After one of the wildest, most tumultuous weeks of the 2012 GOP presidential race, South Carolina voters finally head to the polls Saturday to cast their ballots in the Republican primary.
At the end of the day, Mitt Romney could be barreling toward Florida, poised for a Jan. 31 kill shot. But it could just as well be Newt Gingrich whose fortunes are looking up, bolstered by a victory that will make it hard to count him out for the near future.
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Below are POLITICO?s five things to watch as the polls close:
1) The point spread
Given the volatility of the South Carolina race, the biggest question is still who will win. But the next guessing game is about just how close the finish will be.
The momentum is clearly on Newt Gingrich?s side, and he has been ahead in the last two days of public polling. But a large swath of voters are undecided, and Mitt Romney could still pull out a win.
Gingrich has made clear he?s moving ahead to Florida regardless of where he finishes in a race that has been largely redefined as a two-man contest in the final week. So the question will be, how definitively does Romney or Gingrich win?
Romney would love, obviously, to finish with a decisive first-place finish ? preferably by a margin of four percentage points or more. A win would not only make his move toward the nomination almost impossible to stop, but it would poke holes in Gingrich?s arguments about Romney as too moderate to capture conservative hearts.
Given the state?s conservative, Southern and evangelical makeup ? it?s a place where Romney?s camp has long feared secret pockets of anti-Mormon sentiment ? a victory would be a significant achievement. He was never the likely victor in South Carolina, despite polls showing him way ahead after his New Hampshire victory.
But if Romney wins with Gingrich as a close second, the former House Speaker will feel emboldened to argue his own case ? especially since he was the victim of apparent dirty tricks in the final two days. And if he routs Romney by five points or more, the former Massachusetts governor will be in for a long week in Florida, where voters will go to the polls Jan. 31.
2) Regional performance
The key areas to watch for Romney are the coastal counties, home to more moderate voters, and places where John McCain fared extremely well in the 2008 primary. The coastal counties to watch? Charleston, Horry and Beaufort.
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