Romney Wins New Hampshire; Paul 2nd, Huntsman 3rd
By AP / DAVID ESPO and STEVE PEOPLES

(CONCORD, N.H.) — Mitt Romney cruised to a solid victory in the New Hampshire primary Tuesday night, Jan. 10, picking up steam from his first-place finish in the leadoff Iowa caucuses and firmly establishing himself as the man to beat for the Republican presidential nomination.

“Tonight we made history,” Romney told cheering supporters before pivoting to a stinging denunciation of President Barack Obama. “The middle class has been crushed” in the past three years, he said. “Our debt is too high and our opportunities too few” — remarks that made clear he intends to be viewed as the party’s nominee-in-waiting after only two contests.

His rivals said otherwise, looking ahead to South Carolina on Jan. 21 as the best place to stop the former Massachusetts governor. Already, several contenders and committees supporting them had put down heavy money to reserve time for television advertising there.(PHOTOS: Road to New Hampshire: The Primary Campaign’s Final Days)

Even so, the order of finish — Ron Paul second, followed by Jon Huntsman, Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum — scrambled the field and prolonged the increasingly desperate competition to emerge as the true conservative rival to Romney.

Romney fashioned his victory despite a sustained assault by rivals eager to undermine his claim as the contender best situated to beat Obama and help reduce the nation’s painfully high unemployment. Gingrich led the way, suggesting at one point that Romney was a corporate raider, rhetoric that the front runner’s defenders said was more suitable to a Democratic opponent than to a conservative Republican.

Returns from 52% of New Hampshire precincts showed Romney with 37% of the vote, followed by Texas Representative Paul with 23%, former Utah governor Huntsman with 17% and former House Speaker Gingrich and former Pennsylvania Senator Santorum with 10% each. With his victory, Romney became the first Republican to sweep the first two contests in competitive races since Iowa gained the leadoff spot in presidential campaigns in 1976.

Romney won in Iowa by a scant eight votes over Santorum and gained barely a quarter of the vote there.

On Tuesday, he battled not only his rivals but also high expectations as the ballots were counted, particularly since his pursuers had virtually conceded New Hampshire, next door to the state Romney governed for four years.

Seeking to undercut Romney’s victory, Gingrich and others suggested in advance that anything below 40% or so would indicate weakness by the nomination front runner.

They didn’t mention that Senator John McCain’s winning percentage in the 2008 primary was 37%.

Romney’s win was worth at least four delegates to the Republican National Convention next summer. Paul earned at least two delegates and Huntsman at least one. Another four remained to be awarded, based on final vote totals.(VIDEO: New Hampshire’s Lesser-Known Candidates)

“Tonight we celebrate,” Romney told his supporters. “Tomorrow we go back to work.”

Rightly so. Already, candidates and political-action committees aligned with them were reserving enormous amounts of television time for the first-in-the-South primary in little more than a week.

Unlike in Iowa and New Hampshire, where unemployment is well below the national average, joblessness is far higher in South Carolina. That creates a different political environment for the race.

Texas Governor Rick Perry, who skipped New Hampshire to get a head start in South Carolina, said Tuesday’s results showed “the race for a conservative alternative to Mitt Romney remains wide open.”

Huntsman had staked his candidacy on a strong showing in New Hampshire, and he announced after the polls closed that he had passed his own test. “Where we stand is a solid position, and we go South from here,” he said.

About one-third of Republican voters interviewed as they left their polling places said the most important factor in choosing a candidate was finding someone who could defeat Obama in the fall. Romney won their support overwhelmingly.

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,2104170,00.html#ixzz1jAGyOAa9