Saturday, December 10, 2011

Mr. Gingrich leads comfortably as we begin the post Cain era.

As Mr. Gingrich appears to get more than his fair share of Cain voters, he sits at 39.4%. Yes, RCP put him at only 34%, but they also put Mr. Cain at 12.5% (and he is out.) Mr. Romney is just shy of the 25% mark. In part because Mr. Perry actually lost ground, Dr. Paul is now is soul possession of third place just shy of 10%. Mr. Perry does not gain from Mr. Cain’s departure (not a huge surprise,) so he is at 6.7% and Mrs. Bachmann rises to 6.5%. The others do not crack the 5 % (or even 4%) mark.

As for the delegate count, it is no surprise that Mr. Gingrich now has 1302 delegates (essentially, most of the ones that Cain had a week ago.) He hold 3 of every 5 delegates currently. Mr. Romney sit at 547 (a gain in real numbers.) Dr. Paul sits at 112, Mr. Perry is at 88. Mrs. Bachmann is at 56 (her slight gain in the polls has yet to turn into delegates.) Mr. Santorum has 24 delegates. There has been a bit of shifting around in the geographic landscape as regional numbers came out a few days ago. Relatively speaking Mr. Gingrich made more gains in the Midwest than in the Far West. However, that in and of itself did not cause many delegates to shift. It maybe statistical noise, but Mr. Cain’s departure did not help Mr. Romney increase his level of support in either the Northeast of the Midwest. However, Mr. Cain’s departure appears to have allowed Mr. Romney to crack the 20% in the South. Maybe the undecided in the South are breaking towards Mr. Romney. In any event, regional data suggest that Mr. Romney now has enough to crack the threshold in Southern states which. This in and of itself is responsible for about 2 dozen Romney delegates. Further, half of Mr. Romney’s new delegates this week come from the South. So while the shift helps Mr. Romney a bit structurally. Dr. Paul appears to be getting most of his gains in the West, but the landscape shift has not affected his delegate count too much. Mr. Perry appears to have had a bad week or so in the West, but again, that in and of itself is not affecting his delegate numbers too much. Mrs. Bachmann appears to be gaining disproportionately in the Midwest and not gaining in the South, this too has affected her delegate math, but not significantly.

No doubt, Mr. Gingrich is in a rather good position even if that changes. Also, Mr. Romney certainly appears to be in the strongest position to lead the SOG camp. Nevertheless, there are other candidates in the mix at least for now. With the exception of Mr. Huntsman, nobody is worse off in terms of raw number this week, but Dr. Paul and Mrs. Bachmann appear to be benefiting the most of the minor candidates. Some thought that Mr. Santorum would at least gain a little, but we have yet to see it. One Romneyite commenter essentially wrote on a rival web site that as long as Mr. Gingrich is kept below 50%, Mr. Romney is in good shape because when the dust settles, he stands to get the Undecided vote as well as the minor candidate vote. Yes, it is true that the Undecided need to decide sometime, but they might not necessarily all go to Mr. Romney. By definition, most are open to voting for Mr. Romney, but he has not made the sale yet. Frankly, with favorability rating among other thing in flux, it is difficult to predict how the cookie will crumble. As for the other the supporters of other candidates, while they might eventually choose between the two front-runners, I do not see that happening soon. Many of these voters have decided for a while that they would support candidate X instead of either Mr. Gingrich or Mr. Romney. Much of Mr. Gingrich’ new found supporters are either band-wagon jumpers or former Cainites. While a few Undecideds are probably breaking to Mr. Romney, it is most likely a few Cainites that helped him touch the 25 % mark.

I would not be quick to predict a Gingrich meltdown on one hand and on the other, I would not be quick to declare him the winner either. Unless, we have another unexpected turn in the next few weeks or so, it will be a Gingrich – Romney race. For a few days, it looked like Mr. Romney was closing the gap only to have things reversed. I do think Mr. Romney will eventually close the gap again, but it will probably be a slow process. It is doubtful, Mr. Romney can win any early states beyond NH, but if he keeps things close, he can actually beat the expectation game and thus get back into the race. We are early on and either candidate can win without a brokerage convention. Cutting Mr. Gingrich down will only help Mr. Romney so much, he needs to build himself up to a degree. I for one get the fact that Mr. Gingrich as President is a bit of a scary idea. Most likely certainly worse than a Romney Presidency. In the end many of us will need a reason to vote for Mr. Romney.

Some of the more enthusiastic Romney supporters try to tell us that Mr. Romney can get almost as high a percentage of the Electoral College as General Washington while Mr. Gingrich would do worse than Mr. Goldwater. This hyperbole is non-sense, but it is true that Mr. Romney has an electoral advantage. He will have to convince that he can maintain that.

While, I am personally undecided between Mr. Santorum and Mrs. Bachmann, I realize that both will most likely be out by the time Ohio votes. So realistically, I’ll have to hold my nose and vote for Dr. Paul. A gentleman from a neighboring county, asked me to sign his nomination paper as Dr. Paul delegate so I signed his papers. As it turns out he had enough signatures and did not need to use my signature. In any event, I do not necessarily feel obligated to become a Paulite just because I signed ballot nomination papers. This brings up the interesting way in which Ohio votes for delegate.

The fact that a Candidate get 3 delegates for winning an Ohio electoral district and the statewide winner gets the statewide delegates is not unique. However, Ohioans get two separate votes. In 2008, while Mr. McCain won all of Ohio’s delegates, he statewide margin of victory over Mr. Huckabee was a few percentage point greater than the average of his 18 CD victories. In fact, while every precinct in my county voted for Mr. McCain’s statewide delegates, a number of precincts gave a plurality to Mr. Huckabee or Dr. Paul on the CD level. Mr. Thompson and Mr. Romney (who were both still on the ballot) also did a little better on the CD level. Another web-site reported that Dr. Paul and Mr. Gingrich failed to make the December 7th filing deadline in Ohio. Unless the law changes again (which is possible because of behind the scenes negotiations with legislators, court officials and so on) December 7th was only the deadline for local candidates. Mr. Romney among a few others has managed to get on the statewide ballot. As of last month his was still looking for delegates in my own CD, but as the law stands, he still has time. On the other hand, Dr. Paul already has people running for CD delegate position regardless of what eventually happens at the state level. Last time Mr. McCain did not get enough statewide signatures, but a matching fund loophole allowed him on the ballot. So my head will spin as things get sorted out.

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10 comments:

Terrye said...

Actually Gingrich is trending down and Romney is trending up.

And in the latest Rasmussen and Fox polls Romney does much better against Obama than Gingrich does.

I am still not convinced that Republicans are stupid enough to nominate Gingrich. If they do, they deserve the shellacking they get.

Anonymous said...

As I said in an earlier post,the GOP has a death wish if they nominate Gingrich. The guy is Big government all the way and is no conservative. If you are guaranteed to lose the election, you might as well at least vote for the true conservative which is Bachmann. I think Bachmann would actually stand a better chance than Gingrich in the General. For one thing,she would have a better chance of winning the women's vote.

I will have a very difficult time voting for Gingrich because he happens to be one of the most repulsive,corrupt political figures of our time. People say he has changed...yeah right...he will show his true colors and arrogance after he wins the GOP nomination.

If Gingrich gets the nomination and if there is a third party that challenges Gingrich and Obama and if this third party is more conservative and stable than Gingrich(like Huntsman)and if this third party shows that they could potentially win the election then I would vote 3rd party.

Since I am a fiscal conservative and a person who believes in free market solutions with limited government,I would definitely vote for Ron Paul before I would vote for Gingrich.

I am a Romney supporter because the guy had a 25 year very successful career in the private sector. Romney understands the private sector economy and I highly doubt that Romney would be for big government imposing regulations that strangle a business's viability.Plus the polls show Romney is electable against Obama.

If a third party entered the picture and if Romney was the GOP nominee,I think the moderates and independents and women's vote, would stick with Romney because they could see him winning and he is not polarizing like Gingrich.

Terrye said...

Gingrich is just such a hypocrite...but then again, so are most of his supporters. How else can you explain it?

Anonymous said...

if Mitt Romney decided to run as a leader of a third Party with chances to win, and i am sure i could with a good part of the Republicans, most Independents and a number of Conservative or Moderate Democrats, i would support him in any case : the most important issue is preventing Obama from fetting another term, and i am sure Mitt Romney could.

Ohio JOE said...

"Actually Gingrich is trending down and Romney is trending up." That is not the case over the past week.

GetReal said...

Thanks for another well done analysis OJ.

Anon, Romney isn't going to run third party and hand the country over to Obama for another four years on a silver platter. If the direction of the country didn't matter to him, he wouldn't be running and taking crap from everyone.

Alan said...

Already assigning delegates are we? That's like assigning points to sports team that has yet to play a game. Utterly silly.

GetReal said...

Alan, these are just predictions based on current polling. Noone is claiming these are binding, its just an interesting exercise and a more in-depth look at where the race is currently.

Anonymous said...

Get Real-

Romney has too much integrity to do that..he would work to elect whoever the GOP candidate is that wins the GOP nod.

Other candidates,however,do not have any loyalty to the party and there is buzz about a 3rd party.....this buzz,however is probably generated by the Obama reelection campaign and I wouldn't put it past the DNC to fund a third party to ensure an Obama victory.

Ohio JOE said...

"Alan, these are just predictions based on current polling." Yes, these number are sure to change as event unfold.