Thompson exit seen as Huckabee lift

Fred Thompson’s quitting the Republican presidential contest will benefit former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee more than any of his principal rivals for the nomination, pollsters and pundits are telling The Washington Times.

“Huckabee benefits the most,” said Portland, Ore.-based Republican pollster Bob Moore. “Evangelical voters had fewer problems with Thompson. And evangelical leaders have problems with the background or views — or both — of John McCain, Mitt Romney and Rudy Giuliani.”

Some evangelicals hold suspect Mr. McCain for his harsh words in 2000 about the Rev. Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson. They are dubious about Mr. Romney for his Mormonism and his come-lately conversion to a pro-life view, and they strongly oppose Mr. Giuliani for his strong pro-choice stand.

Boston-based pollster David Paleologos suggests that if Mr. Thompson had stayed in the race he might have won as much as 16 percent of the vote in Tuesday’s Florida primary. Of that projected Thompson vote, Mr. Paleologos figured that Mr. Huckabee might get 5 percent, Mr. Romney and Mr. McCain 3 percent each, with the rest undecided.

Mr. Thompson and Mr. Huckabee, an ordained Baptist minister, share a certain Southern charm and talk of conservative values that appeal to Bible Belt voters, said Ohio-based Republican campaign consultant Brett A. Sciotto, who suspects the two Southerners were pulling votes from each other from Iowa to South Carolina.

With Mr. Thompson out, “Huckabee is a logical choice for them, but he must re-assert his ability to win soon to lock them down.”

Mr. Moore agreed, though he added that “I am not sure any of this is enough to get Huckabee the nomination” because “he is short of funds, and I am not sure that when it gets down to a two-way race for the nomination — as other candidates get out — that his views can carry the day.”

Mr. Paleologos added that the two Southerners were competing for the same vote, and voters uncertain or wavering between two candidates are likelier to pick the other if one drops out than they are to strike off in a whole new direction.

“It is more difficult for voters to transition from Huckabee to Thompson to Romney, than from Huckabee to Thompson to Huckabee,” he said.

Romney supporter David A. Keene thinks there’s plausible evidence to suggest his candidate may inherit more Thompson supporters.

“Thompson’s people say that in South Carolina his voters’ second choices were Romney and McCain and that the two were fairly evenly split,” said Mr. Keene, the American Conservative Union chairman who has been at philosophical odds with Mr. McCain and Mr. Giuliani.

“Thompson only had a small percent of voters in Florida at the end, however, and most of those voters were with him because they saw him as the conservative in the race,” said Mr. Keene. “My guess is that between now and Tuesday as the candidates in Florida face tough questions on immigration, Second Amendment issues and tax policy, a plurality of these voters will migrate to Romney.”

Scores of interviews suggest that the early rush in the polls to Mr. Thompson last year was driven by Republicans and conservatives looking for the closest approximation to Ronald Reagan. They saw Mr. Thompson as a charming, presidential-looking actor, while his meager contributions to Republicanism while in the Senate were dimly remembered at best.

Other Republicans of similar conservative tilt were eager or even desperate to stop Mr. Giuliani or Mr. McCain from carrying the party standard and so settled on Mr. Romney, figuring he was the most competent and most philosophically adaptable of those Republican candidates considered viable.

But some endorsements of Mr. Thompson are lost — at least for this election cycle. Rep. Adam H. Putnam, Florida Republican, “is unlikely to endorse anyone else at this point,” said Putnam aide Keith Rupp.