How Many Wins for Romney on Super Tuesday?
After a narrow win in the Michigan primary (3 points) and a decisive win in the Arizona primary (20 points) on Tuesday, Mitt Romney followed with a win in the Wyoming caucuses. He holds a 5-point lead in the only public poll for the Washington state caucuses this Saturday. On Tuesday, ten states will hold primaries or caucus events, with more delegates at stake on that day than have been awarded to date in the GOP nominating fight. With Romney opening up a double-digit lead nationally in the two most recent surveys for the GOP nomination, how many states could he win on Super Tuesday? If Romney does very well that day, will that effectively force at least one of his opponents to the sidelines?
So far in the GOP race, Mitt Romney has won almost twice as many total votes as either Newt Gingrich or Rick Santorum. Gingrich was Romney’s principal challenger in South Carolina, Florida, and Nevada; Santorum was his main rival in all the other states except Maine, where Ron Paul finished second. For those on the right who have maintained that Romney is a poor candidate, and is stuck at 25% of the GOP electorate, the data prove this contention false. His vote share to date is over 40%, and he has exceeded the 40% level in several states — New Hampshire, Florida, Nevada, Michigan, and Arizona. In fact, the opposite appears to be true — there is about 25% of the GOP electorate stuck on not voting for Mitt Romney, and their votes have moved back and forth among possible contenders: Rick Perry, Herman Cain, Newt Gingrich twice, and now Rick Santorum.
Looking at the ten states that will vote on Tuesday, geography will play a significant role. So far in this election cycle, momentum has meant relatively little. A candidate who wins one state has not been able to count on parlaying that victory into wins in the next contests. There have been momentum shifts, but they have been caused more by debate performances, performance on the stump, or negative advertising. Rick Perry bombed in the debates. Herman Cain’s candidacy collapsed after charges of inappropriate sexual behavior. Newt Gingrich soared in the polls with fiery debate rhetoric, directed both at the national media and President Obama. Rick Santorum surged in Iowa the old-fashioned way — by living and campaigning in the state for months. Mitt Romney has soldiered on, finishing first or second everywhere except for a beauty contest in Missouri, using his advantage in campaign cash and the help of superPACs to target whichever of his opponents was on the rise — Gingrich twice and now Santorum.
On Tuesday, Romney should win handily in Virginia, where only he and Ron Paul qualified for the ballot. He should clean up in Massachusetts, and is favored in Vermont (the only recent poll in that state has Romney up by 7 points). Romney should also win in Idaho, where well over a quarter of the GOP voters may be Mormon. Mormon voters have favored Romney with about a 90% vote share so far in the race. It is hard to see Romney not winning these states, so the question becomes: how many more can he add?
The big prize is likely to be Ohio, which has become one of the true bellwether states in American presidential elections. Ohio has similar demographics as Michigan, but has a higher share of evangelical voters, is a bit more rural, and has a lower share of college educated voters. These differences from Michigan should make Ohio more favorable ground for Rick Santorum, since Romney has done very well with the country-club Republican voters (incomes over 100K), and less well with blue-collar voters. Two weeks ago, Santorum opened up a big lead in Ohio, and as recently as the start of the week, he led Romney by 11 in the state. In the two state polls taken since the Michigan and Arizona primaries, the gap between the two candidates has narrowed. Santorum now leads by 2 points in Rasmussen, and 4 in a Quinnipiac survey. This is exactly the pattern that was seen in Michigan, where a big Santorum lead began to shrink in the week before the primary, and in the end, he lost the state narrowly to Romney.
Romney is likely to make Ohio the focus of his effort the next few days. If he can pull off a win in Ohio to add to victories in the other four states, he will have won the most competitive “headline” contest of the night, and added to his lead in primary victories and delegates won. He would also have beaten Santorum for a second time in a state where Santorum has argued he can attract Reagan Democrats and blue-collar voters in November against Obama.
If Santorum can hold on and win Ohio, he can lay claim to being the only real challenger to Romney and try to force Newt Gingrich from the race, thereby denying Romney the opportunity to win in some future contests because conservative voters were divided between Santorum and Gingrich. Gingrich appears likely to win in his home state of Georgia on Tuesday, but trails everywhere else. Santorum is way ahead in Tennessee and Oklahoma, and there are no polls in Alaska or North Dakota. Romney is making a campaign stop in North Dakota this weekend, suggesting he sees an opportunity to win one more state that is being ignored by his opponents.
There is no evidence that Santorum will give up on the race, even if he has a disappointing night on Tuesday. Once a candidate gets a taste of being a frontrunner, which Santorum had for a few weeks, the “I could be president bug” does not disappear very quickly. Newt Gingrich, who held the national lead on two occasions, appears particularly embittered at Mitt Romney for what he believes were misleading attacks on his record that knocked him from his perch at the front of the pack. Gingrich was speaking to reporters at the end of 2011 as if it were a virtual certainty that he would be the nominee before any votes had been cast. Ironically, if Gingrich sees Santorum stumble on Tuesday, winning only in Tennessee and Oklahoma, and maybe Alaska, he might believe that his candidacy could for the third time rise from the dead. By sticking around, both he and Santorum would be fighting for their share of the non-Romney vote, increasing Romney’s chances of winning more of the future contests.
Due to the changes in GOP delegate selection rules (fewer winner-take-all states) and the delegate penalties assessed against some states which moved their primaries up, the GOP race will be a longer slog to the finish than it would have been in earlier cycles. If Romney wins Ohio on Tuesday, plus finishes first in four or five other states, it is hard to see him being denied the nomination. But that does not mean that any of his opponents will gracefully leave the race.
*Yawn*.
With no information, its not news.
With no political insight, it’s not pundrity.
Just more Mitt/Boot-Licking sycophancy from PJM.
I know you’re moonstruck over Newt but the good news is he’s at a lowly 15% and yet still playing a useful role in the process of nominating the one candidate who can beat Obama.
Who Romney? The man sold his soul so long ago he doesn’t even remember having one. The only difference between Obama and Romney is that while you may dislike Obama’s positions you at least know what they are. With Romney they change yearly, monthly, daily, or by the hour. Basically, he’s just a liar
So why are you back on here commenting about it? Do you usually waste your time reading stuff that isn’t newsworthy, or do you just relish setting yourself up as the authority on what is valuable for the rest of us to read? I am tired of these mindless proclamations.
You are back on here commenting about something you seem to consider a waste of your time, stuff that isn’t newsworthy.
Only the most vain – or most Leftist…but I repeat myself – would relish setting themselves up as the authority on what is valuable for the rest of us to read…that seems to be YOU schtick, NOT mine. If you’re tired of these mindless proclamations, buzz off, child.
Ed, please reread your own post. Now who was talking about this article being a waste of everyone’s time to read? Sheesh.
Jim, To some of us Ed Wallis’s Comment #1 appeared to be both accurate and epigrammatic to boot. And he didn’t deny Mr. Baehr’s right to publish; he only said there was nothing to learn from it.
Don’t join the crowd that likes to shoo off those that disagree with a PJ writer. There’s just too much of that lately on this site.
That is fine. I don’t see where I accused him of trying to deny anyone’s right to publish. I just saw him, as usual, trying to be the first to assert that there is nothing worthwhile to read in an article that was more favorable to Mitt Romney than is Ed Wallis. Look around at any article in PJM, which mentions Mitt Romney’s name, and you will find Mr Wallis posting the same links to smear articles from other blogs. This tactic is the same as the Obama campaign uses. I happen to think he is really a troll who works for the Gingrich campaign. If you want to believe in the veracity of Ed Wallis’ rants, that is your business, but don’t blame me because I object to them. My opinion is that our real enemy is the occupant of our White House and that we should limit the amount of fodder we allow him to use in his campaign.
SMEARS, Jim?!? *I’m * the one emulating Obama’s Goons?!? Bwahahahaha!!!!!!!!
THAT’S YOUR STOCK IN TRADE, JERK. Any mindless Romney sycophant – you included – has the same reflex, mindless defense of Mittens. TOO BAD YOU CAN’T DEAL WITH FACTS AND LINKS FROM OTHER MINDS. Get out of your echo chamber and change your nappies.
I believe you are. I think you are doing more damage to the Republican Party than you have ever tried to do to Obama and that is how you are helping that Communist. Enough said.
In multi-candidate state races for public office, the rules usually state that when no one candidate gathers more than 50% of the vote, there is a run-off election between the two highest vote getters. Similarly in today’s Republican primary system, if there is some system in place that (more or less) assigns delegates proportionally to the primary vote totals, then each of these states that Romney wins by less than 50% of the vote places him further away from a first-ballot nomination at the Republican convention. This mathematical fact holds true whether the non-Romney votes are split among 3 or 300 other candidates, and means there is no real reason for any non-Romney candidate to drop out of the race. If nobody shows up at Tampa with a first-ballot majority of delegates, then the convention itself will act like a run-off election except that the eventual nominee can be anyone, not just one of the top vote getters. A plurality of all the states’ primary voters thus ends up buying you surprisingly little. This arithmetical fact has not so far been publicized anywhere in the media; and is, I think, why so many of the best candidates have chosen not to run this year. They have, after all, already been widely recognized as possible presidential nominees …
The take-away fact: if a Republican primary is held in a state that awards delegates proportionally to the percentage of votes each candidate receives, and Romney gets less than 50% of the vote, then he ends up further away from a first-ballot nomination.
Well, since Erick Erickson over at Redstate has in writing Mitt Romney’s suggestion that President Obama consider and support the individual mandate for the Affordable Care Act it will be interesting to see how he does this Tuesday. If Romney is the nominee repeal of the ACA will not happen because Romney can’t campaigned against something he supported (and did I mention we have it in writing?).
http://www.redstate.com/erick/2012/03/02/breaking-mitt-romney-urged-obama-to-embrace-the-individual-mandate/
See the above, bozo.
Name-calling is beneath intelligent human beings.
Jim Baker is aparrently *not* an intelligent human being.
Would that be because Audra says so, Ed?
Awww, you must be a Romney fanboy, huh? What is it like supporting a liar?
Does anybody enforce the comments guidelines?
It’s the McCain campaign all over again. Romney may be able to engineer winning the nomination, but that’s all he will win. What difference between electing a progressive Democrat or a progressive Republican? Democrat voters will come out to cast their vote, and Republican voters won’t.
Oh, I’ll still vote if Flip Romney is the Republican nominee. Just I will be voting for Gary Johnson on the Libertarian ticket instead of the Republican ticket I have always voted for in the past.
I think the whole primary season for the Republicans will come down to Ohio. Whoever wins that will get the nomination. True, Romney isn’t winning by much, but he is still WINNING, and that’s what you need to do to get the nomination. Newt is pretty much finished even if he wins Georgia. It’s hard to see where he goes from here except to get a few southern states (maybe) and a spot at the convention giving a good speech. If Santorum gets Ohio, then he’ll have some real momentun at his back and then the fight really could go all the way to the convention, especially in the states where they hand out delegates on a proportional basis, since many of his wins against Romney were close.
But, for whatever it’s worth, I think Romney is going to win and walk away with it on Tuesday. I think even the Republicans are getting tired of this infighting and they want to rally around somebody. I think it’s a mistake and that Romney isn’t the best candidate, but hey, I’ve been wrong before. I lost interest after Michele Backmann left the race. Because, you know darn well that in the end all the Republicans will vote for whoever gets the nomination. Anyone is better than Obama, and even the independents know that by now.
You have to love the spirit of Romney apologists…they just can’t figure out that everybody hates him.
If he can’t inspire the base, how is he so “electable”?
I know most Romneybots view the base with a bit of disdain, but facts are facts.
It’s interesting that the writer here implies that if Romney has a good day, while his opponents “should” bow out “gracefully,” they “won’t.”
I’m sure that will give some insight into how columns are going to read here moving forward…
I hope Romney eats their lunch. He is a good man, he has not flipped more than newt, or santorum. In fact the only one who hasn’t is paul and you know he can’t beat 0b0z0!
So all of you Mitt haters had better decide if he wins, and you still hold the opinion that you won’t vote for him, you had better decide that you want to live with 2 or 3 people like ginsburg or the other two on the supreme court, and we will never get our country back. Of course you all could be dems in sheep’s clothing.
Romney is nothing like 0b0z0!
I guess there is no use talking, you will do what you will.
So…instead of a Ginsburg we’ll get a Kennedy?
Gawd – I can hardly wait for Romney’s first pick. I expect it’ll be something like Bush’s Meyer pick – or worse. I just don’t trust that Romney understands how important good SCOTUS picks are.
Nah,
It’ll be another Souter. Remember how establishment douchebag Sununu swore that Souter has a real, stealth, conservative? How’d that work out?
“Romney is nothing like 0b0z0!” Yes he is, just a different color. LOL! Romney = electoral suicide
Better yet, click on the Redstate link I provided above and defend the oped by Romney. I’m really interested in the mental calisthenics you will have to engage in to explain it all away because that is exactly what he will have to do as well. Come on, defend yourself and your candidate, I dare you …
What do you know about electoral suicide? Nice slogan, but anyone can make stuff up, I see.
Is Ohio an open or closed primary?
That’s really what it boils down to. Santorum’s “support” in Michigan was largely mischief-making Democrats, that’s the only reason it was close. Look, I ain’t crazy about Romney either (I was a Herman Cain guy); but Santorum is a disaster. The Dems are salivating to make this election about social issues rather than Obama’s failed presidency, and the Fluke fiasco shows how dirty they can play that game and get away with it.
I don’t see where the Dems are getting all that much mileage out of that Fluke business. People are figuring out that woman’s sexual habits – with the moral compass of a rabbit she’s not exactly the example they should be parading around under the nose of the American voter. Voters aren’t all uninformed. All that needs to be done is to educate the public on her sexual proclivities – which seem to be on par (or below) that of a ‘slut’.
Yes. That USAToday Op-Ed from July 30, 2009 that Governor Romney wrote encouraging President Obama to implement the individual mandate should get more scrutiny than gawking at Polls. It’s not about “hating Romney” but about repealing Obamacare, and I don’t believe he’ll do it. I wonder why no-one at pjmedia has exposed this.
I’ve become convinced this election cycle that electing Romney has become a ‘team’ effort – and PJM has become part of the ‘team’. Sad to see that happen. I thought this was a ‘conservative’ site. Even Hanson whom I admire is on-board the Romney ‘inevitability’ train. Mayhap he is in line for a speech producing position? Ya never know.
The Republicans will boil it all down to the weakest possible candidate. Newt would be the strongest against Obama and the media which rules him out. Paul would most likely restore the Constitution which rules him out. Romney would best reinstate financial sanity which rules him out. Santorum will be left standing to be the most self rightous, phony, whining loser since McCain. Hello again BO.
What about Santorum is phony? He’s a devout Catholic, and that accounts for most of what most people are complaining is strange about him.
I’ve said before and I’ll say again, I don’t like Mitt Romney. I don’t trust him. I really can’t say why, there’s just something about him. I can’t figure out where he stands on anything. He reminds me of the Governor in the movie “Best little Whorehouse in Texas” with his slip sliding away theme song. I guess it’s just that he comes off as just too smug. A don’t question me, I’m right and everyone else is wrong attitude. It’s my turn, don’t you all see that?
That being said, if he gets the nomination I will vote for him. I wont like it, I will probably be holding my nose while I do it but I will vote for him. I just pray we get control of the House and Senate and he stays out of the way while they do what needs to be done.
I don’t trust your opinion.
That is fine, perry1949, as long as you do hold your nose and vote for whomever the Republicans finally nominate. We have a Communist presently running our Executive branch and he is shooting for more than that. ABO By the way, if that is your birth year you have the dubious distinction of being even older than me. But, not by much.
I’m cautiously optimistic that Romney will govern as a fiscal conservative. I have resisted supporting him up until recently, as the other candidates have disqualified themselves for various reasons. I watched Romney tonight on Huckabee’s show, and he obviously grasps that fact that the government has grown too large. If there was a better conservative candidate that I felt could win in November, I would be happy to vote for them. No such person is running currently, so it is Romney for me.
Look, guys, get with the program. It’s Mitt. End of story. He’s got a good record of accomplishment, he’s photogenic, he’s been vetted absolutely thoroughly, and he’s got the momentum. Like it or not, he’s our candidate. Now, what are you going to do with that fact? Are you going to sit home and pout?
Long story short, Romney is one Hell of a lot better than the current WH denizen. Like Romney or don’t like him, it doesn’t matter. What does matter is that you remember that this is the ANYBODY BUT OBAMA election. I’d GLADLY vote for Zeeba the syphilitic camel before I’d vote for a repeat of the last four years. Remember: if you don’t vote for Romney, you’re voting for Obama. Yes, I’m talking to you sulkers, Paulbots, Newties, Santys, etc. We either hang together with our candidate, Romney, or we will most assuredly hang separately.
Don’t wait for a perfect candidate; one isn’t coming. The sainted Ronald Reagan, of blessed memory, wasn’t perfect either. Romney can win and at bottom he is a financial conservative. That is what we really, desperately need right now running this country. Everything else is fluff.
Again, Romney is going to be the candidate. Get behind him or understand that by not doing so you’re helping Obama. Breitbart was for Romney. Be Breitbart.
No, we’re going to beat him and prevent him from getting the nomination.
I’ve got $500 says you’re wrong. Want to bet?
And then what are you going to do? Elect someone?
I think yesterday’s Caucus result in Clallam County (Forks!)/Washington deserves a more detailed analysis. There were 225 votes for Rick Santorum. They must have come from the Cullens. They put great emphasis on high moral standards, but as blood suckers they are also strongly leaning to Big Government. The 227 votes for Ron Paul might come from the Quileute. They sometimes make a highly awkward impression and call for strict non-intervention on their own territory. Charlie Swan is the most common of all – for sure he voted for Romney. The reason why Newt Gingrich was so far behind on the last spot must be that Victoria, James and Laurent did not survive the first three parts.