COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — Newt Gingrich won the South Carolina Republican primary, defeating former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney to gain the upset victory in a dramatic turnaround from his earlier poor showings in Iowa and New Hampshire.
Television networks including ABC, Fox and MSNBC called the race before any vote tallies were available.
Exit polls showed Gingrich led by a wide margin among the state's conservatives, Tea Party supporters and born-again Christians. Romney held a small advantage among moderate and liberal voters.
Rick Santorum and Texas Rep. Ron Paul rounded out the field in a campaign defined by its unpredictability.
There were 25 Republican National Convention delegates at stake, but political momentum was the real prize.
In all, more than $12 million was spent on television ads by the candidates and their allies in South Carolina, much of it on attacks designed to degrade the support of rivals.
Romney and a group that supports him were already on the air in Florida with a significant ad campaign — more than $7 million combined to date. Florida's primary is Jan. 31.
Interviews with South Carolina voters as they left polling places showed nearly half saying their top priority was finding a candidate who could defeat President Barack Obama in the fall, followed by wishes for experience, strong moral character and true conservatism.
In a state with 9.9 percent unemployment, concern about the economy was high, and almost one-third of those voting reported that a household member had lost a job in the past three years.
The exit poll was conducted for the Associated Press and the television networks by Edison Research as voters left polls at 35 randomly selected sites. The survey involved interviews with 1,577 voters and had a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points.
One piece of primary day theater failed to materialize when the two men avoided crossing paths at Tommy's Ham House in Greenville, packed with partisans holding signs that read either "Romney" or "Newt 2012."
Romney rolled in earlier than expected and had left by the time Gingrich arrived.
Santorum, a former Pennsylvania senator, pinned his South Carolina hopes on a heavy turnout in parts of the state with large concentrations of social conservatives — the voters who carried him to his victory in Iowa.
Paul had a modest campaign presence here after finishing third in Iowa and second in New Hampshire. His call to withdraw U.S. troops from around the world was a tough sell in a state dotted with military installations and home to many veterans.
As the first Southern primary, South Carolina has been a proving ground for Republican presidential hopefuls in recent years. Since Ronald Reagan in 1980, every Republican contender who won the primary has gone on to capture the party's nomination.
Romney's stumbles began even before his New Hampshire primary victory, when he told one audience that he had worried earlier in his career about the possibility of being laid off.
He gave a somewhat rambling, noncommittal response in a debate in Myrtle Beach last Monday when asked if he would release his tax returns before the primary.
The following day, he told reporters that because most of his earnings come from investments, he paid about 15 percent of his income in taxes, roughly half the rate paid by millions of middle-class wage earners. A day later, aides confirmed that some of his millions are invested in the Cayman Islands, although they said he did not use the offshore accounts as a tax haven.
Gingrich benefited from a shift in strategy that recalled his approach when he briefly soared to the top of the polls in Iowa. At midweek he began airing a TV commercial that dropped all references to Romney and his other rivals and contended that he was the only Republican who could defeat Obama.
Gingrich also did not flinch when ex-wife Marianne said in an interview on ABC that he had been unfaithful for years before their divorce in 1999, and asked him for an open marriage.
Asked about the accusation in the opening moments of the second debate of the week, he accused the "liberal news media" of trying to help Obama by attacking Republicans. His ex-wife's account, he said, was untrue.
This report includes material from Bloomberg News.
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