Why South Carolina holds the key for resurgent Santorum

Rick Santorum, the resurgent Republican candidate, will compete in the New Hampshire primary, even though he has no real hope of winning it. All he needs is a respectable finish. The real prize is the next contest, South Carolina, so often the crucible in Republican nominating races. Its politics are deeply conservative, often nasty, and frontrunner Mitt Romney could struggle there. Santorum is only registering 2.7% in poll averages in the state, according to the RealClearPolitics website. But those figures are largely meaningless at this stage, because he will receive a big bump from his near-win in Iowa, a huge amount of media attention and an influx of badly-needed campaign funding. What he has do try to do in New Hampshire is establish himself as the main conservative alternative to Romney. That means coming out on top of a field that will include former speaker Newt Gingrich, congressman Ron Paul, former US ambassador and former Utah governor Jon Huntsman. In South Carolina, Texas governor Rick Perry will be added to the mix. Santorum's big problems Santorum could struggle in New Hampshire, a state that is much more liberal than either Iowa or South Carolina and where his anti-gay, anti-abortion views will meet strong resistance. With so many of his opinions already on record, it becomes difficult for him to pivot and present a more moderate face. Without a good finish in New Hampshire, the momentum he takes with him from Iowa fades. Santorum faces other difficulties, too. At the back of the pack until the final fortnight, he was largely left alone by his rivals. But he can now expect to face serious scrutiny, not least from Romney, who will have no reservations about repeating his demolition job on Gingrich in Iowa with an unrelenting flow of expensive television ads. Santorum is vulnerable, not only because of his social conservatism but because of his record in elections. Santorum is going to be put on the spot over how he managed to lose his Senate seat in 2006, one of the worst Republican defeats in Pennsylvanian history, coming in at 41% behind an anti-abortion Democrat, Bob Casey, who took 59%. South Carolina, like Iowa, is about small-scale meetings, with lots of meets-and-greets with voters and a succession of town-hall gatherings, the kind of politics that helped Santorum to do so well in Iowa. But Santorum had a year to do that in Iowa, holding 381 meetings. There are only 10 days between New Hampshire and South Carolina. Added to that, he does not have any semblance of an campaign organisation in place in the state. What Santorum has going for him in South Carolina His socially conservative views, which play against him in New Hampshire, could work in his favour in South Carolina. There is also widespread anti-Romney sentiment in the Palmetto State, and Santorum could capitalise on any desire for anti-Romney candidate to unite behind. The difficulty is the size of the field. Gingrich, topping the polls in South Carolina with 35% to Romney's 28%, could claim the anti-Romney mantle, as could Perry, though only registering 4% at present. Both have an advantage over Santorum as both are southerners (Gingrich is from Georgia and Perry from Texas, while Santorum was raised in Pennsylvania.) That still counts. Santorum has shown in his Senate races a capacity for fighting dirty, which is essential in South Carolina. In the 2000 nomination race, John McCain lost out largely because of an unsubstantiated rumour, believed to have been circulated by the Bush campaign, that he had fathered a black child out of wedlock. He and his wife, in fact, had adopted a child from Bangladesh. But Santorum is not alone in his willingess to fight ugly. So too can Gingrich, with years of experience in Congress, and Perry, having fought three elections for governor in Texas. Where Romney can prosper Even though Romney only scraped through in Iowa, it was still a win, and the narrowness will be largely forgotten, especially if Santorum loses momentum. If he, as expected, takes New Hampshire, that is two wins going into the south. His biggest asset in South Carolina is the fractured state of the field, with Gingrich, Santorum, Perry, Ron Paul and Jon Huntsman potentially splitting the vote to a big enough degree to let him squeeze through. Paul, with his fervant band of young campaigners, access to lots of cash and an organisation in place, can expect to pick up roughly 10% of the vote almost anywhere he fights. If Romney wins or even manages a second place, he will be well-placed for Florida, a more forgiving ground than South Carolina. In view of its size, the kind of retail politics seen in Iowa and South Carolina give way to vast spending on ads, and Romney can trump his rivals in that area. Gingrich, according to the Real Clear Politics poll average, is ahead in Florida, with 35% but Romney is close behind him on 28%. That is not an insurmountable gap, if he can get out of South Carolina unscathed. • This article was amended on 5 January 2012. The original described Bob Casey as a pro-choice Democrat. This has been corrected.