Fiorina’s performance could shake up race

Associated Press

WASHINGTON

Propelled by her standout debate performance, Carly Fiorina sought Thursday to turn accolades for her crisp, confident showing into actual support from voters and donors. It’s a quest that will determine whether her breakthrough moment is a turning point in the Republican primary or simply a footnote.

After a few hours of sleep, Fiorina blitzed through six morning-show interviews, an on-air victory lap of sorts. In early voting states, her small staff fielded calls from local officials eager to pledge their support.

“After last night, I’m with Carly Fiorina,” said Bryan Gould, a New Hampshire lawyer who was among those reaching out to Fiorina’s team. Gould also had been considering Sens. Marco Rubio of Florida and Ted Cruz of Texas, or retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson, but he said Fiorina displayed the maturity he’s been looking for in a candidate.

For Fiorina, this burst of attention will spur fresh scrutiny of her business record while she ran the technology company Hewlett-Packard – and a deeper examination of her current statements and policy positions.

The origin of one of her most attention-grabbing debate moments – her description of a video showing a fetus with legs kicking and heart beating – already was being questioned by abortion-rights groups, given that the scene she referenced apparently was based on a verbal account rather than a video. According to both Planned Parenthood and anti-abortion activists, there is no scene matching her description in any of the undercover videos at the heart of the debate over the disposition of fetal tissue from abortions.

Still, the debate’s immediate results were overwhelmingly positive for Fiorina, the only woman in the Republican field. That was all the more remarkable given that her campaign had to aggressively lobby debate host CNN to change the participation criteria just so she could qualify for the event.

“We feel like last night reset the race,” said Keith Appell, a senior adviser to CARLY for America, a super PAC backing Fiorina.

At least in the short-term, Fiorina’s strong performance could jolt a Republican race that has been dominated by the unexpected rise of Donald Trump. Her sustainability will hinge on her ability to raise money for a long campaign and build a broad enough coalition of voters to have strong showings in early contests.

Appell said the super PAC, which has been running the bulk of Fiorina’s operations in key states, will keep trying to generate attention through free media and campaign appearances, while holding off on paid advertisements for now. The outside group also is looking to bolster its roster of “community captains” that can help recruit volunteers and organize voter turnout next year.

Even before Thursday’s debate, Fiorina had quietly garnered positive reviews from voters in early voting Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina. She’s been among the most aggressive Republican candidates in taking on Democratic front-runner Hillary Rodham Clinton, arguing that if the GOP nominates a woman, it would block Clinton from being able to turn her campaign into a history-making quest to become the first female president.