What a day! It turns out Rick Santorum won Iowa, Newt Gingrich is surging in South Carolina ... and now Rick Perry is pulling out of the race and endorsing Newt. We'll be tracking Perry's press conference—scheduled for 11 AM ET—live and will post video when it is available.
8:00 AM PT: You can watch it ad-free on C-SPAN. I'll put up an embed from MSNBC momentarily.
8:01 AM PT: MSNBC embed:
8:04 AM PT: Let's say Newt miraculously wins South Carolina: then, suddenly, Mitt's trifecta narrative (winning Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina) is turned upside down, because Santorum won Iowa, Mitt won New Hampshire (his backyard), and Newt Gingrich wins South Carolina. Inevitability might be the best thing Mitt's got going for him ... but if that happens, won't he lose it?
8:07 AM PT: Don't forget—there's another debate tonight, this time with just four candidates: Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich, Ron Paul, and Rick Santorum. Romney's campaign earlier in the week suggested he didn't want to do any more debates after South Carolina, but if he doesn't win convincingly in South Carolina, I don't see how can skip future debates, no matter how much he might want to duck and dodge. And, assuming he still wins the nomination, that means he's not going to be able to start flip-flopping on his conservative primary positions without leaving an even longer trail of video.
8:10 AM PT: PPP's Tom Jensen says they'll have fresh numbers both tonight and tomorrow night from SC, but warns the fast changing news increases the likelihood of a "2008 NH Dem style polling 'disaster'"—where all the polls fail to capture a late surge (in this case, by Newt).
8:11 AM PT: Perry is expected to take the stage momentarily. Over/under on whether he remembers Newt Gingrich's name?
8:14 AM PT: Perry thanks his "incredible staff." Well, I guess that's a class act, but his staff is as terrible as he was a candidate. Now he says the campaign has "never been about the candidates." Uh, actually, it is. America isn't on the ballot: the candidates are. And Perry turned out to be a bad one.
8:15 AM PT: Regarding his staff, remember that his campaign leadership worked for Newt Gingrich earlier in the year—until they tanked his campaign. Then they jumped ship to Rick Perry ... and helped him tank his. Despite Perry's endorsement, Newt would be a fool to rehire those guys in a leadership position.
8:16 AM PT: "There is no viable path forward for me in this 2012 campaign. Therefore, today, I am suspending my campaign and endorsing Newt Gingrich for President of the United States."
8:17 AM PT: "Newt is not perfect ... [but] there is forgiveness for those who see God."
8:18 AM PT: "I know when it's time to make a strategic retreat, so I will leave the trail and return home to Texas ... knowing I gave the fullest of myself ... as I return home I return with the love of my life ... my wife Anita ... she has been an incredible patriot during this process."
8:19 AM PT: Now Perry is talking about how proud he is of the policies he put forward. Tenth amendment, yada yada. Not mentioning his claims that Turkey is led by terrorists or that South Carolina is "at war" with the United States.
8:21 AM PT: So much of Newt Gingrich's surge is debate driven: He had a huge lead over Mitt Romney (43-27) among debate watchers in the first night of PPP's polling. Now, things like Perry's withdrawal and endorsement give him a big boost—and, simultaneously, Santorum's Iowa victory hurts Mitt's inevitability narrative.
8:24 AM PT: And Perry's event is over—he leaves the stage without taking questions.
8:28 AM PT: One final thought: obviously Perry's exit could help Gingrich because it leaves the conservative field less divided. But it also means that tonight's debate will focus much more on Newt vs. Mitt. Let's say they have about 80 minutes to fill excluding commercials. With 5 candidates, that's 16 minutes each. With four candidates that's 20 minutes each. 4 minutes doesn't sound like much, but it's actually 8 more minutes total of Newt and Mitt in which they can spar with each other—and given that there are now fewer candidates on stage, they will be forced to confront each other more.