he s spent a lot of money in iowa. he thought he might win iowa. instead the disappointing debate performances without a doubt have disappointed his supporters. consider where we are. romney wins iowa with 25%. his primary challenger coming out of iowa is rick santorum who lost his last campaign in pennsylvania back in 2006. the questions on the conservative side is do we have a viable challenger? is this somebody who can contest mitt romney in south carolina which is the next big conservative context. new hampshire is the next contest six days from now. then south carolina, florida, nevada, arizona, on and on if you have a long race. the question in this race will it be decided by romney s momentum quickly or will we have a marathon. the perry calculation, if we can compete here in state number three, then we can regain our footing. after the disappointing numbers last night, they seemed to say it s not in the cards for us.
out for the primary which is more than some states have for the general elections which means it is the regular voters and not the activists who determine who wins in new hampshire and that is the biggest difference of the two states. the biggest difference on the republican side is that there are moderate northeastern republicans here compared to the more socially conservative republicans you see in iowa. and the news that rick perry is skipping new hampshire altogether, and how does that actually shape the race? well, not too much, because he had been polling 1%, so there is not a lot of his vote to go to other candidates, but one thing it does is to allow the socially conservative candidates, and socially conservative voters in new hampshire, and there are not that many of them, but it allows them to focus on a single candidate, and looks like they will be coalescing behind rick santorum here. i expect that santorum s poll numbers will go up as we get to
dan lothian in new hampshire for us. dan, thanks so much. after new hampshire the republican presidential campaigns head to south carolina, the site of the first southern primary on january 21st. david mattingly is there in aiken. david, michele bachmann had a big push scheduled there. now we ll have this news conference coming up at about 11:00 a.m. eastern time. what are you hearing? reporter: well, kyra, we talked to the people who are working here on the ground for the bachmann campaign. they re a little bit in the dark right now. they are going to be watching and listening to what comes out at this press conference at 11:00 today just like the rest of us. of course, you heard john king reporting earlier, source from the campaign, saying it very likely looks like it s going to be over here. the south carolina voters are probably wondering what s going to be next for their state if bachmann does drop out. they re also looking at rick perry. we re in aiken, south carolina, righ
real battle is. we are fighting against barack obama s very, you know, strong attempt to redefine what it means to be an american. and another thing that we have to keep in mind is that there s a game-changer this time around. you know, the states when you win a primary, it is not always winner takes all, because the delegates will be split up, and we don t know how that is going to impact the final outcome and we don t know if it is going to delay the process, and that concerns me. all right. christine o donnell, thank you for your time, and good to see you. the iowa caucuses are shedding new light on what some voters think about the republican presidential field, and we will look at how the tea party supporters voted up next. people with a machine.
hampshire, we have been pointing out how they are independent thinkers, and they don t necessarily embrace what others have voted on, specifically in iowa. so, you know, anything can really happen. that is one thing that we have so far concluded from the republican race is that anything can happen when someone is up, it does not necessarily mean they will win. one political observer pointing out that it is dangerous the reach any conclusions before all of the votes are cast. anything can happen. thank you, dan. we want to look further down the campaign trail, and after the new hampshire primary next tuesday, the campaign is heading south to the south carolina primary, 21st of january, and david mattingly joins us with an update from akin, south carolina. the primary is so much on the candidate s minds and so much so that rick perry is skipping new hampshire altogether, and headed to where you are.