hour for the state s primary. you are looking at the cnn express bus. gingrich is creeping up. romney is still the front-runner. today, the two battle it out at breakfast. they will both be at the same diner at the same time. we ll begin talking to tommy or tommy s ham house live this morning. imagine being stuck in a greyhound station for more than 17 hours. that s what happened to these people after a winter storm moved in. heavy snowfall is expected today in parts of the u.s. reynolds wolf will have the latest forecast. but, we start in south carolina where the curtain comes up on the republican presidential primary in a little while from now. where do we stand? paul steinhauser has a quick look. reporter: good morning, gary. polls open in an hour from now. so much at stake in this primary. listen, we saw the battle between romney and gingrich two nights ago. romney s lead shrinking in the polls here. gingrich moving up. don t count out rick santorum. he had a strong
mitt romney is in front, ron paul second, santorum third, and gingrich in fourth. in the polls right now, in the critical primary in the state of new hampshire. paul will face off against his republican rivals in two debates in new hampshire this weekend. paul steinhouser joins me now from manchester. is this now a battle for second place? we know mitt romney is strong in the polls, he was governor of massachusetts. is this second place? reporter: gary, i think that s a very, very fair statement. everybody knows him here, you re absolutely right. he owns a vacation home up here. and he s up here a lot helping out fellow republicans. he s a known commodity here. as you said, the battle is for second place. hopefully with the candidates battling for second, what they re hoping for is getting a little mojo to move on to south carolina. where it could be a little more wide open. you mentioned romney just a few minutes ago, he had that rally not too far from where i am.
soil this morning. we ll tell you how the 15-year-old dallas girl ended up in colombia and how she was located. and what does slavery and math have to do with each other? a teacher gives a math test with word problems such as, if frederick got two beatings per day, how many beatings did he get in one week? we ll tell you the full story, and we want your reaction. send your thoughts to gary tuchman cnn on twitter. he s on trial for murder. joran van der sloot sits in court yawning. hear what the judge had to say about his behavior. we start with the republican presidential race and the battle for the granite state, new hampshire. the candidates have two debates there this weekend. but that doesn t mean they re scaling back on the personal appearances. this is mitt romney holding a rally in dairy, new hampshire. he s been dominating the polls in new hampshire, but now rick santorum may have some momentum. paul steinhouser joins me from manchester, new hampshire, early in th
dark red is romney, purple san tomorrow ru tor rum. i talked to him several hours ago. wolf. he said the plane will be warmed up in the morning, i m going to aiken, south carolina. obviously the people in iowa, people in iowa humbled rick perry tonight. sounded like he was going home to call it quits. the question in new hampshire, south carolina, beyond, who does that benefit? senator santorum will think it s him. speaker gingrich will think it s him. we re going to watch this play out. we re waiting for the final votes. we re up to 97%. see rick santorum with the tiniest lead. 27-10. do i have that right? is that 37 votes? that s 37 votes. i wasn t so bad at arithmetic. that s 37 votes. that s nuts, right? can he make it up? can romney catch up? can santorum pad the lead? story county, 2.7% of the population, only 67% of the vote in from from this county right now. santorum third. not a lot of votes, if the
tonight. unfirefight for senator santo m santorum, a lot of counties in the middle, i m not taking anything away from themes are smaller counties population wise. he s ahead by five votes. will that hold up? we need to see the final precincts come in. looking at the map suggests it will not hold up. story county, a large county. 2% of the precincts out. governor romney winning here. santorum third. when you get to 98% very rare do you see a structural change. with 2% precincts coming in, likely to pick up votes there. let me move to the eastern part of the state. dubuque, big romney country. 100% of the vote in here. come down a little bit south. ron paul is winning this county. jackson county. governor romney coming in second. if these percentages hold up, a chance for governor romney to pick up a few votes there. we ll see if senator santorum can pick up the gap. move down. more votes out here. 3% in clinton county. mitt romney winning here. the possibility exists, this narrow margin