Tuesday, October 18, 2011

I believe we have a new front-runner

After reviewing a whole series of recent national polls and considering several state polls, I would put Mr. Cain at about 27.3% of the national popular vote. I would put Mr. Romney not too far behind with about 24.7%. I realize that many of you would either argue that the race is either a lot closer or the Mr. Romney is even slightly ahead. I have given more weight to any poll that has come out in the last week and I have given a little weight to a few polls that others might not consider, but these polling companies were somewhat accurate and ahead of the curve back in the spring. Perhaps, I should have not given these polling companies any weight and perhaps I should not added state polls into the mix, but I think in any event, it is a rather close race at this particular moment in time.

Mr. Perry is still in third place with a little over 14% (about a 3 and a half point loss over the past week.) With Mrs. Palin, Mr. Giuliani and Mr. Christie all officially out of the race, Mr. Gingrich and Dr. Paul continue to battle for fourth place with about Nine and a half per cent each. Mrs. Bachmann is holding steady at about five and a half per cent and the rest are all under 3%.

Even if one does not believe that Mr. Cain is the front-runner, one has to admit that it was a good week for him, at least according to national, state and regional polls. There are probably two main reasons for Mr. Cain’s rise. First he is simply benefiting from Mr. Perry’s slip in the polls and he appear to be the main beneficiary of the Palinites looking for an adopted camp.

In my previous article with regards to the delegate race, I tried to assign each candidate 3 delegates for every CD that they were ahead in and divide the rest of the delegates in each state proportionately to every candidate who gets at least 5% of the popular vote because that is the basic formula put forth by the party. To clarify, I do not pretend to know who is ahead in each CD especially since not all Congressional districts have been drawn yet. However, since we do have some kind of statewide data for many if not most states, not to mention regional and national date that we can consider, it is possible to make an educated guess as to approximately how many CDs a certain candidate is ahead is a particular state. After looking at the Green papers among other things, the delegate math has gotten slightly more complicated. Some states are proposing WTA systems or at least WTA for statewide delegates. However, it is technically illegal for any state to operate a WTA system if their primary is held prior to April 1st. Some states do not even know when they will hold their primary and/or they have not totally agreed among their rules for selecting delegate. Further, l, there is of course a possibility that states will get punished (lose delegates) for either having their primary too early or by not following the guidelines for selecting delegates.

Believe it or not, most states (with the exception of states like NH and OR) will indeed award 3 delegates specifically for each Congressman districts. However, in states like GA, TN and TX it is possible that the winning candidate would be denied all three delegates for a given CD. As for state-wide delegates, some states have furthered the threshold bar above 5% to 10%, 15% and even 20%. At the same time, some states will have a fractional voting system (which would lower the threshold especially for state with many state wide delegates) or have chosen a threshold figure below 5%. On top of all this, some states will have state conventions to choose delegates, never mind caucuses and not all the rules for choosing delegates are clear or even set in stone.

In short, even if we are confident in the polling data, it is more difficult to assign delegate. Nevertheless, I have done my best to assign delegated based on the current rules and guideline.

I put Mr. Cain at 930 delegate (a gain of over 300 this week,) Mr. Romney at 746 (an addition of about 20,) Mr. Perry at 203 (a loss of almost 150,) Mr. Gingrich at 139 (essentially steady,) Dr. Paul at 119 ( a slide of about 20,) Mrs. Bachmann 45 (a slip of about 10,) Mr. Santorum 18 (a gain of one,) Mr. Huntsman 5 (also a gain of one) and Mr. Johnson stays at one.

Mr. Romney lead Mr. Cain by about 10 point in the Northeast in terms of popular vote (35-25) Mr. Romney leads in all, but one (slightly behind in Maine) Northeastern state and has a comfortable lead in all the others, but two giving him over half of the delegates in that region leaving Mr. Cain with a little less than a quarter or that regions delegates.

Mr. Romney leads comfortably in Michigan and slightly in Ohio. Although it is close in Iowa and North Dakota, I have Mr. Cain ahead in all other Midwestern states. It is interesting both the proportion of Midwest delegate and the popular vote for the two leading candidates in the Midwest almost matches the national figures.

With his lead is very slim in Florida (even though Mr. Romney won Florida’s latest polls, I give Florida to Mr. Cain because he won the other recent Florida state poll and because regional polls illustrate he is strong in the South) Mr. Cain is winning comfortably in all other Southern states with the exception of Virginia where Mr. Romney leads comfortably. Mr. Cain gets over half of the Southern delegates. While Mr. Perry is ahead of Mr. Romney overall, in the South in terms of popular vote, Mr. Perry is behind Mr. Romney in Southern delegates because his Southern strength is concentrated in Texas and he fails to obtain the minimum threshold to get statewide delegates in most Southern states. In the West, Mr. Romney leads at least somewhat comfortably in Utah, California, Arizona and Nevada. Mr. Cain leads the rest of the Western state and only one is the margin not comfortable. Mr. Romney leads Mr. Cain in Western popular vote by about a third of one percentage point. Is delegate lead in that region a bit larger 228 to 166. This gap is narrower from a week ago.

Overall, Mr. Cain has a structural advantage. Mr. Romney’s support is concentrated in states like Utah, New Jersey, California, Arizona, Michigan and the New England state. He leads in 15 states. Enough delegates to stay in the game, but not enough to lead. If Mr. Romney were to at 3 points in every state, it would only give him a total of 21 or 22 states. To be clear, I am not necessarily predicting that Mr. Cain will be the nominee, but I do say that he has the slight upper hand at this particular moment in time. Am I surprised? Yes and no. I have not personally discussed the leadership race with tons of people over the past week or, but let’s just say that of those I have spoken to, the national and state polls do not shock me. To be sure, a number of people have reservations about Mr. Cain, haha, hence over 70% of decided voters are not leaning towards Mr. Cain. However, I do know at least a few Perryites that have converted to the Cain camp and I even know a Romneyite who is at least toying with the idea of backing Mr. Cain. As for my own camp, there is not overwhelming enthusiasm for Mr. Cain, most of my fellow camp members who I have spoken to are either still essentially undecided or Mr. Cain is not their ideological second choice. However, there is also a feeling that Mr. Cain is now the only person who can stop Mr. Romney and many are leaning towards settling for him despite the fact that ultimately, he is still Pro-establishment and Romney-light. To be sure many undecided voters may just as easily end up voting against Mr. Cain than for him, but currently the is no doubt that the cookie is at least crumbling in his direction. While it is too early to tell how Palinites will end up, it is even more too early to tell how Mr. Giuliani and Mr. Christie will affect the race, but nevertheless, we do have some early indication. When the dust settles, I actually think that Mr. Romney will get more than his fair share of what is left of the Giuliani camp. With regards to Mr. Christie, I argue that there is not a Christie camp per se. To be sure, the Christie endorsement does not hurt Mr. Romney, but so far it is not helping him much either because most of what is left of the Christie camp was already leaning in Mr. Romney’s direction. What the Christie endorsement does for Mr. Romney is give a few more people political cover to support him in the general election.

The question now is whether Mr. Cain is simply the flavor of the month or is he a serious long term candidate. The ultimate answer may be somewhere in the middle, but I for one would not count him out. While it is true that much of Mr. Cain’s support is either shallow or simply a result of Mr. Perry’s slip, the bottom line is that people are at least parking their vote with Mr. Cain for now as opposed to parking their support with either Mr. Romney or another non-Romney candidate so far. The fact that a number of polls show that Mr. Cain is the second choice of many, is one indication that Mr. Cain has room to grow. For the record, all candidates have some room to grow, but Mr. Cain has not reached his ceiling (even if he has a low bottom.) We already have at least one poll that show the Cain can win the general election and many polls show that at the very least, he can keep Mr. Obama under 50% already. Of course there is an argument that it is easier to tell a pollster that one is leaning toward an African American (primary or general,) but in the privacy of the voting booth, White and Hispanics would not vote for a Black man. Well, it appears that this argument did not hold up in the 2008 general election. Of course, many others argue that Mr. Cain has no money or organization. First, he can still get money (and organization) and second, the 2006 mid-term election saw many well funded incumbent go down to defeat while less well funded incumbent ended up hanging on to their seats. So while money is important indeed, it is not everything. Others argue that Mr. Perry would be a stronger candidate to challenge Mr. Romney because it is easier for him to rally the Evangelical vote around him. While that may be true, many could (and would) rally around Mr. Cain because his in not part of the religious contest that the other 2 are in. Even on non religious cultural questions, Mr. Cain represents the middle ground between Mr. Romney and Mr. Perry. On the one hand many could rally around the compromise candidate; on the other hand Mr. Cain would have the disadvantage of not being able to excite the extremes on either side. One advantage Mr. Cain does have is that he is a good speaker. Finally, while there is ultimately a lot more to Mr. Cain than just 9-9-9. A majority of Republicans have a favorable impression of 9-9-9 so far. In any event, we should be in for some interesting times.

18 comments:

Anonymous said...

Have you considered the value of paragraphs?

Anonymous said...

I was thinking the same thing. Your essay was impossible to read.

Firecracker

Anonymous said...

OhioJoe sorry, I don't agree. Just this morning Cain has issues with Campaign finance. His response was even worse. Once all that hits the fan this morning the talk will change from 999 to how he is funneling money from his campaign to himself; and if he isn't it will be close enough that reality will come back.

hamaca said...

Thanks for an interesting and thorough analysis of the race, OJ. I don't disagree with Cain being in the front spot presently--he's been showing well in most polls and has the attention of people and pundits who are paying attention to the race at this point in time.

As a Romney supporter, I have two reasons to be optimistic. First, with Cain being up there in front, the focus is on him and whether he is capable. He's now being put under the microscope. He's on the hot seat. He's the target. It is my opinion that support for him will fade (not free fall) within the next couple of months in time for some voters to finally vote for Romney out sheer frustration that no one more competent has shown up to challenge him.

Second, despite Cain's current strength in polls and CDs that you've outlined here, I think (and am hopeful) that Romney may gain momentum in the earlier polls through Florida and then be well positioned to take advantage of a few of the larger WTA states after some of the other candidates have dropped out. It's a path. Something else may certainly happen, but I believe this one is a decent possibility.

What will be interesting as well, is whether Mitt's investment in time, resources, etc. to build broad-based support will eventually pay off and when. I'm hoping that those who have or endorse him will in turn be able to influence the undecideds.

As you said, we should be in for some interesting times!

hamaca said...

Anon @ :05,

What OJ is providing is a snapshot in time--i.e. right now. You (and I) may think that things will develop such that Romney will win the nomination, but that doesn't detract from what may well be the case today, which OJ summarized in his piece.

Also, I haven't read any of the articles on Cain's finance issue, but I read somewhere else that it was simply a case of him taking campaign money to buy books to hand out at campaign events. I don't know the specific campaign laws, but if that is the extent of it, I cannot see that as an issue whatsoever. As I said, I haven't looked at it in detail, so maybe there's more to it.

Anonymous said...

That was a thorough, well written piece OJ. I agree that Cain should be taken seriously. He isn't a joke candidate, at least not for the republican nomination. In the general it would be a different story, but that is irrelevant to what you wrote.

Machtyn said...

I agree, that there needs to be paragraph separation. Perhaps Bosman can modify the blogspot CSS and include:
p.padding
{
padding-bottom:12pt;
}

(look for the p definitions in the Design -> Edit HTML section)

craigs said...

Since Cain is now the biggest vocal critic of his own 9-9-9 plan, leave it to his financial adviser in Cleveland, to fact check your presumptive political math, OJ.

CraigS

Ohio JOE said...

Thank you for your thoughts Hamaca, you have made some good points. You are correct that Mr. Cain is coming under scrunity and he is the target whether he is front-runner or the co-front-runner. For the record, I do think that Mr. Romney will rise at least a little bit over the next little while, but the exact amount of his rise will probably depend on a number of factors.

Also, if Mr. Cain starts to slip in the polls (and that could in deed happen before long) it will be interesting to see where people go or whether they will be added to the undecided camp for now.

Ohio JOE said...

"Since Cain is now the biggest vocal critic of his own 9-9-9 plan, leave it to his financial adviser in Cleveland, to fact check your presumptive political math, OJ."

With respect, I am not sure if you are challenging Mr. Cain's 9-9-9 political math or my delegate math or both. Please clarify.

Ohio JOE said...

BTW whether one agrees, disagrees or feels indifferent about my point of view and analysis, it is true that my article is not the best written article. English (the written language) is not my strong point. It is what it is and I will not pretend otherwise on that particular point.

Terrye said...

I do not think Cain is any more of a solid frontrunner than Perry was a couple of weeks ago. In fact, there are just as many polls that put him behind or even with Romney than ahead of him.

I like Cain, but I don't think he can win and I am not sure he is actually prepared to do the job.

Ohio JOE said...

"I do not think Cain is any more of a solid frontrunner than Perry was a couple of weeks ago." A few weeks ago, Mr. Perry was had already been slipping, but yes two months ago, Mr. Perry was a stronger front-runner than Mr. Cain is now. To clarify. I certainly am not saying that Mr. Cain is a solid front-runner; he is in fact a weak front-runner, but I argue that he has the advantage nevertheless.

Anonymous said...

We will know when Cain is the front runner when Axelrod starts to attack him.

If Cain is ahead in the polls, that's fine as long as the last front runner at the end of the actual voting the winner is Mitt Romney.

Romney/Cain 2012 (Unless Cain really does want to fry illegals, then back to Romney/Rubio.)

Anonymous said...

Good post OJ, i hope my boy mitt can pull it out.

craigs said...

OJ
I'm really kidding everybody for taking " I don't know" seriously

Seriously!

CraigS

Anonymous said...

cain is horrible. watch what he said after the debate, flip flops too much

Anonymous said...

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