After capturing the political spotlight with his second place finish in the 2012 Iowa caucus, Rick Santorum has traversed a rocky road in the days leading up to Tuesday's primary contest in the Granite State.
HuffPost's Howard Fineman reports:
Santorum's patient, open approach to campaigning -- as if he were a high school teacher conducting a town hall -- won him plaudits and votes in Iowa. It has not worked well in New Hampshire, but he told The Huffington Post in an interview Sunday that he will stick to it as he heads for South Carolina, his last and only chance to become the non-Romney conservative in the GOP race.
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Santorum has hoped for a strong finish in New Hampshire, but [with] Election Day [here] there seems little chance that he will finish in the top three. Unlike Iowa, there is no network of evangelical Power Pastors here for Santorum to impress, and to draw on. And while he has drawn some good crowds, many of them have been full of wary shoppers not sure they want a former senator who does not agree with the Supreme Court that there is a right of privacy in the Constitution.
Over the past week, Santorum has been unapologetic about his views and hasn't shied away from sparking controversy on the trail.
The Polls
HuffPost's Mark Blumenthal reports:
If ever there were a time when polls should be certain about something, it is that Mitt Romney will win New Hampshire's Republican presidential primary on Tuesday. At least 53 times over the past two years, and at least 24 times in the last two months, media pollsters have measured the preferences of likely voters in New Hampshire, and found Romney leading the Republican race every time, usually by large, double-digit margins.
The final round of tracking polls taken over the past weekend shows Romney leading Ron Paul and the rest of the candidates by margins of 15 to 24 percentage points. By the metrics of polling, Romney's victory in New Hampshire appears virtually assured.
Yet the same surveys are also full of uncertainty, particularly as reported by the voters themselves, and that margin of doubt leaves open questions about the size of Romney's likely victory and the identity of the candidates who finish second, third and fourth.
