Rick Santorum won the Iowa caucuses and finished second in the 2012 Republican primaries, but this time around he can’t even crack the top ten.
But Santorum aides say they aren’t phased by his exclusion from the main debate Thursday or recent staff cuts.
“The fact that these polls mean anything is misguided,” Santorum communications director Matt Beynon said. “Senator Santorum is in a strong position on caucus day to organize, that and he’s the only one to bring those people out to the polls.”
The former Pennsylvania senator didn’t rely on polls when he ran in 2012. At this point in the 2012 primaries Santorum polled in the single digits, and did not make his move until just days before the Iowa caucus. After that, he went on to win multiple states finishing as the GOP runner-up to Mitt Romney. But this time around, he has had to rebuild his support from scratch.
Santorum has been rallying against the Fox News debates from day one, stating the structure was “arbitrary,” “irrational and “meaningless,” further arguing that all candidates should be able to participate. In June, his campaign even released a petition urging Fox to change the debate rules, but it never picked up steam.
Santorum remains defiant.
“They probably need to apologize to the American public more than the candidates; they’re the ones not getting the opportunity to get a chance see all the folks who could win this race and who could actually be the best candidate for president,” Santorum told NBC News on Wednesday.
Santorum’s team is confident that the second-tier candidates’ forum will actually allow the veteran campaigner to have substantive conversations. without being overshadowed by Donald Trump.
“The idea that they have left out the runner-up for the 2012 nomination, the former four-term governor of Texas, the governor of Louisiana, the first female Fortune 50 CEO, and the 3-term Senator from South Carolina due to polling seven months before a single vote is cast is preposterous,” Santorum’s communications manager Matt Beynon said in a statement Tuesday.
Benyon went on to blame Republicans for sanctioning this process, stating, “they should not be picking winners and losers. That’s the job of the voters.”
Three of Santorum’s top campaign aides jumped ship in recent weeks to help with the Super PAC fundraising side of the effort, as they believed the campaign wasn’t bringing in enough cash to be sustainable. Now Santorum lacks a campaign manager and has lost a digital strategist and Iowa coordinator. Other members of the team have assumed their responsibilities.
Benyon claimed they have actually “streamlined” their staff and that the campaign manager was a “nontraditional campaign manager” anyway.
In the coming months, the Santorum team will try to replicate their 2012 winning strategy by visiting every county in Iowa, ignoring national polls until the last day and emphasizing the senator’s expertise.
“In the last campaign everyone said he was the last man standing, but he was the last one standing because he stood for something,” Beynon said. “Do you want the flavor of the month in August or the substantive candidate at the caucus in February?”
