CHARLESTON, South Carolina — Campaigning across this first-in-the-South primary state, Carly Fiorina encountered something unusual this week: empty seats.
Call it the Fiorina paradox: On the GOP debate stage, the former Hewlett-Packard executive often dominates the conversation, but out here on the campaign trail, she’s just treading water. Her crowds aren’t growing, and there’s noticeably less excitement, media, and attention than there was during a similar swing through the state two months ago after two show-stopping debate performances. Her polling numbers are dropping nationally, too, down from one-time second-place high to 3% or 4% in recent surveys.
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At a luncheon in Greenville, organizers said 175 tickets had been sold, but just over 130 people showed up on the rainy Monday morning after the Thanksgiving holiday. Later that day at a town hall in Anderson, a few dozen of the nearly 300 seats were left empty. The following day, lunches in Columbia and West Columbia, empty seats dotted the crowd. Later Tuesday evening, at a military-focused town hall event, volunteers struggled to find people to willing to sit behind the candidate and there were empty seats throughout the crowd.
Can Fiorina go the long haul if she can’t fill a room in an early voting state?
As Fiorina slips in polls, there's more empty seats at her events than before. Here's West Columbia+Charleston today pic.twitter.com/viwCAMSKRI
— Jane C. Timm (@janestreet) December 2, 2015
“I don’t know about that,” one supporter, Warner Wells, told MSNBC in West Columbia. “But when she is on that podium with those men, she holds her own.”
For her part, FIorina pushes back against the idea that her bid is faltering.
“You know that when I started nobody gave me a chance. Now I’m on the main debate stage and I’m going to stay on that stage,” Fiorina told MSNBC after an event in West Columbia.
Asked about her dropping polling numbers, Fiorina added, “When Gallup, a respected polling organization, says they’re not going to engage in horse race polling because it’s so suspect, I think that tells you everything you need to know. We know for a fact that polls at this point at this point in a presidential race are absolutely not predictive.”
Pressed again by a local radio host on Wednesday morning who bemoaned her polling despite her strong debate performances, Fiorina rejected the narrative again.
“I’ve come further than most people expected, and I’m going to go the distance,” she said.









