What Happens if Gingrich Wins Florida?

Although Newt Gingrich is a long way from winning the Florida Primary, most of the Florida polls taken in the immediate aftermath of his South Carolina win show him in the lead. That means it is worth considering what would happen if Gingrich actually does win Florida when voters take to the polls in that state on January 31st.

There are essentially two different "modes" for a presidential primary season. In the first mode, a candidate wins decisively in the early set of primaries, and his momentum carries him forward to victory. All of the fighting really takes place in the early primaries. This is the mode that characterizes almost every presidential primary season.

Technically speaking, the winner of the presidential nomination is determined by the number of delegates he wins. Each state has its own rules on how the delegates are chosen: Some are winner-take-all, some are based on districts, some are proportional, some are a combination of different methods. And some states are penalized by the national Republican Party for breaking the calendar.

Normally, little attention is paid to the delegate math. Partly that's because it's difficult to follow, but mostly it's because the delegate math usually doesn't matter. In the "normal mode," the winner is obvious long before people start counting up the delegates.

But in the second mode, the "delegate mode," the outcome of the race isn't obvious after the early states vote. In such a case, the race goes on through every state (or a lot of states), and the candidates must grind out as many delegates as possible.

If Mitt Romney had won South Carolina and gone on to win Florida, the race would be in "normal mode." Arguably, if Romney wins Florida, the race will soon become characterized as one-sided, with Romney going on to win the next several states. As suggested a few days ago, the media will turn against Gingrich as quickly as they turned in his favor after South Carolina.

If Gingrich wins Florida, particularly if it's a strong finish, the race will enter "delegate mode." The race will become a contentious battle until Romney wins enough delegates to clinch the nomination, or until the convention. Since the Republican establishment views Gingrich as an unacceptable, unelectable nominee, there will be no giving up on the part of Gingrich's rival(s).

A few days after the Florida Primary, the Nevada Caucus will be held (February 4th). Romney is expected to win there, as he did in 2008. He won't get much credit for this firewall, as the Mormon vote will play a big role. But Romney will at least be able to claim a 2-2 tie with Gingrich.

There are four non-binding contests in early February, taking place in Maine, Colorado, Minnesota, and Missouri. Romney is expected to win most or all of these, as he won Maine, Colorado, and Minnesota in 2008, and since Gingrich failed to qualify for the ballot in Missouri. (Gingrich will claim Missouri doesn't count, but Romney will credibly argue that Gingrich's failure to get on the ballot is significant in and of itself.) Having done well in these contests, Romney will regain some momentum lost after defeats in South Carolina and Florida. If Romney sweeps Nevada and the four non-binding contests, his campaign will begin pushing the narrative that Gingrich can only win in the South.

On February 28, there will be two primaries, in Arizona and Michigan. The situation in Arizona won't be totally clear for some time, but it should be a reasonably good state for Romney. Michigan is expected to be a strong state for Romney, since it's his home state and the state where his father served as governor.

Thus, although Gingrich's chance of winning the nomination would increase substantially upon winning Florida, his momentum would be blunted by Romney's wins in the February contests. That indicates Gingrich's best scenario is a protracted battle, since an outright win is not possible under these conditions. At most, Gingrich would be considered even with Romney; at worst, the narrative would be that the momentum has shifted against him again. By contrast, an outright win is possible for Romney if he wins Florida.

Who Won the Republican Debate on January 23rd?

In tonight's debate, Newt Gingrich failed to live up to the high expectations that have been set by his previous debate performances. Mitt Romney, who had been on the defensive in the last few debates, shifted to offense. Romney did a good job attacking Gingrich, and managed to look tough without looking nasty. Gingrich defended himself fairly well at first, but he showed vulnerability as time went on--near the end of his extended one-on-one exchange with Romney, Gingrich was (uncharacteristically) at a loss for words for a moment.

But the debate was not a clear-cut victory for Romney. His central line of attack against Gingrich was Gingrich's lobbying and taking money from Freddie Mac. Romney would have done better to directly attack either Gingrich's lack of conservatism or lack of electability. The lobbying charge would presumably be aimed at Gingrich's electability, but is not as direct as, for example, Romney's earlier attacks that Gingrich is "zany" and undisciplined.

Romney showed discipline when attacking Gingrich, but made a gaffe on the subject of illegal immigration. When asked how illegals would be forced to return home if they were not "rounded up," Romney explained that illegals would do "self-deportation." Romney went on to describe that if employers didn't hire illegals, illegals would not be able to find work and would return home to begin the process of legal immigration.

Ironically, when Rick Santorum was asked whether "self-deportation" was feasible, he immediately said that it was and that it was already happening, with many illegals returning to Mexico due to the bad economy. Regardless, Romney's use of the phrase "self-deportation" makes an easy sound-bite and could hurt him by making him appear soft on illegal immigration. Romney may have been attempting to curry favor with the Cuban vote in Florida, but a gaffe is a gaffe.

Fortunately for Romney, he dealt with the tax return issue quickly, was not challenged on Bain Capital, and largely was not attacked for Romneycare or flip-flopping.

Gingrich did not get the opportunity to have a stand-out moment in the debate. The debate moderators never gave him a chance to attack them for being too liberal.

Santorum was mostly out of the debate, since the action focused on Romney and Gingrich. Interestingly, Santorum chose not to go on the offensive against either Romney or Gingrich until his closing remarks. Meanwhile, Ron Paul was irrelevant and received little attention.

Debate Tomorrow on NBC

The latest installment of the January debates will take place tomorrow at 9:00pm Eastern on NBC. As with the week before South Carolina's primary, debates are scheduled for Monday and Thursday this week. Florida's primary will be held next Tuesday, on January 31st.

Mitt Romney enjoyed a big lead in all of the Florida polls, but they were taken prior to Newt Gingrich's win in South Carolina. All of the candidates will likely see both Romney and Gingrich as threats to win the Florida Primary. Rick Santorum, in particular, ought to feel the need to go on the offensive. Gingrich has tended to shy away from attacking other candidates during debates, as has Romney. Tomorrow's debate may be the first time each feels a compelling need to attack the other.

The debates present both an opportunity and a danger for Gingrich. He has been comfortable at the debates, and has used them to his advantage. However, he has also built the debates into his campaign narrative: Gingrich claims that he is electable solely because he is so good at debates. As the idea goes, even though polls show Barack Obama beating Gingrich by a wide margin, Gingrich would beat Obama in the debates.

Therein lies the danger for Gingrich: If Gingrich does badly at a debate--particularly if he suffers in one-on-one exchanges with Romney--his narrative is undone before a live audience of millions. Expectations are so high that even a single poor debate performance could cause Gingrich's electability argument to collapse like a house of cards.

The media narrative is that Gingrich is very good at debates. But as Elephant Watcher observed in December, Gingrich has not fared particularly well when he's been in one-on-one exchanges with opponents. He has not done that well at what one would ordinarily call "debating," that is, arguing back and forth with an opponent. Instead, he has gotten applause during the debates by delivering interesting answers and criticizing the liberal debate moderators (who can't fight back). Thus, the media and the audiences seem to have conflated "being good while at the debates" with "being good at debate."

This presents the big question for Gingrich: If he doesn't get an opportunity to chew out a debate moderator, and if he shrinks when he's attacked by Romney or Santorum, what happens to his electability argument?

Meanwhile, Romney has his own electability argument to consider. Essentially the entire reason for Romney's current support is that he is considered the most likely to defeat Obama. The polls alluded to earlier support this belief. Though Romney deflected the Bain attacks well, they were an attempt to undermine his electability. The questions about Romney's tax returns and overseas investments also serve to cast doubt on his electability. Romney's first priority should be to allay concerns about any financial skeletons he may have. Second, he should get into an extended debate encounter with Gingrich to prove that Gingrich is not the debate wizard he claims to be.

Gingrich Wins South Carolina Primary

Newt Gingrich won the South Carolina Primary on Saturday. Gingrich won 40% of the vote; Mitt Romney came in second with 28%. Rick Santorum, who was contending with Gingrich for the title of chief Anti-Romney, placed a distant third. Though Gingrich's win in South Carolina was anticipated by Elephant Watcher, Gingrich's late momentum took the media by surprise, adding to its effect. Until midweek, most political observers assumed Romney would simply win everything and enjoy a coronation instead of a real contest. Just as the media overreacted to Romney's New Hampshire win and his favorable early polls in South Carolina, the media will also overreact to Gingrich's win in South Carolina. However, there were two important developments that can be seen in South Carolina's results:

South Carolina Primary (99% reporting)
Gingrich -- 40%
Romney -- 28%
Santorum -- 17%
Paul -- 13%

The most important result was that Gingrich soundly beat Santorum. Given that Gingrich has already been ahead of Santorum in the Florida polls, Gingrich will credibly claim the mantle of the chief Anti-Romney. Santorum's support will melt away. Santorum's tie for first in Iowa (where he won a handful more votes than Romney in the recount) is irrelevant; Santorum really needed a big win there and what he did get wasn't enough to build momentum.

In consequence, the primary becomes a two-man race between Romney and Gingrich. But the odds are far from even: For Gingrich to get any further, he needs to make up a lot of ground and either win or place a very close second in Florida. Unlike South Carolina and New Hampshire, Florida is seen as neutral territory. With the Anti-Romney vote united behind one candidate, Gingrich has no excuse for losing Florida. If Romney beats him there, Romney is expected to also win Nevada, Michigan, and perhaps Arizona, which are the next major contests. The media narrative will turn just as quickly against Gingrich as it did in its favor here, and all will declare that "Gingrich only wins in the South."

The other important development in South Carolina is how much Romney improved on his 2008 performance in the state, when he placed fourth with only 15% of the vote. Romney probably won't get much credit for this, since only a week ago the media were expecting Romney to win South Carolina.

But the vital comparison going forward is not how Romney finished compared to early South Carolina polls. The reason why the 2008 comparison is more useful is that Romney came so close to winning the nomination that year: Romney came in second in Iowa, second in New Hampshire (by 5 points), won Nevada, and placed second in Florida (by 5 points). Improving by a half-dozen points--he improved by twice that in South Carolina--would mean victory.

If Gingrich is to become the frontrunner in this race, he must not merely beat Romney in one of Romney's weakest states; Gingrich needs to prove he can beat Romney in the rest of the country. Florida may be his last opportunity.

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.