Wednesday, November 23, 2011

As we approach Thanks – Giving, Mr. Gingrich now leads in a 2 and a half way race.

It has been a great week for Mr. Gingrich with regards to both national and state polls. My model shows him at 24.5% in national popular vote (a 4% increase) and he sits at 749 delegates. Mr. Romney is still close behind, slipping slightly to 22 and a half per cent with 571 delegates. Mr. Cain slips under the 20% mark to 19.7% (a decrease of 3%) and has 498 delegates. Since Mr. Perry lost a little over a point this week and Dr. Paul gained a little over a point, there is a tie for 4th place at 8.8%; Mr. Perry has 108 delegates and Dr. Paul has 95 delegates. Dr. Paul may be quietly picking up a bit of steam in early states. Mrs. Bachman hold steady at 5 and a quarter per cent and now has 34 delegates. Please note, I have been a little late in posting, so the most recent polls of NH, Iowa and SC are not included in this analysis, but plenty of other polls for these three states are already in the mix.

A few days ago none of the candidates had 30% of the delegates and in the Belle-weather region of the Midwest, the Big 3 had about 22% of the popular vote each. It take a bit for my model to pick up serious trends, but the last few polls confirm that Mr. Gingrich is certainly going up and Mr. Cain is going down. Along with various national polls this week to add to the mix, we had about 10 states with states polls this week and we also received data on the southern region of the country. Furthermore, 2 out of every 5 states have been polled at least once over the past month, so the data is starting to pile in.

The delegate math continues to get more complex, states continue to tweak their rules, not to mention change the dates of some primary contest. While a few states have lost or gained a delegate or two due to a shift in the balance of power in the state assembly or a similar event, Six states have received punishment for holding the primary or caucuses too early or failing to uphold rules set up by the national party. In short the punishment received by these states consists of losing half their original allotment of delegates. So instead of there being 2218 elected delegate from the 50 states and District of Columbia, there appears to be only 2084. I do not count US territories in my delegate math. It is a little unclear how each of those states will deal with the fact that they have fewer delegates, but essentially, as things stand, we will have 6% less delegates. Mr. Romney appears to be hurt the most in 4 of those states from these penalties, but the bottom line is that there are fewer delegates up for grabs.

The landscape has changed a quite bit during November, Mr. Gingrich began the moth not leading in any state. He now leads the popular vote in the majority of the states. He also appears to have at least one delegate in 48 states. He leads the popular vote in every region of the country except for the Northeast. Even in the Northeast he has 23% now whereas he could not clear the 18% mark last week. Mr. Romney has between 20 and 30 % in every region, but the South. However, in the South he is actually moving closer to the 20%. Mr. Cain now has less than 25% in every region of the country and cannot quite clear 14% in the Northeast.

While Mr. Romney remains relatively stable, the main activity of the week (even month) is that Mr. Gingrich seems to be taking away support from Mr. Cain in order to be the new front-runner. So while a few Cainites may have join minor camps, the majority of those leaving the Cain camp are moving to Mr. Gingrich for now. As an aside I think, I met my second real-life quasi-Gingrichite. A friend e-mailed me a link of one of Mr. Gingrich’s speeches were he talks about housing, terrorism, immigration, the court system and so on and so forth. I said to myself. Wow, what a great speech, he sounds Conservative enough for me, but at the same time I remembered NY-23. So I e-mailed my friend back and told him that while it was a great speech, I was concerned about his actions in NY-23. Some argue that Mr. Hoffman’s forgiveness of Mr. Gingrich should be enough, but Mr. Hoffman has no right to forgive Mr. Gingrich on behalf of the people.

It appears that many people are forgetting Mr. Gingrich’s short-commings and just seeing he new Conservative speeches. Many Romneyites appear bitter that they are now losing to this guy. While it is true that we finally have a front-runner that is clearly worse than Mr. Romney to put it bluntly, it does no good for Romneyites to lash out at Tea-Partiers, SoCons and everybody else. Conservatives are not monolithic voters just as some Conservative voters forgive Mr. Romney for his short-comings others forgive Mr. Gingrich. Let’s look at things in perspective, it is not as if every single voter supports Mr. Gingrich. Mr. Gingrich is having trouble crossing the 25% mark just like Mr. Romney himself. So not everybody has become an honorary Gingrichite just because he is doing well in the debate and appears to be getting credit for running a well disciplined campaign. While it appears that an anti-Romney sentiment may have helped put Mr. Gingrich in the lead, an anti-Gingrich sentiment might finally help Mr. Romney crack the 25% mark. It shall be interesting to see things unfold. November has turned out to be much wilder than I thought as things continue to shake out.

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18 comments:

Right Wingnut said...

Dede Scozzafava Endorsement

Newt has admitted it was a mistake to back Dede Scozzafava, the Republican nominee in the 2009 NY-23 special election.

Whether it was helping to build the Republican Party of Georgia back when Democrats controlled the entire state or leading the nationwide effort in 1994 to break 40 years of Democratic rule in the House, Newt has always tried to advance the cause of a truly conservative Republican party. This has always meant supporting the most conservative nominee possible as selected by Republican primary voters.

Therefore, Newt will almost always back the nominee of the Republican party and not back an independent candidate in a race against a Democratic candidate.

Newt still believes in this principle, however, he has admitted it was a mistake to back Dede Scozzafava, the Republican nominee in the 2009 NY-23 special election. Although she was the Republican nominee, the problem was that Republican primary voters did not pick her, the local party leaders did, otherwise her liberal views would have prevented her from becoming the nominee. The Conservative Party candidate whom Scozzafava was running against, Doug Hoffman, recently remarked about Newt's endorsement of his rival, "I would advise other conservative republicans: Don't hold this against him."

Ohio JOE said...

"the problem was that Republican primary voters did not pick her," That was a very serious problem RW.

Right Wingnut said...

OJ,

The problem is that's how it's done in many districts. Newt made a mistake and apologized for it. He later endorsed Hoffman.

I'm not excusing it, but you previously demanded an apology, and an admittance that he was wrong. The passage I posted is from his website.

Either way, a Democrat still occupies that seat. That's why I'm not sold on third-party runs.

Ohio JOE said...

To be fair RW, the apology is a good start; it is not easy for anybody to apologize when one is wrong. Since he did apoligize, he is eligible for forgiveness. Forgivess not not automatically equate to trust. Many forgive Mr. Romney for the times his displayed poor judgement, but do not fully trust him. So in short, I will have to do some serious thinking before I trust Mr. Gingrich.

Again, while we are all able to forgive Mr. Gingrich as we wish. Mr. Hoffman has no right to forgive him on behalf of the people (although he can certainly do so on his own.) What Mr. Gringrich did was an action against the freedom of the people and he set a terrible example to the swell of the land. While it is apples to orange, if somebody rapes or murders a family member of mine I can forgive them on my own behalf, but I have no right to forgive them on behalf of society of the people at large.

Doug NYC GOP said...

Newt "apologizes" for the DeDe Scozzafava endorsement, says it was a mistake.

Newt on Fox News Special Report says backing Cap & Trade with Nancy Pelosi was a "mistake."

Newt backs away from launching the idea of a Individual Mandate for Health Care.


And the ABR crowd is flocking to him because Romney is flip flopping moderate.

Way to funny.

Right Wingnut said...

Doug,

I'm still waiting for Romney to admit to HIS mistakes.

MassCon said...

Gingrich has 70% approval among Tea Partiers in PA.

And this is the guy who fathered the individual mandate for health care.

This is the guy who called Ryan's budget "Right Wing Social Engineering."

This is the guy who appeared on national TV in ads with Nancy Pelosi to advocate Cap and Trade.
This is the guy who thinks Medicare can be solved by targeting "waste, fraud, and abuse."

Wait until voters see these videos on TV in ads. Gingrich will drop like a rock.

Doug NYC GOP said...

OJ

Is your delegate count based upon the states won by candidates or a the percentage of their national average applied to the number of delegates available?

If it's the latter formula, it be too generous to Mr. Gingrich.

Doug NYC GOP said...

RWN,

If Romney ever did admit to any mistakes, you'd be castigating him as a oppurtunistyic flipper, only apologizing for political expediancy.

To think you would genuinely accept his apologies and move on is a real s t r e t c h.

Anonymous said...

RW, here is the number one mistake that is eating you. You voted for Romney in 2008. But that isn't Romney's mistake, so how can he apologize for it.

DanL

Right Wingnut said...

Dan,

It was a mistake. There. I said it.

Ohio JOE said...

test

Ohio JOE said...

You make a good question Doug, and I will answer it as best as possible.

My model is quite complex and it is not perfect. The overall numbers are primarily influenced by recent national polls. State polls play a big part in each state especially if the results are recent.


I give less value to state polls as time elapses. So for example, if Mr. X is assigned 21.3% in state Y that has not been polled in a while) and Mr. X's rises in national polls by 2.1%, he will then sit at 23.4%. I have minor tweaks to allow for the fact that certain states are polled while others are not while the political landscape changes.

My model is certainly not perfect; I cannot predict every CD would turn out. Some states have limited data and I certainly cannot predict with certainty how many people will vote in each state versus another. However, I can make certain educated guess given the data that is available and given the delegate rules that are available for each state.

In times where the political landscape is relatively stable (which is not often) state polls tend to confirm my numbers within the ballpark, so while my model is far from perfect, it certainly is not total random guess-work either.

If anything, apart from allocated some of the undecideds to each candidate, Mr. Gingrich's national number are probably slightly under-estimated in my model despite minor tweaks to fix that.

I respectfully ask that you consider a few things Doug. First, while very very few states are WTA at this point, many states require a candidate to have 10, 15 or even 20% of the statewide popular vote before they are proportionally eligible for state-wide delegates. So if Mr. Gingrich (or Mr. Romney) is the only candidate or one of a few candidates to reach the threshold in a state, they get the majority of statewide delegates of that state.

Furthermore, if a candidate has a huge lead over the other candidates statewide, statically, they will probably get the majority of the CD delegates even though he fails to clear 50%.

Doug NYC GOP said...

Thanks OJ,

I appreciate the hard work in establishing a framework to view the race.

I was just curious how you calculated the delgates, since as you say, it is complex, with proportional and WTA states involved.

Good stuff overall, thanks for doing this for us.

Ohio JOE said...

Thank you Doug and have a good Thanks-Giving in NYC. My wife will cook a Turkey and other stuff tommorrow and we will bring it down the street and have a combined dinner with a Pawlentyite family, perhaps I will find out which camp they are in now. Haha.

Right Wingnut said...

OJ, It's interesting that just about everyone you know seems committed to some candidate. Most people I know don't operate that way. They have a list of acceptables, and a list of unacceptables. Few pay much attention until we get closer to the primaries. Some couldn't list more than 2-3 candidates to save their lives.

Doug NYC GOP said...

And A Happy Thanksgiving to you as well, OJ.

Enjoy your feast.

I'm working and then coming home to a dinner of Roast Cornish Hens home made stuffing andf Green Bean Casserole(bucking Tradition this year and skipping turkey)with my wife.

Perhaps a little bubbly as well.

Ohio JOE said...

Well, RW, not everybody I know is committed to a camp and those that are, are probably not as committed to their camp as I am. Certainly, most of my friends are not political junkies, but they can still talk politics. Recently, a friend told me that he was troubled to find, that I once had a Palin Calendar. So I told him "C'mom, she was fully clothed." He replied "I do not care if Todd Palin was fully clothed. It is wrong to have a calendar of anybody." Oh, well.

Sounds like a decent dinner Doug.