By ALAN FRAM AND JENNIFER AGIESTA, ASSOCIATED PRESS
WASHINGTON ? Strong backing from conservative and religious voters and people fretting about the uncertain economy fueled Newt Gingrich's victory Saturday in South Carolina's Republican presidential primary, an exit poll of voters showed Saturday.
The figures also showed that for the first time, the former House speaker had grabbed two constituencies that his chief rival, Mitt Romney, has captured in the year's two previous GOP contests in Iowa and New Hampshire. By slight margins, he bested Romney among voters looking for someone to defeat President Barack Obama this November, and those who considered the economy the top issue in deciding which candidate to back.
Gingrich benefited most from the campaign's final, tumultuous week, the figures showed. Just over half said they'd chosen a candidate in the last few days, and they backed Gingrich over Romney, the former Massachusetts governor, by 2-1. By a slightly stronger margin, the roughly two-thirds who said campaign debates were an important factor also supported Gingrich. There were two GOP debates in South Carolina during the past week.
In the last days of the campaign, Romney stumbled badly when asked repeatedly whether he will release his income tax returns. Gingrich endured an allegation by one of his two former wives, Marianne, that he had asked permission for an open marriage while he was having an affair with his current wife, Callista.
That accusation seemed to take only a slight toll on Gingrich. Gingrich got less than 10 percent support from people who said what they most wanted in a candidate was strong moral character, but these voters were less than 1 in 5 of those who showed up Saturday at the polls.
In addition, Gingrich did slightly better than Romney among women, and polled a bit more strongly among married than unmarried women.
Gingrich won healthy margins among the state's conservatives, who comprise more than 6 in 10 voters in the state. While that was bad news for Romney, it was even more damaging to Rick Santorum, the former Pennsylvania senator who has been dueling with Gingrich to become the GOP's conservative champion and alternative to Romney.
Gingrich won among conservatives and tea party supporters by nearly 2-1 over Romney. Santorum was slightly behind.
Illustrating the sweep of Gingrich's victory over Romney, Gingrich triumphed among all age groups. The only income group that Romney won was people making above $200,000 a year ? 1 in 20 of those who voted Saturday.
Nearly two-thirds of voters Saturday said they are born again or evangelical Christians, and they backed Gingrich over Romney by 2-1 also.
More telling, 6 in 10 voters said it was important that their candidate share their religious beliefs. Nearly half of such voters backed Gingrich, while only around 1 in 5 chose Romney or Santorum.
About 8 in 10 voters said they were very worried about the direction of the country's economy, and they picked Gingrich over Romney by about a 4-3 edge.
Romney's earlier career heading Bain Capital, a venture capital firm, clearly wounded his prospects. During much of the campaign, Gingrich and others accused Romney and his company of killing jobs in the companies they bought and restructured.
Those blows showed on Saturday. According to the exit polls, Gingrich and Romney broke about even among the 6 in 10 voters who said they had a positive view of Romney's activities at Bain. But among those who viewed Romney's work negatively, half picked Gingrich and almost none backed Romney.
Underscoring how poorly Romney fared in South Carolina, only about 4 in 10 voters Saturday said they could enthusiastically back Romney should he eventually win the GOP nomination.
The survey was conducted for AP and the television networks by Edison Research as voters left their polling places at 35 randomly selected sites in South Carolina. The survey involved interviews with 2,381 voters and has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.
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