Jon Huntsman bowed out of the Republican presidential race on Monday morning and endorsed Mitt Romney, winnowing the GOP field and giving Romney a boost just five days before South Carolina’s pivotal Jan. 21 primary.
Jon Huntsman
Restore Our Future, the super PAC backing Mitt Romney, has spent $8.9 million on the GOP presidential race, more money than any other group. Throughout the fall it held its fire, as Ron Paul pumped money into ads in Iowa and New Hampshire, and Rick Perry’s super PAC launched hefty buys in the Hawkeye State and South Carolina. But when Newt Gingrich rocketed to the top of the polls in early December, the pro-Romney group pounced.
With Mitt Romney leading the GOP presidential race and traditional Evangelical influence appearing to wane, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is playing an increasingly significant role in the American political conversation. On Thursday the Pew Forum on Religion in Public Life unveiled an in-depth look at public perceptions of American Mormons — [...]
New Hampshire voters are famously fickle. They venture out on cold January mornings to shake a candidate’s hand, look him in the eye and judge the mettle of the man, polls and pundits be damned. This is where conventional wisdom comes to die at the hands of flinty Northeastern sensibility. Except when it doesn’t.
In a final, frantic day of campaigning before Tuesday’s New Hampshire primary, the six Republican presidential hopefuls sought to calibrate expectations for a race from which Mitt Romney’s healthy lead has sapped much of the late drama.
Bedford, New Hampshire The Granite State had been worked to a fever pitch by Monday, as candidates made their final appeals before the long-anticipated primary. In the sleepy New Hampshire hills, the buildings overflowed. Crowds of reporters swallowed candidates and innocent bystanders alike. And the kooks and activists came out to play. Welcome to primary [...]
At St. Anselm College, ABC News asks Jon Huntsman to come on stage first. Rick Perry peeks from behind the curtain instead, followed by the others. Huntsman is last out. Typical. This is not a good sign. Reality shows end with the big double-episode season finales, so the GOP has scheduled back-to-back debates the weekend before the New Hampshire primary, with a 10-hour delay in the middle. There is a long way to go.
Concord, New Hampshire In the final days of his long New Hampshire barnstorm, Jon Huntsman has grown comfortable in a role he never expected to play. “I’m the underdog in this race,” Huntsman told a crowd of college kids and a few dozen reporters at a Concord hotel Friday morning. “New Hampshire loves an underdog.”
Now that we’re into the endgame in New Hampshire, people are beginning to focus on whether Jon Huntsman stands a chance at making a serious run at Mitt Romney. After all, Huntsman is sort of the Granite State version of Rick Santorum, right? He’s been camped out in the state for months, hitting its smallest [...]
When the bean counters finished tabulating the results from the 1,774 precincts that decide the Iowa caucuses, eight votes separated the victor, Mitt Romney (30,015) from the runner-up, Rick Santorum (30,007). Marvel at that for a moment. Eight votes out of more than 100,000. That is democracy. That’s Iowa. The Corn Bowl. Civic sport at [...]
