Exit poll interviews from South Carolina, where Gingrich won by 12 percentage points, perfectly illustrate the dynamic.
Of those voting in the primary, 36 percent described themselves as “very conservative’’ and 32 percent said they were “somewhat conservative.’’ Among the first group, Gingrich got 48 percent of the vote, Santorum 23 percent, and Romney 19 percent.
Gingrich also won the backing of 48 percent of those describing themselves as backers of the Tea Party movement. Romney and Santorum basically tied, with the former at 21 percent and the latter at 19 percent.
Romney won among those labeling themselves “moderate.’’ He led all candidates with 36 percent of the vote, compared with 31 percent for Gingrich and 14 percent for Santorum. He also garnered the largest vote - 32 percent - of voters who said they were Tea Party opponents. Gingrich got just 19 percent of that bloc.
The competing party tensions have now played out in the first three contests.
In Iowa’s leadoff caucuses, Santorum won by a 10th of a percentage point, basically splitting the vote with Romney and Ron Paul.
Romney then won by 16 percentage points in New Hampshire, although as a former Massachusetts governor he had an undeniable home court advantage.
And now Gingrich has prevailed in South Carolina. While it, too, is a neighbor to his home state of Georgia, it also was the battleground where the darkest elements of his private life were laid bare for public evaluation.
Paul, meanwhile, placed fourth and made it clear that he is no longer running a national campaign.
The Texas representative said he will largely skip Florida, the next to vote on Jan. 31, and concentrate instead on smaller caucus states like Nevada and Maine as he tries to preserve his campaign budget while picking up delegates.
Gingrich tried to consolidate his gains Saturday night with a speech that amounted to a slash-and-burn march through the “elites’’ in the media and Washington-to-New York corridor.
“The American people feel that they have elites who have been trying for half a century to force us to quit being America and become some other kind of system,’’ said Gingrich.
