Tuesday, January 17, 2012

Mr. Romney is now projected to win the majority of delegates

The past week (especially the past few days) have been good for Mr. Romney. He gained over 4% to sit at 35.8% on the eve of Mr. Huntsman’s exit. There is no clear second place person. Even as Mr. Ginrich loses almost 4%, he hangs on to second place with 16.8% of the national vote. Mr. Santorum loses a little more than a point to sit at 16.4%. Dr. Paul rises slightly to sit at 14.6%. Mr. Perry stay stable at 6.6%, perhaps the most ironic item is that Mr. Huntsman actually gains over a point and a half in the week of his exit to end his bid with about 4.2%. Note the ABC national poll is not in this mix.

In large part due to a split in the opposition, Mr. Romney in now leading in every state except for 5 southern states. He has between 30 and 41% in every region of the country so the landscape is somewhat uniform across the country. Even without Mr. Huntsman leaving the race, he gained over 200 delegates this week to sit at 1273. Mr. Gingrich loses almost 200 delegates to fall to 358. Mr. Santorum slips a bit to sit at 213; Dr. Paul gains a bit to sit at 191 and Mr. Perry slips slightly to 71. Finally, had Mr. Huntsman continues to remain in the race and maintain his level of national support; he would have ended up with 16 delegates.

The next contest is in South Carolina where Mr. Romney has about 33 or 34%, Mr. Gingrich is about at 23%, Mr. Santorum at about 15 or 16%, Dr. Paul crack the 14% mark, Mr. Perry should get about 6% and Mr. Huntsman was at close to 5% as he exited. He will likely get a point or two even though he is out, but what is left of his support in SC will essentially go mainly to Mr. Romney and then the others. Regardless of whether Mr. Romney hangs on to win Saturday’s contest, he is in a strong position relative to the remaining candidates. Mr. Perry is essentially out and Dr. Paul’s number’s will most likely stay stable throughout the whole primary season regardless of what happens. Thus, the only thing standing in Mr. Romney’ way is the slight possibility of Mr. Gingrich and Mr. Santorum joining forces. While there were rumors of Mr, Gingrich dropping out to back Mr. Santorum, that scenario is now out of the question as of last night if not before. All things being equal, Mr. Santorum has run a decent campaign, he is a decent debater and he is even bringing in a bit of money finally. However, he is at a disadvantage being a Northern Conservative. His national numbers may be almost as good as Mr. Gingrich, but the next two contests are in the South. Despite the fact that Mr. Santorum is more Conservative than Mr. Gingrich, most Southern Conservative in the South will lean to Mr. Gingrich in large part because of geography.

So should Mr. Santorum drop out of the race and back Mr. Gingrich? I for now say no. Mr. Santorum should stay in and do his best because while Mr. Gingrich may be acting and sounding the part lately, Mr. Santorum is the best Conservative. Mr. Gingrich scored points by winning yesterday’s debate to the point where he excited the crowd unlike anybody else has this season. Unless, Mr. Romney continue to perform poorly last night, Mr. Gingrich will not be able to stop Mr. Romney in the end, but Mr. Gingrich while not being able to totally knock Mr. Santorum out of the picture, Mr. Gingrich probably knocked Mr. Santorum out of contention for the next in line candidate never mind the nomination. While Mr. Romney is still in a safe place regarding the nomination, Mr. Gingrich exposed Mr. Romney’s general weakness when he brought up SS and Super PACs. While Mr. Romney was weak last night, he does have a chance to come up with better answers. He will most likely not need better answers in further primary debates, but he will need better answers for the general election campaign.

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6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Nice one OJ....I agree with this.

Perry and Gingrich asking for Romney to release his tax returns are a joke and have nothing to do with the issues or running for president. Romney has said he intends to release it if he is nominee but these clowns are asking him to release it now. Another desperate attack from the left that they are borrowing.

Anonymous said...

Yes.... that looked like a setup. :-(

If not required .... I wouldn't release.

Anonymous said...

I agree, he should not release them now, and he should not have caved in the way he did last night.

He just answered the question terribly. He should have said yes I will, or no, I won't do it until later, and been done with it.

-Martha

Jerald said...

I'd answer like this:

"It's been the custom of our party for the presumptive nominee to release their tax returns sometime around April, and if I'm the presumptive nominee, I will do the same.

If Gov. Perry, Mr. Gingrich, and Mr. Santorum want to push up that timeline so they can spend their Saturday morning going through my tax return, then they know what they have to do (laughter).

However, I think something far more interesting than going through my tax return would be having Newt release his billing statements to Freddie Mac along with the details of the work performed so we could see what kinds of history lessons cost $1.6 million and use that information to try to reduce the high cost of education in this country...

Anonymous said...

Jerald, nice idea about the Freddie payments!

-Martha

Crystalf said...

How I wish Mitt had Jerald on staff for pre-debate prep!!!