Instead, Gingrich--though he may still have trouble out-polling Romney--is definitely out-polling Santorum. In response, in the days just before voting begins, South Carolina's Anti-Romney voters shift from Rick Perry and Santorum over to Gingrich, whom they are now convinced is the most likely candidate to beat Romney in that state. (The two debates next week may facilitate this.) The Anti-Romney voting having coalesced, Gingrich beats Romney and declares himself "the comeback kid" (or Gingrich's preferred version, "the comeback grandparent"). Pundits give Gingrich credit, and say variations of "the voters don't want this thing to be over yet, they're not sold on Romney," etc. Santorum's numbers slip, and Gingrich goes into Florida with a more convincing argument that he is the sole Anti-Romney. Indeed, it's arguably worse for Romney to come in second place than in third, because then Gingrich has even more clearly beaten Santorum.

Everything is up to the polling. For that scenario to occur, Gingrich must get a substantial lead over Santorum in South Carolina polls over the next several days.