Is Jon Huntsman a one-state wonder?
Former Utah governor Jon Huntsman appears to be the momentum candidate in New Hampshire ahead of today’s Republican presidential primary vote.
Tracking polls conducted in the race show him moving up, he put in his best debate showing of the race thus far on Sunday, he’s up on television and he even won the endorsement of the Boston Globe in recent days.
The fight for second behind former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney now appears to be between Huntsman and Texas Rep. Ron Paul. So, Huntsman now seems set to overperform the (admittedly low) expectations for him in New Hampshire.
But can he turn a second- or third-place finish in the Granite State into any sort of momentum heading in South Carolina?
No, according to most seasoned Republican operatives who have spent considerable time working in Palmetto State politics.
“Any candidate with an unexpectedly strong showing in New Hampshire gets a spike in public attention which tends to provide some boost in South Carolina,” said Jon Lerner, who is pollster and media consultant for Romney-supporting South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley. “However, Jon Huntsman’s profile as the most liberal candidate in the field really limits his growth potential and makes him very unlikely to gain any meaningful traction.”
Others were even less charitable. “Jon Huntsman has a better chance of Obama re-appointing him Ambassador to China then he does winning a Republican primary in South Carolina,” said one veteran Palmetto State operative not aligned with any of the current campaigns.
The knocks against Huntsman, according to conversations with unaffiliated operatives? His time spent in the Obama Administration, his support for civil unions for gays and lesbians and his moderate tone on the campaign trail — none of which, they argue, is a good fit for the strongly conservative, evangelical voters in the state.
Huntsman has also not dedicated nearly as much time to South Carolina as he has to New Hampshire; according to the Post’s Primary Tracker, Huntsman has made 17 campaign stops in South Carolina, as compared to 158 in New Hampshire.
And unlike New Hampshire, where his polling numbers had been in the high single digits for the past few months, Huntsman is mired in the low single digits in South Carolina; in a recent CNN/Time poll in the state, Huntsman took just 1 percent of the vote.
Joel Sawyer, Huntsman’s South Carolina director, argued that his boss’s current standing means only that he has room to grow.
“When he comes to South Carolina, voters are not going to be taking a second look at him; they are going to be taking a first look,” said Sawyer. “Voters in South Carolina don’t know much about Gov. Huntsman right now.”
The Huntsman campaign’s optimism is largely based on what they believe to be the strongest organization of any candidate in the state.
“We have by far the best ground game in the state,” said John Weaver, Huntsman’s chief strategist. “I think from a ground organization perspective, we’re in really good shape. We just don’t have name ID, but we can fix that.”
Huntsman’s South Carolina team is remarkably similar to the team that won the state for Sen. John McCain (Ariz.) in 2008, with Richard Quinn serving as the lead in-state strategist for the effort. Even Huntsman’s main surrogate in the state — former state Attorney General Henry McMaster — played a similar role for McCain four years ago.
Still, it seems — at the moment — like very much an uphill climb for Huntsman in the state. Romney will do everything he can to consolidate the establishment/country club wing of the GOP behind him, while former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum, former House speaker Newt Gingrich and Texas Gov. Rick Perry are all making an aggressive play for the evangelical vote.
That jockeying is likely to leave Huntsman left out.
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