Gingrich Falls Short of Signatures Needed for Spot on Virginia Primary Ballot

Newt Gingrich declared confidently the other day that he would get his name on the ballot for the Virginia presidential primary. In fact, he said he already had the requisite 10,000 signatures and an additional 2,000 to 3,000 for safety’s sake and would probably collect even more.

But that turned out not to be the case. In the wee hours of Saturday morning, the Virginia Republican Party announced via Twitter that Mr. Gingrich had failed to submit enough signatures by the Thursday deadline, highlighting the organizational challenges to his campaign and raising questions about his prospects in a drawn-out nominating fight.

Many of the Gingrich campaign’s signatures were apparently invalid, which is why most campaigns try to collect almost twice as many as are needed. Gov. Rick Perry of Texas and Representative Michele Bachmann of Minnesota also failed to make the grade.

This misstep is bad news for Mr. Gingrich on several levels. Virginia is his adopted home state. Failing to gather enough signatures in your own backyard creates an image problem, at the very least.

“It’s a disaster for him,” said Larry J. Sabato, a political scientist at the University of Virginia. “This sends yet another signal to Republicans that Gingrich is not able to organize.”

The Gingrich campaign said on Saturday that it would plan a write-in campaign in Virginia.

“Voters deserve the right to vote for any top contender, especially leading candidates,” Mr. Gingrich’s campaign director, Michael Krull, said in a statement. “We will work with the Republican Party of Virginia to pursue an aggressive write-in campaign to make sure that all the voters of Virginia are able to vote for the candidate of their choice.”

The failure to get on the ballot in Virginia could also shake the confidence of voters in the early nominating states of Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Florida — all of whom vote in advance of Virginia. Why, his supporters in those states might ask themselves, should I throw my vote away on someone who might not be competing in other critical states?

Also, Virginia is the country’s 12th-largest state in population. It will be offering up a rich trove of delegates on March 6, and now those delegates are likely out of reach of Mr. Gingrich.

Mr. Gingrich has been leading in the polls in Virginia, and his brand of conservatism is a natural fit for the state.

Rival campaigns seized on the setback as a worrisome sign of disorganization within the Gingrich’s campaign. Eric Fehrnstrom, a senior adviser to Mitt Romney, called it “cringe-worthy.”

“It’s a gut-check moment for Republicans,” Mr. Fehrnstrom, said. “Winning campaigns have to be able to execute on the fundamentals. This is like watching a hitter in the World Series failing to lay down a bunt. ”

The failure to qualify for the ballot comes at a bad time for Mr. Gingrich as he faces headwinds in Iowa, where the caucuses start the voting on Jan. 3, and it comes as he remains behind in the polls in New Hampshire. His strength appears to be in South Carolina, but in Virginia, there will be no Southern candidate on the ballot.

Both Mitt Romney and Ron Paul, whose organizations have been laboring in the signature-gathering vineyards for months, were able to get on the Virginia ballot.

Mr. Sabato predicted that other candidates would trumpet the news of the Gingrich failure next week when they resume campaigning in Iowa.

“It’s nonpartisan,” he said. “It’s not an attack; it’s a fact.”

Still, it is hard to predict the practical effect of his absence from the Virginia ballot. The state is 1 of 10 that votes on March 6, Super Tuesday. Eleven states will have voted by then, including big ones like Colorado, Florida and Michigan (and not counting Missouri, where delegates are not at stake).

If those earlier states have not winnowed the field of candidates, then Super Tuesday becomes more important. Because the Republicans are picking delegates proportionally this year, instead of winner-take-all, the candidates who are in the top tier — Mr. Romney, Mr. Paul and Mr. Gingrich — are likely to be competing for every delegate in what is expected to be a protracted primary fight.

Mr. Gingrich does have a safety card on Super Tuesday. Georgia, which he represented in Congress, votes that day, and if all goes well for him, he should win most of its delegates.

But whether there is any practical effect, Mr. Gingrich immediately began suffering a psychological effect as the Twitterverse and pundits questioned his ability to organize as well as his credibility — he had declared with authority earlier that he would make the ballot.