For more than 30 years, South Carolina’s political calling card was its perfect record of voting for the eventual Republican presidential nominee in its first-in-the-South primary – so much so that the state’s Republican Party slogan was “We Pick Presidents.”
Until, in 2012, it didn’t.
Newt Gingrich’s victory, which broke the Palmetto State’s streak that began in 1980, has national Republicans saying South Carolina is no longer an indicator of the eventual winner – and perhaps its spotless tally up until last year was more of a happy coincidence than anything else.
“There’s a little of ‘wet streets cause rain’ thinking,” said GOP consultant Mike Murphy of the state’s marketing of its perfect record.
Murphy added that even if a candidate doesn’t win South Carolina’s primary, the perception that he exceeded expectations there – plus a win in one of the earlier two states, Iowa or New Hampshire – can give the candidate a boost for the rest of the primary stretch.
“In the first three, if you’ve won at least one of them, but done well in perceptions in the other two, and you have the most firepower in Florida,” meaning enough money to play in the state’s expensive media markets, “you’re in pretty good shape,” Murphy said.
That’s what happened with Mitt Romney, the eventual 2012 GOP nominee, said a longtime consultant who advised the former Massachusetts’ governor’s 2008 and 2012 bids.
After spending a lot of time and money in the state in 2008, Romney’s distant third that year was “tough to spin as anything other than a big loss,” the consultant said. But in 2012 they “navigated a second-place finish much better, since we were careful not to raise expectations of a win in South Carolina, even when polls showed him in a strong position.”
For this consultant, perception mattered more than victory in South Carolina – but not so, he added, when it came to the following primary state – Florida. The Sunshine State is bigger, has a wider diversity of Republican voters, and much-pricier media markets.
“Florida, I believe, figures more prominently in the nomination calculation,” the consultant said, “since it’s more of a microcosm and you need big-time resources and an organization to survive the fight there.”
That doesn’t, of course, mean you can ignore the state entirely. Take Rudy Giuliani in 2008, who focused exclusively on Florida – without playing in the early three -- to his detriment.
Gingrich’s South Carolina win meant he was able to fight another day against the more well-heeled Romney campaign. But, Murphy said, “He couldn’t compete with Romney’s money in Florida.”
Romney went on to win Florida 46%-32% over Gingrich.
Even as national consultants say the state is no longer essential, activists and consultants on the ground in South Carolina will not cede an inch of their state’s importance in the presidential selection process.