Romney Takes Nevada as Voters Head to Polls in South Carolina

COLUMBIA, S.C. — Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney took a big, though largely uncontested, win in Nevada's GOP presidential caucuses while South Carolina voters were deciding a race that looked to be a tight battle between Arizona Sen. John McCain and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee.

The two Saturday contests were the final GOP battles before Florida's Jan. 29 primary that will mark ex-New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani's active entry into the scrambled fray.

As he flew from Nevada to Florida on Saturday, Romney, who gave up on South Carolina last week, said his business background has become a key in a nation with a faltering economy.

"The need for changes is even more apparent today as our economy faces challenges both here at home and abroad," Romney said in a statement. "With a career spent turning around businesses, creating jobs and imposing fiscal discipline, I am ready to get my hands on Washington and turn it inside out."

Indeed, entrance polls showed that Nevada Republicans named the economy and illegal immigration as their top concerns. A plurality of caucus participants with those concerns sided with Romney – who now has won Michigan, Wyoming and Nevada.

About half his Nevada support came from members of Romney's Mormon faith, who are a large populace in the state. Entrance polls showed that a fourth of caucus-goers were Mormons, and more than 90 percent of them backed Romney.

Saturday's balloting marked the end of the first phase of the GOP race – a phase in which candidates picked their battles and no contest involved all the major contenders.

None of the six included any significant effort by Giuliani, a one-time national front-runner running on a late-state strategy that begins in Florida, the next contest, and is keyed on the Super Tuesday contests around the nation on Feb. 5.

Saturday's Republican results in South Carolina and Nevada added to the scrambled scorecard GOP voters around the nation have amassed to date.

In Iowa, Huckabee and Romney, the only major candidates who made major efforts, finished first and second. In Wyoming, Romney finished first after being the only candidate who campaigned there.

In New Hampshire, top three finishers McCain, Romney and Huckabee made significant efforts. Michigan native Romney won that state, followed by McCain and Huckabee. They also were the only three candidates who ran hard in Michigan.

In Saturday's contests, McCain, Huckabee and Thompson ran hardest in South Carolina, with Romney the only one trekking to Nevada in the closing days.

Florida will be Giuliani's first test, and he has a lot riding on it. He and his team remain confident he will get the nomination despite being off the radar in the four contests prior to Saturday.

But two Texans backing two different candidates differ on whether Giuliani can pull it off.

"Never been an election year like we're in," Gov. Rick Perry, a Giuliani backer, said Friday on Fox News. "There is no clear leader for sure. And the mayor is at the top in Florida, where he wanted to be, where he expected to be."

And, Perry acknowledged, where he needs to be.

"Obviously, he needs to do well in Florida," he said, defining doing well as a top three finish but then adding "I think he's going to win Florida."

Three recent Florida polls showed a bunched-up race. All three showed McCain leading, but with Giuliani (as well as Huckabee and Romney) still in contention.

Former Texas Sen. Phil Gramm, who traveled with McCain in South Carolina, said Giuliani is counting on a dicey strategy.

"Maybe it is possible after being a nonfactor in all these states to suddenly become a front-running candidate," he said in Florence, S.C. "But it certainly will make history if it happens."

"It's a free county," said Gramm, whose 1996 bid for the GOP presidential nomination died in Iowa. "You can do it however you want to do it. But normally the people who win are the people who start running at the beginning and are still running at the end."

McCain declined to publicly pass judgment on the Giuliani last-man-in strategy.

"I think that every candidate chooses their strategy," he said in Myrtle Beach, "and as a former loser I'm not very good at making those recommendations."

A Jan. 9-13 national survey by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, completed prior to the Michigan primary, tracked Giuliani's falling star. Nationwide, he was in fourth place with 13 percent, down 13 points from November and 16 points behind front-running McCain.

"Giuliani's support among Republicans, as well as his personal image, has declined sharply in recent months," the poll reported, noting that 36 percent of GOP voters now say they have an unfavorable opinion of Giuliani, up from 15 percent last August and 5 percent in April 2006.

His once large advantage in perceived electability also has plummeted. In November, 45 percent of respondents tagged Giuliani as the Republican with the best chance of winning in November, McCain was a distant second at 16 percent. But this month, only 17 percent said Giuliani was the most electable Republican, a distant second to McCain (42 percent) and only two points better than Romney and four better than Huckabee.