Romney Loses Big In South Carolina

The South Carolina primary is now over, and Mitt Romney was defeated. Let me re-phrase that -- Mitt Romney got his butt soundly kicked in South Carolina. With about 99% of the vote in, here are the votes cast in the Palmetto State:

Newt Gingrich...............242,498 (40.37%)

Mitt Romney...............167,555 (27.89%)

Rick Santorum...............101,967 (16.97%)

Ron Paul...............77,972 (12.98%)

Herman Cain (Colbert?)...............6,316 (1.05%)

Rick Perry (Out)...............2,541 (0.42%)

Jon Huntsman (Out)...............1,187 (0.20%)

Michele Bachmann (Out)...............495 (0.08%)

Gary Johnson (Out)...............213 (0.04%)

TOTAL...............600,744

A week ago Romney was leading in the South Carolina polls, and all the talk centered around the "inevitability" of his winning the nomination. But a few days can be a long time in electoral politics. After Gingrich performed better in the debates and painted Romney as the poster boy for Wall Street greed (refusing to release his tax returns, hiding money in the Cayman Islands to avoid taxes, paying less of a tax rate than most in the middle class, and buying up companies to lay off workers and sell off their assets, etc.), Romney's support in South Carolina (and nationwide according to Gallup) began to crumble.

By primary day, Romney had no more illusions of winning. He was just hoping to keep it close and get some delegates out of the state. But he couldn't even pull that off. Gingrich beat him by 40.33% to 27.86% -- a difference of 12.48% (or about 74,943 votes). That's a thrashing, and has to be embarrassing for the Romney campaign. There's a long way to go and Romney still might win (because he has a ton of Wall Street money to spend), but the talk of his "inevitable" nomination is over -- at least for now.

Now the race goes to Florida, where the primary will be held on January 31st. Romney has spent a lot of money in Florida and was leading in the polls there by a good margin. Has that margin disappeared as the anti-Romney forces now have new hope? Will Gingrich get a big bump in Florida from his South Carolina trouncing of Romney? The next few days will tell the story. But one thing is certain -- this campaign will get much nastier (by both Romney and Gingrich). There is one thing that is in Romney's favor, and could save his butt in Florida. The state has early voting, and it is believed that about 30% of the vote has already been cast (before the Gingrich surge/Romney collapse was known).

Gingrich's huge victory has also given him the lead in the overall delegate count (since he won most of South Carolina's delegates, and maybe all of them). Here is the current delegate count according to msnbc.com (with 1,143 delegates needed to win):

Gingrich...............21
Romney...............18
Santorum...............11
Paul...............6

So far, the "anti-Romney" forces are winning 38 to 18. South Carolina just made this race a whole lot more interesting.