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Romney Braces For Defeat In South Carolina GOP Primary

Tracy Bloom |
January 21, 2012 | 12:13 p.m. PST

Deputy Editor

After a dramatic turn of events this week, Mitt Romney is now bracing for defeat in the South Carolina Republican primary as new poll shows Newt Gingrich with a commanding lead over the former Massachusetts Governor.

An American Research Group poll released Saturday - the same day as the primary - shows Gingrich leading Romney 40% to 26%, CNN is reporting. The poll, which was conducted Thursday and Friday, comes just two days after another ARG poll showed Gingrich and Romney in a statistical tie in the Palmetto State.

Overall, a Real Clear Politics average of poll shows Gingrich leading Romney by five percentage points.

The shift in polling also represents a shift in expectations. At the beginning of the week, Romney already had two victories under his belt - Iowa and New Hampshire - and was looking ahead to victories in South Carolina and Florida. However, things have shifted dramatically int he past few days. Among the developments, the Iowa state Republican Party declared Rick Santorum the winner of its caucuses on Friday, while it now appears that a Gingrich victory in South Carolina is highly likely.

Ahead of Saturday's primary, Romney's campaign downplayed expectations for how their candidate would perform. 

"It's tight, it's real tight," one Romney adviser said of the South Carolina race. Meantime, a top Gingrich strategist said the campaign was predicting a victory on Saturday.

However, there is the remote possibility that Romney could benefit from diminished expectations.

More from Salon: "The expectations for Saturday’s South Carolina primary have shifted so dramatically that even a razor-thin Romney victory will now be seen as a momentous triumph, while anything short of an outright win for Newt Gingrich will be regarded as a crushing disappointment."

A loss in South Carolina could represent a potentially devastating blow for Romney's presidential aspirations. The winner of the South Carolina primary has gone on to win the Republican nomination every time since 1980.

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