While his team revealed last week that Newt Gingrich would end his bid for the Republican presidential nominationnext week and back Mitt Romney, the former congressional leader continued to campaign in North Carolina.
Gingrich is expected to get out of the race on Tuesday and officially endorse Romney, with whom he exchanged heavy fire back in January as they clashed in the South Carolina and Florida primaries. While Gingrich went on to win South Carolina, Romney came roaring back with a victory in Florida at the end of January. Gingrich would go on to win his home state of Georgia on Super Tuesday, but he carried no other states and lost out to Rick Sanotrum in a host of Southern states.
With five states in the Northeast holding primaries last week, Gingrich had hoped to do well in Delaware -- but he placed a distant second to Romney who swept all the contests.
Despite the results and the chatter from staff that Gingrich would be headed to the sidelines, the former congressional leader stumped across North Carolina, one of three states that will conduct primaries May 8. Gingrich was in the Tarheel State on Tuesday night last week as the primary results rolled in from the Northeast states and he continued to campaign there throughout the week. For example, on Friday the Gingrich campaign scheduled six events in North Carolina as the candidate toured a zoo in Asheboro, visited the Richard Perry Museum in Randleman and addressed Republicans in Fayetteville.
A poll from Public Policy Polling (PPP), a firm with links to prominent Democrats, unveiled on Wednesday (but taken before news broke that he would end his campaign), finds that Gingrich has a solid base in North Carolina but Republicans there are rallying behind Romney. Romney leads the poll of North Carolina Republican primary voters with 48 percent followed by Gingrich with 30 percent and Ron Paul in distant third with 12 percent.
While North Carolina Republicans generally have a positive view of Gingrich -- with 51 percent seeing him in a favorable light and 33 percent in an unfavorable one -- the poll shows that they are also increasingly leaning toward Romney. It shows that 61 percent of those surveyed have a favorable view of Romney while 25 percent see him unfavorably. Earlier in the month, a PPP poll showed that 51 percent of North Carolina Republican primary voters had a favorable view of Romney while 32 percent viewed him as unfavorable.
With the former speaker of the House headed to the sidelines, his supporters are now jumping off the Gingrich bandwagon to back Romney. On Wednesday, Gov. Rick Perry of Texas, who had endorsed Gingrich after ending his bid for the Republican nomination, announced that he was switching over to support Romney.
"Mitt Romney has earned the Republican presidential nomination through hard work, a strong organization, and disciplined message of restoring America after nearly four years of failed, job-killing policies from President Obama and his administration," Perry said. "So today I join the many conservative Republicans across the nation in endorsing Mitt Romney for president and pledge to him, my constituents and the Republican Party that I will continue to work hard to help defeat President Obama."
Reach Kevin Derby at kderby@sunshinestatenews.com or at (850) 727-0859.
