5 reasons why February will be tough for Gingrich
This will be a tough month for Newt Gingrich. The former House speaker has lost momentum following his win in South Carolina, he lacks free media opportunities and he can't match Mitt Romney in money or organization -- as the race heads into states that are strong for Romney.
Below, five key reasons why February will be challenging for Gingrich's campaign:
Romney friendly landscape: There are eight caucuses or primaries in the five weeks between Florida's vote and the "Super Tuesday" group of 10 contests on March 6 (Super Tuesday isn't what it once was; there used to be 21 states voting on that day). Nevada, Missouri, Minnesota, Colorado, Maine, Michigan, Arizona and Washington are the states, representing 250 delegates (there are 437 on Super Tuesday). Romney won five of the eight last time: Nevada, Minnesota, Colorado, Maine and Michigan. He came in second to favorite son McCain in Arizona and dropped out before Washington.
In addition to history, Romney has organization. Several of these states are caucus states which require organization which Romney has. Ron Paul could also come in ahead of Gingrich in some places.
Romney has money: At the end of last year, Romney had $20 million cash on hand to Gingrich's $2 million. Gingrich raised money in Jan. but burned through a lot of it on ads. Billionaire Sheldon Adelson, who has already given $10 million to the super PAC backing Gingrich, tempers this a bit, obviously.
No debates: There are 20 days before the next debate -- February 22 in Arizona -- which limits Gingrich's ability to leverage free media.
Bad polls: Newt has argued that Florida didn't matter because he was up in the national polls. But he no longer leads in national polls. He is down six points in Gallup to Romney. Gallup also shows that Gingrich does the worst in head-to-head polling against President Obama of the remaining GOP candidates.
Hand-wringing: Republican elites had scheduled a preliminary hand-wringing session to worry about how a protracted fight with Gingrich might damage Romney's chances to beat a vulnerable president, but they were given something else to fret about with Romney's comments on Wednesday about the poor. (The attack from the right was that Romney is a terrible politician and even his full context answer was not very conservative.) Soon enough though, they'll be back to worrying about how the fight is killing Romney with independents.
The one good thing going for Gingrich is that he seems to do best when he's counted out.
Full CBS News coverage: Newt Gingrich
