Gingrich Aims For Repeat Of Tea Party Mobilization

Newt Gingrich mobilized the tea party vote to help him win the South Carolina Republican presidential primary, according to exit poll results and interviews with supporters.

Supporters of the conservative tea party movement were crucial to Gingrich's victory in Saturday's primary to be the Republican nominee facing President Barack Obama in November's election, exit poll data from South Carolina showed.

Almost two-thirds of Republican voters said they backed the tea party, a three-year-old, grass-roots movement focused on smaller government and fiscal reform. Among tea party supporters in the South Carolina primary, Gingrich had a lead over Mitt Romney of 20 percentage points.

The Gingrich campaign tapped into a network of experienced activists left over from the 2010 midterm elections, when the tea party helped to elect four new congressmen in the state.

Tea party backers, many of whom originally had supported Michele Bachmann or former pizza magnate Herman Cain before they dropped out of the 2012 race, worked the phones and bombarded social media in the final days of the South Carolina race.

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