Huntsman Quits - And It Doesn't Matter

Last week Jon Huntsman got 17% of the vote in the New Hampshire primary. In a fit it momentary euphoria, he declared that his candidacy was suddenly a credible one and implied that he could do equally well in South Carolina. Most of us knew that wasn't going to happen.

The majority of South Carolina Republicans are teabagger/evangelicals (who were trying to decide between Santorum, Gingrich and Perry). The rest are either libertarians (solidly in the Paul camp) or moderate establishment types (who were already on the Romney bandwagon). There simply wasn't any room in the South Carolina political landscape for Huntsman.

It took a few days, but the truth finally dawned on Huntsman. After finishing nearly dead last in several polls (beating only Roemer, who draws no support at all), and even being beaten in one poll by comedian Stephen Colbert, Huntsman realized he was just wasting time and money by continuing his campaign. He has now dropped out and thrown his support to Mitt Romney.

I suppose it is news that Huntsman has quit the race, but the media is treating this story as though it has some kind of effect on the Republican race for the nomination. It doesn't. Huntsman dropping out will not be any more of a help to Romney than his staying in the race would have hurt him. Neither was, or is, true.

The most credible polls had Huntsman getting somewhere between 1% and 6% of the vote in South Carolina. Personally, I think the 6I% figure was a very generous one, and I don't think he would have gotten that much of the vote on primary day. Even if every true Huntsman supporter in South Carolina did as Huntsman asked and voted for Romney, I doubt there would be enough of them to make any real difference.

Fortunately for Romney, it doesn't look like he's going to need any help from Huntsman. All of the polls so far have shown him with a statistically significant lead in the Palmetto State. And the latest poll to be released shows that his lead may be growing. The Insider Advantage poll has him with a double-digit lead now. Here are the numbers:

INSIDER ADVANTAGE POLL
Mitt Romney...............32%
Newt Gingrich...............21%
Ron Paul...............14%
Rick Santorum...............13%
Jon Huntsman...............6%
Rick Perry...............5%
Others...............2%
Undecided...............7%