In a typical year, GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump would not be holding a lead in South Carolina by such a large margin, but now there is a "tremendous rebellion by millions and millions of Americans who are really fed up with Washington," former House Speaker Newt Gingrich said Tuesday.
"It is almost as though if you have experience, you are discounted automatically because you are part of the group that didn't solve it," Gingrich told
Fox News' "America's Newsroom" host Bill Hemmer, breaking down how he thinks the state will play out in Saturday's primary election.
But the "turmoil vote," which Gingrich said will likely also come into play in the Nevada caucuses, may or may be the only thing that affects South Carolina's elections.
"South Carolina has a large influx of retirees along the coast," Gingrich said. "People like John Kasich are doing better than they would have. You go to Sun City and Beaufort and Myrtle Beach, [there are] very substantial numbers of people who moved out of Pennsylvania and Ohio are comfortable with a candidate like Kasich."
Meanwhile, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz is doing "very, very well" with the Evangelical Christian vote in the upper part of the state, Gingrich said.
The former speaker won in South Carolina four years ago, but that took a ground organization and winning in the debates "decisively," said Gingrich.
"We were competitive with [eventual GOP nominee Mitt] Romney until the debates and the debates decisively pulled us away and we won a surprising victory," Gingrich told Hemmer.
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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