Gingrich’s campaign attacked Virginia’s Republican primary election system on Saturday after the state party said that the former House speaker had failed to submit the required 10,000 signatures to appear on the March 6 ballot. Texas Gov. Rick Perry also failed to qualify, the Virginia Republican Party said.
The Gingrich campaign responded that “only a failed system” would disqualify Gingrich and other candidates. It said Gingrich, who lives in Virginia, would pursue an aggressive write-in campaign in the state.
“Voters deserve the right to vote for any top contender, especially leading candidates,” Gingrich campaign director Michael Krull said in a statement.
“We will work with the Republican party of Virginia to pursue an aggressive write-in campaign to make sure that all the voters of Virginia are able to vote for the candidate of their choice,” Krull said.
However, state law says this about primary write-in campaigns: “No write-in shall be permitted on ballots in primary elections.”
“Virginia code prohibits write-ins in primaries. He can’t do it,” said Carl Tobias, a law professor at University of Richmond.
Gingrich’s campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The setback comes days before the Jan. 3 caucuses in Iowa, the leadoff contest in the campaign for the Republican presidential nomination.
Gingrich began rising in polls in early December, renewing his hopes of competing late into the primary season with chief rival Mitt Romney, the former Massachusetts governor.
He has tried to use the surge in popularity to make up for a late start in organizing his campaign. That Gingrich and Perry failed to get on Virginia’s ballot underscored the difficulty that first-time national candidates — many with smaller campaign operations and less money — have in preparing for the long haul of the campaign.
It also illustrates the advantage held by Romney. He’s essentially been running for president for five years, and his team, smaller than in 2008 but larger than those of most of his 2012 opponents, has paid close attention to filing requirements in each state. He will appear on the Virginia ballot, along with Texas Rep. Ron Paul, who also has run a national campaign before.
Ironically, Gingrich had a slight lead over Romney in a Quinnipiac poll of Virginia Republicans released earlier in the week.
Failure to compete in Virginia, which is among the Super Tuesday primary states, would be a huge blow to any contender who had not locked up the nomination by then.
Virginia Republican Party spokesman Garren Shipley said in a statement that volunteers spent Friday validating petitions that the four candidates submitted by the 5 p.m. Thursday deadline to the State Board of Elections. Shipley did not respond to telephone calls seeking comment.
“After verification, RPV has determined that Newt Gingrich did not submit required 10k signatures and has not qualified for the VA primary,” the party announced early Saturday on its Twitter feed.
Campaigns were required to submit signatures from 10,000 registered voters, including 400 signatures from each of Virginia’s 11 congressional districts. Tobias said Gingrich may have had trouble getting the required signatures in each congressional district.
Forty-six delegates will be at stake in Virginia’s primary. That’s a small fraction of the 1,144 delegates needed to win the nomination. But they could prove pivotal in a close race, especially for a candidate like Gingrich, who expects to do well in contests in southern states.
Gingrich had been concerned enough to deliver his signatures personally. Rushing from New Hampshire, which holds its first-in-the-nation primary on Jan. 10, he held a rally Wednesday in Arlington, Virginia, where volunteers asked supporters to sign petitions.
Meanwhile, Virginia’s Democrats said President Barack Obama’s re-election campaign gathered enough signatures to get him on the state’s primary ballot though he was the only candidate who qualified.
Other Republican candidates — Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann, former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum, and former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman — did not even submit petitions to get on the Virginia ballot. Bachmann and Santorum are pinning their hopes for remaining in the race on strong showings in Iowa where they are battling for the support of social conservatives who dominate the Republican caucuses. Huntsman has focused on New Hampshire.
In Iowa, Perry, Bachmann and Santorum are doggedly, if not desperately, traveling the state, in their individual quests for late-game surges in the Republican presidential race.
Running behind in the polls ahead of the caucuses, this trio of conservatives campaigned the old-fashioned way, in town squares, coffee shops and community centers. But time is short for them to rise. And, for Bachmann and Santorum at least, money is, too.
Bachmann and Perry each logged more than 1,000 miles (1,600 kilometers) last week aboard campaign buses that made stops at gas stations and catering companies, sports bars and churches. Santorum, who visited each of the state’s 99 counties on his own tour earlier this year, is spending the run-up to the caucuses returning to many of those places.
The three — their presidential candidacies likely come down to strong finishes in Iowa — are betting that Republicans here will reward them for engaging in the hand-to-hand, retail campaigning that Iowans typically demand of White House hopefuls. The leading contenders in polls — Romney, Gingrich and Paul — have simply popped into the state on occasion to woo voters rather than planting themselves in the state.
To varying degrees, Romney, Gingrich and Paul have chosen to compete primarily through TV advertising, nationally televised debates and interviews on media outlets like Fox News Channel. And that strategy has seemed to pay off for them; they are clustered at the top of the Republican field — at least for now.
Little more than a week before the caucuses, the race in Iowa is arguably any candidate’s to win given that polls show that many likely caucus-goers are still undecided or willing to change their minds. So, it’s not out of the realm of possibility that someone other than those three could get first, second or third place in the caucuses that typically winnow the presidential field ahead of the next-up New Hampshire primary.
