welcome to our special election edition of ac 360. south carolina voters put their stamp on the race for the white house. newt gingrich seizes the lead as the campaign heads for florida. newt gingrich is south carolina s choice. it s a major blow to mitt romney s campaign. this is a hard fight because there s so much worth fighting for. four republicans went into this southern brawl. who will be left standing as the contest moves to florida? the votes are in. south carolina has spoken. and the biggest battleground yet is still ahead. rick santorum at 17%. ron paul at 13%. all the candidates say they are moving forward to florida. we have reporters stationed throughout south carolina as we have for the last several weeks. let s start off with gingrich headquarters. there are still a lot of folks there, romney headquarters looks like a ghostown. does the candidate move to florida tomorrow? reporter: you know, we re still waiting to hear about his travel plans. it s
welcome to our special election edition of ac 360. south carolina voters put their stamp on the race for the white house. newt gingrich seizes the lead as the campaign heads for florida. newt gingrich is south carolina s choice. it s a major blow to mitt romney s campaign. this is a hard fight because there s so much worth fighting for. four republicans went into this southern brawl. who will be left standing as the contest moves to florida? the votes are in. south carolina has spoken. and the biggest battleground yet is still ahead. rick santorum at 17%. ron paul at 13%. all the candidates say they are moving forward to florida. we have reporters stationed throughout south carolina as we have for the last several weeks. let s start off with gingrich headquarters. there are still a lot of folks there, romney headquarters looks like a ghostown. does the candidate move to florida tomorrow? reporter: you know, we re still waiting to hear about his travel plans. it s
just five days to go before the first presidential primary of the year. a new poll shows no one is coming close to mitt romney in new hampshire. the former governor of neighboring massachusetts has a 23-point lead in a new poll of likely republican primary voters. his closest competitor in the new hampshire race right now, ron paul. the texas congressman. the rest of the pack trailing in single digits. that helps explain why romney now is turning his attention to south carolina where the january 21st primary is expected to be more competitive. in charleston this afternoon, he s there now, while most of his rivals stayed back in new hampshire. newt gingrich is turning the heat up on romney, doing four events in new hampshire today. jon huntsman has four events in the state where he s invested
that s not something that s going to translate. for example, he stands to lose badly in new hampshire. meanwhile, ron paul raising $13 million in the last three months. that tops the 8 million he raised in the previous corner. he, too, ran well in iowa, but once again, the chances are he s not going to be the republican nominee. newt gingrich, he raised $10 million in the last quarter, but a lot of that came when he was spiking until polls and that s a long time ago. of course, none compare to romney s expected haul of 20 million over the last three months. that s the thing. you can understand why people might want to plunk their money down on romney to win. he s looking more and more like the party s nominee every day. he s expected to win in a landslide in new hampshire and it seems unlikely at this point there s anything or anyone out there that s going to be able to
very funny stuff. very funny stuff. going to discuss that later with erin burnett, see how she feels about this. by a way, on a very serious subject, check out my blog today. cnn.com/situationroom. does mitt romney have it all wrapped up? see what i think. and jack cafferty is asking what does it mean when americans make up half of the world s richest 1%? your answers coming up. çtooool