wolf blitzer, gloria and john king will be here in a moment to talk about it. but first, two people that are very happy with the results. i spoke with newt gingrich s daughters, jackie and cathy. ladies, judging by the big grins on your faces, you re pretty happy down there. we re thrilled to be here in south carolina. it s a great place to be tonight. i bet it is. what an amazing turn around for your father. i ve spoken to him a few times and he was dead on arrival in the summer. he made this amazing comeback. then he was like the has been who had blown his chance. now he s the front-runner. how do you feel? very excited. i think what it proves to everybody, the american people, i think he s like the energizer bunny. he goes on and on and on. he s very persistent and that s one of the things we love about him. it seemed to me that his fortunes seemed to change rather dramatically when he stopped being saint newt, this word new creation he had come up with a halo an
charleston, south carolina. tonight, newt gingrich whose performance in tomorrow s primary election here will make or break his run at the presidency. no doubt, he s surging in the polls. you look that left right and center. the latest show him in striking distance of mitt romney. he s also ignited the fire storm, slamming the media of his ex-wife s accusation he wanted an open marriage. the destructive, vicious, negative nature of much of the news media makes it harder to govern the country, harder to attract decent people to runfor office, and rm i m appalled you would open a presidential debate with a topic like that. i caught up with newt gingrich today, about an hour and a half away from here, in a town called orangeburg, south carolina, to talk about the race, the issues, and yes, his private life. do you feel the momentum has changed for you over the past two days? i think it really began to change dramatically after monday night in myrtle beach. you could go b
a war. and the latest from a cruise ship that ran aground off the coast of italy. let s go outfront. good evening, everyone. i m erin burnett, and outfront tonight, we re live in charleston, south carolina. tonight, newt gingrich whose performance in tomorrow s primary election here will make or break his run at the presidency. no doubt, he s surging in the polls. you look that left right and center. the latest show him in striking distance of mitt romney. he s also ignited the fire storm, slamming the media of his ex-wife s accusation he wanted an open marriage. the destructive, vicious, negative media of much of the news media makes it harder to govern the country, harder to attract decent people to run forophilfor office, and rm i m appalled you would open a presidential debate with a topic like that. i caught up with newt gingrich today, about an hour and a half away from here, in a town called orangeburg, south carolina, to talk about the race, the issues, and ye
we ll see more of you tomorrow morning as well. meantime, this is a pivotal day in the 2012 presidential race. the nation s first southern gop primary is happening right now in south carolina and the contest promises to be quite the cliff hanger. we ll get you the latest dramatic poll numbers in just a moment. but first, the two leading contenders in the state, newt gingrich and mitt romney, actually ended up campaigning in the same spot this morning. tommy s country ham house in greenville, south carolina. cnn national political correspondent jim acosta was there to see it all unfold. so, jim, for a while we thought the two candidates were actually going to be at the restaurant at the same time, but it didn t quite happen that way, right? reporter: it did not happen quite that way, that s right. mitt romney showed up about a half hour earlier than expected, trying to get the upper ham, i guess you could say, if i could try that pun one more time. and he made it he ma
i want to start with peter hanby in charleston, south carolina. talk to me about the romney camp managing the expectations going into tomorrow s primary. yes, after a week ago when they were up for ten points in the poll, they aare bracing fora second-place finish here which is not expected. last night, romney said it is a four-person race and we never expected to win here, and sure we could lose, but we will go down to florida to where we have a organization and a lot of support. and today, he told reporters that it was an uphill battle here, and echoing the line, and look, the romney campaign wants to win here. they are spending a lot of money on television ads and in the mail, and radio, and governor nikki haley is campaigning with mitt romney, but the people i have talked to expect this to be an extraordinarily tight race tomorrow night. internal polling shows it is going to come down to the wire. it could be gingrich and romney and you are looking at santorum in third