Wednesday, November 16, 2011

In mid-November we have a 3 way race with nobody getting 25% of the vote or a third of the delegates

Since I have been busy, I am sorry that I am a day late in posting my weekly delegate count. It has been a wild week with several polls. Since the polling companies varied and the margin of error varied with each poll, I could not give them all the same weight. In a way things balanced out a bit. Mr. Romney won the national polls with the lowest and highest margin of error where the polls with a moderate MOE went leaned to Mr. Cain. On a side note Mr. Romney continues to struggles in state polls (I did not include the polls from either CA, NY, WI, NH or NJ or the Fox national poll for this week’s analysis.)

Early in the week, it was clear that Mr. Gingrich would cross the 17% mark and the 250 delegate mark. He took about as much support from Mr. Romney as Mr. Cain. Then we had a bunch of polls realized Sunday and early Monday that showed a dip for Mr. Gingrich a further drop for Mr. Cain and Mr. Romney climbing close to the 25% mark again. And for a brief time, Mr. Perry was threatening to make it as much a 3 and a half way race as a 2 and a half way race. Mr. Cain still led the delegate count due to his structural advantage. Finally, we had a few national polls released Monday afternoon that put Mr. Gingrich over the 20% mark in popular vote and showed a drop for most other candidates. What helped Mr. Gingrich in the delegate count even more was the fact that a regional poll suggested that he was doing particular well in the South while the other two were not. This allowed him to take more delegates, particularly from Mr. Cain.

So Mr. Romney now leads with 23 and half per cent (a drop of almost one and a half per cent) and he has 714 delegates (a slight drop.) Mr. Cain sits at 23 % (a drop of almost 5%) and he is down to 692 delegates (a drop of over 200 for the week.) Mr. Gingrich sits at twenty and a half per pent (almost a 7 point rise) and now has 507 delegates, more than double in one week. Mr. Perry sit at 10% (a loss of almost a point) and sits at 162 delegates (down slightly.) Dr. Paul loses more than a full point to sit at 7.7%. He fall under the 100 mark in terms of delegates down to 86. Mr. Bachmann quietly crosses over the 5 % mark and has 27 delegates.

In short, Mr. Gingrich is emerging as the new flavor of the month and Mr. Romney leads by default and still struggles to crack the 25% mark. He is probably going to need to get well over 35% to avoid a brokerage convention. Note, I am not predicting a brokerage convention at this point. However, the current snap shot in time suggests a tight 3 way race with others hanging on to various amounts of delegates.

So what next? Will Dr. Paul be the next flavor of the month? Can Mr. Romney get much beyond the 25 % mark? If so when. Will Mr. Gingrich continue to climb? Will Mr. Cain rebound again? In is interesting that Mr. Ginrich appeared to be the only one to gain from Mr. Cain. I suspect that this is because he ran a well disciplined campaign over the past few weeks. While the Romney, Cain and Perry camps all got sidetracked over sexual harassment accusations and other non-sense, the Gingrich camp keep its act together and stayed above the fray.

Despite Mr. Gingrich running a good campaign, he does not fool me. While I cannot see myself backing the 4 or 5 current main candidates, Mr. Gingrich is the worst of this sorry lot. He truly takes the biscuit. He is a bigger hack than Mr. Romney and Mr. Cain combined. He must cease and desist from his antics before I among others back him, but apparently a significant amount of my fellow citizens are either OK with his shenanigans or forgot. To a certain extent, Mr. Gingrich appears to be for real unfortunately, but fortunately, he too has a ceiling. We will see how far he goes.


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10 comments:

BOSMAN said...

Well done OJ.

I knew things were tightening, now I know how much.

Ohio JOE said...

Haha, yes the landscape is a bit of a moving target, but still tight.

Anonymous said...

Well OJ, nice try. You have Mitt Romney and everyone else. Almost all have had a turn now. This too will pass. The anti Mormon/Mitt crowd changes like the wind, one day changes to the next. The Gallop poll earlier showed Mitt ahead significantly where it counted more. It shows that 5% of the Republican Party that don't like Mitt Romney are the most vocal, but Mitt is viewed favorably over any other candidate. So Mitt will prevail. Little if any ground game in IA for Newt or Cain and Mitt has one will make the difference. FOX will be off Newt before Jan. Mitt will be left standing.

Right Wingnut said...

He must cease and desist from his antics before I among others back him,

I too have issues with some things in his past, but that's the case with ALL of them. What is he currently doing that he must "cease and desist" from? What antics do you speak of? That sentence indicates that you're upset with something he's doing NOW.

Right Wingnut said...

I ask because you haven't offered specifics in your criticisms of Newt.

Anonymous said...

I have the same questions as RW. What antics? It is Newt's past that is the problem.

Newt's rise doesn't appear to be for real to me, OJ. He is going to crash and burn just like the others.

Anyway, nice job.

-Martha

hamaca said...

Good stuff, OJ. Thanks for the analysis.

I can't help but wonder what your opinion would be on a comment from another site quoting the Cain campaign projections:

http://beta.hermancainexpress.com/activism/polling.aspx

Campaign Projected Delegates
Cain 986
Romney 283
Gingrich 66
Perry 45

I'll take your analysis over the Cain campaign's.

Anonymous said...

Mitt Romney is the best in my opinion however what really matters is having a GOP one at the WH. Ron Paul is non - interventist, therefore not suitable for this era of dangers and engagements : world is not a sure place, and certainly not for our fault.

Ohio JOE said...

Well RW and Martha, perhaps I should have said apologize for past antics. Yes, he is running a good campaign now, but pretending to be a pure Conservative now does not answer for past positions and actions.

Ohio JOE said...

Thanks Hamaca, first, my model is not perfect, I take into account, national, state and regional polling. I also try to keep up with state delegate rules which can and does change. I also assign a portion (not all) of the undecided vote because I want to guess as accurately as possible who might reach the various thresholds in each state.

I think I have visited the Cain web-site of which you talk. They appear to assign delegates based only on certain state polls. State polls are certainly in my model, but as time goes on, state polls are less and less valuable when more recent national polls show a different story.

Often state polls confirm (within the ball park) my calculations base on a variety of factors. So I think I am on the right track, but outlying polls and a changing landscape make things interesting. Again, my model is far from perfect.