New Hampshire voters have “a long history of sending a message and jerking the front-runner around,” said Linda Fowler, a government professor at Dartmouth College in Hanover.
Romney’s margin in Iowa, the first contest of the 2012 presidential nominations, was just eight votes over former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum, according to the state party chairman, Matt Strawn. Texas Representative Ron Paul ran a close third.
A Suffolk University/7NEWS tracking poll of likely New Hampshire Republican primary voters conducted Jan. 1-2 found Romney, a former Massachusetts governor, maintaining a significant advantage over his rivals, with backing from 43 percent. Paul was next with 16 percent, followed by former Utah Governor Jon Huntsman Jr., with 10 percent; former U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich, with 9 percent; and Santorum, with 5 percent.
Solid Support
“Romney’s support here is very solid,” said Fergus Cullen, a political consultant and former chairman of the New Hampshire Republican Party. “There’s just been no indication at all that this is a campaign on the verge of collapse.”
Still, the state is known for punishing candidates who expect to win, and Romney, 64, decided to spend two of the six days left before New Hampshire voters go to the polls campaigning in South Carolina, which holds its primary on Jan. 21.
That “strikes me as someone who might be a little too confident,” said Andrew Smith, a pollster who directs the Survey Center at the University of New Hampshire in Durham.
High-flying presidential candidates who have fallen victim to the state’s upset tradition include Democrat Walter Mondale, who lost by 10 points to Gary Hart in 1984; Republican Bob Dole of Kansas, defeated by populist Pat Buchanan in 1996, and George W. Bush, beaten in the Republican primary by Arizona Senator John McCain in 2000.
Huntsman as ‘Underdog’
Huntsman, a former Obama administration ambassador to China who has campaigned almost exclusively in New Hampshire, appealed to factory workers yesterday to stick with that record of dashing front-runners’ hopes.
“All I want you to remember is that Huntsman guy, he’s the underdog,” he told a couple of dozen workers at the Tidland Corp. machine tool factory in Keene. “New Hampshire loves underdogs,” he said, adding, “We need your help and we need your support.”
The volatility of the Republican primary contest over the months -- in which virtually all Romney’s rivals have enjoyed a short-lived surge -- makes it less likely New Hampshire will defy expectations, said Cullen, who isn’t affiliated with a campaign. There is no one alternative who has the profile, organization or breadth of support to blindside Romney, he said.
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