Political analysts Richard Benedetto and Jessica Taylor shared the same reaction to Republican… Political analysts Richard Benedetto and Jessica Taylor shared the same reaction to Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich’s victory in South Carolina: They were baffled.

The nomination season remains highly contested this year — with three states’ votes counted, three different Republican candidates can each claim a victory. And Benedetto and Taylor are hesitant to predict a primary-election outcome.

Benedetto expects that if Gingrich takes victory in the next primary in Florida on Jan. 31, Romney may lose his front-runner status.

“The whole race got thrown a big surprise by South Carolina because nobody expected Newt Gingrich to win,” Benedetto said of the primary election where the former house speaker took 40.4 percent of votes.

Benedetto, a political reporter for USA Today, and Taylor, a senior analyst and reporter at The Rothenberg Political Report, discussed the four 2012 Republican presidential candidates during a conference call Tuesday.

Joseph Starrs, director of the Institute on Political Journalism, an internship and education program based in Washington, D.C., hosted Tuesday’s call, which was aimed at students and included participants from Pittsburgh to Florida to Sydney, Australia.

Mitt Romney, former Massachusetts governor, came in second place in the South Carolina primary with 27.8 percent of the vote. He won in New Hampshire and came in a close second in the Iowa caucuses.

Pitt alumnus and former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum finished in third place in South Carolina and first in Iowa. Texas Rep. Ron Paul garnered 13 percent of the vote in South Carolina and 22.9 percent in New Hapshire but has yet to win an election.

While Gingrich won the Palmetto State, he finished fourth in both Iowa and New Hampshire.

“He did win, and he won decisively,” Benedetto said of the 12.6 percent margin between Gingrich and Romney in South Carolina.

Benedetto said that Gingrich’s victory spawned from the “perfect storm” — a mix of voter responses to The New York Times article that publicized Romney’s $21 million tax returns and Gingrich’s indignation at a personal question asked during Saturday night’s debate.

The South Carolina Republican debate kicked off when CNN moderator John King asked Gingrich to respond to allegations reported by ABC News and The Washington Post that the candidate had asked his second wife to have an “open marriage” with him.

“I think that the destructive, vicious, negative nature of much of the news media makes it harder to govern this country, harder to attract decent people to run for public office. And I am appalled that you would begin a presidential debate with a topic like that,” Gingrich said before the audience erupted into applause.

Taylor said that she doesn’t think that Santorum or Paul will be able to rally the way Gingrich did in South Carolina when it comes to the upcoming elections.

“The interesting thing about Santorum is that he came too late [to the race],” Taylor said. “The worst thing that could have happened to Santorum was that he actually won [the Iowa caucuses] but no one knew about it until two weeks later.”

It was originally reported that Romney won the majority of votes in the Iowa caucuses, but after a recount Santorum’s final vote tally trumped Romney’s by 34 votes.

By the time the recount was completed, Romney had already gone on to win New Hampshire and the candidates were en route to South Carolina.

As for Paul, Taylor said she does not see a Republican nomination in his future.

“It’s more about sending out his message,” she said about Paul’s candidacy. “If you’re a Paul supporter, you’re a Paul supporter for life.”

While Santorum is still not out of the race and Paul will continue to pull consistent support, Benedetto said he couldn’t understand why Romney hasn’t been able to more firmly establish himself as the Republican front-runner.

“People just seem to not be able to warm up to Mitt Romney,” Benedetto said.