WASHINGTON - Mapping out a route to the White House, Gov. Tim Pawlenty appears headed for a fork in the road: One way goes through fiscally conservative New Hampshire, the other through socially conservative Iowa.
While he courts Republicans in both early primary states, keeping his options open, modern presidential history suggests Pawlenty will have to choose.
No nonincumbent GOP candidate has ever won the Iowa caucuses and the Granite State primary.
"These two electorates have gone in different directions," said University of New Hampshire political scientist Dante Scala.
With neighboring Iowa looking increasingly like Pawlenty's better bet in 2012, the Minnesota Republican has focused more of his attention and message on the Hawkeye State than on New Hampshire. He has visited Iowa twice in the past month, barnstorming for local candidates and grabbing headlines with rock-ribbed conservative pronouncements on immigration, gay marriage and the ground zero Islamic mosque proposed in New York.
As Pawlenty's poll numbers lag in the low single digits in both states, some strategists say he has little choice but to fire up his public profile. In Iowa, that means connecting solidly with social conservatives, ground he has cultivated assiduously in the year since he formed his Freedom First PAC, a national political organization.
"It's not just Iowa," said Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia's Center for Politics. "He's also got to be thinking of South Carolina and Nevada. Three of the first four Republican electorates are very conservative socially."
Pawlenty and his closest aides say there has been no political transformation, noting he always campaigned and governed as a conservative.