Politics & Government

NORTH CHARLESTON, S.C. — As Mitt Romney faced the biggest challenge to his presidential aspirations since he announced his candidacy, aides acknowledged Friday what seemed unthinkable seven days ago: He could lose the South Carolina primary.

After what seemed to be back-to-back victories in Iowa and New Hampshire, Romney suddenly is confronting the prospect of leaving South Carolina as the winner of just one of the first three nominating contests.

Having lost his Iowa victory Thursday after a recount, Romney is in danger of being defeated in Saturday's primary by Newt Gingrich, who had been declared dead not once but twice in the past year, most recently when he finished fifth in New Hampshire. A new Clemson University poll of South Carolina voters released Friday showed Gingrich with a 6-point lead over Romney.

Campaigns work hard to manage expectations, and Romney's aides no doubt were mindful of that Friday as they spoke in relatively gloomy tones.

With his prospects of quickly wrapping up the race apparently diminished, Romney and his strategists began preparing his staff, supporters and high-dollar financial bundlers for a longer, rougher march toward the nomination.

"I said from the very beginning, South Carolina is an uphill battle for a guy from Massachusetts," Romney said, a shift in tenor from his more buoyant demeanor days ago. "I knew that. We're battling hard. The fact is that right now it looks like it's neck and neck; that's a pretty good spot to be in."

He opened a new line of attack against Gingrich by demanding he release records relating to a House ethics investigation that targeted him in the 1990s.

"Give me a break," Gingrich retorted after a boisterous rally in Orangeburg, saying the 1,271-page document is public. Gingrich, who released his 2010 federal income-tax return during Thursday's debate, has hounded Romney about releasing his returns. The former House speaker's campaign accused Romney of having a "panic attack" as his poll numbers dropped.

(The ethics investigation found Gingrich had mingled political and nonprofit enterprises and gave false information to investigators; the House, in an overwhelming bipartisan vote, reprimanded him and levied a $300,000 fine. While the 1997 report is public, a congressional panel reviewed many more documents.)

The tax-return problem

Despite Gingrich's recent surge, Romney's political operation dominates the field in terms of money and organization.

But his normally disciplined on-the-ground operation seems to be having difficulty adapting to the rapidly evolving political climate. His finance team felt compelled Friday to hold a conference call with nervous fundraisers and state campaign officials in which senior adviser Eric Fehrnstrom urged calm amid frustration at how Romney had handled calls to release tax returns.

Romney committed himself Friday to releasing several years of returns after hedging about his plans for weeks and drawing boos at Thursday night's debate as he equivocated on the subject. In a five-day span, Romney had gone from an all-out refusal to a reluctant pledge to release returns by April. He started by saying he would disclose a single year, but by Friday he said "it will be more" than one year.

Romney's aides and supporters balanced their task of lowering expectations with keeping as positive as possible.

"It's going to be tight, but the energy's been good all day," South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley said at a campaign stop with Romney in North Charleston. "... Nobody runs away with South Carolina."

While some Romney aides said they had not foreseen Gingrich's sudden rise in polls, they also said their operation was built to make it through a long process, if necessary.

A senior adviser, Russ Schriefer, said Romney ultimately would be fine. "We don't like to lose anywhere, but we're not going to run the table; no one has ever run the table," he said. "Ronald Reagan didn't run the table, George H.W. Bush didn't, George W. didn't." All won the nomination.

What helped Gingrich

Nonetheless, Romney's team clearly was thrown — perhaps along with the political world at large — by the swift turn of events. Strategists and outside advisers said Gingrich's rise began suddenly with the Fox News Channel debate Monday night. He drew a standing ovation with his defense of his description of President Obama as a "food-stamp president" and lambasted moderator Juan Williams, who asked whether such comments were not insensitive to black people.

Romney also faced what amounted to the first real sustained attack in television ads from opponents who, while relatively cash poor, also won support from super PACs financed by wealthy donors. An analysis of advertisements by Kantar Media/CMAG showed Romney and Gingrich were the subjects of roughly the same amount of negative advertising, a shift from Iowa, where Gingrich took the brunt of it.

Romney's advisers always knew his lead in previous polls was at least partly the result of a split in the conservative vote among Gingrich, former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum, Texas Rep. Ron Paul and Texas Gov. Rick Perry.

And while it remains to be seen how much Gingrich may be hurt by statements from his second wife, Marianne Gingrich, that he had asked her to enter into an open marriage, his forceful reply in the debate Thursday night — questioning the news media's motives for dwelling on it — seemed to play well with conservatives.

In fact, after days of polls showing men fueling Gingrich's surge, interviews with women at a GOP gathering in Charleston on Friday showed they were even more supportive than men of the way he handled debate moderator John King's question about the allegations.

Information from the Los Angeles Times and The Washington Post is included in this report.