Republican nomination battle
January 22, 2012
With 99.5 percent of the vote counted, Newt Gingrich, the former speaker of the US House of Representatives, secured a landslide victory against his rivals in South Carolina's Republican primary on Saturday.
With nearly all of the conservative southern state's precincts reporting, Gingrich pulled in 40 percent of the vote compared to 28 percent for his closest competitor, former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney.
"We don't have the kind of money that at least one of the candidates have," Gingrich said in his victory speech, taking a jab at multimillionaire Romney. "But we do have ideas and we do have people."
According to exit polls, Gingrich convinced South Carolina voters he would be the toughest Republican opponent against President Barack Obama in the November general election.
Romney on defensive
Romney has long been considered the favored candidate for the Republican presidential nomination, but his moderate record has failed to decisively convince the Republican Party's conservative base. Gingrich has sought to position himself as the conservative alternative to Romney.
"I don't shrink from competition, I embrace it," Romney told supporters. "I believe competition makes us all better. I know it's making our campaign stronger."
Former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum won 17 percent of the vote while Texas Congressman Ron Paul collected 13 percent of the ballots cast.
Three different candidates have won the three different primaries held so far; not unusual in the early stages of the US nominating campaign. Romney was victorious in New Hampshire on January 10. Although Romney had initially been declared the winner of the Iowa caucuses on January 3, the result was annulled after a recalibration of the vote tally revealed that Santorum was the actual winner by 35 votes.
The next battleground is the Florida primary on January 31, where Romney currently leads in the polls.
Author: Spencer Kimball (Reuters, AP, AFP)
Editor: Sean Sinico