Mitt Romney feels as if he’s back in the game after dual wins over the weekend. But Rick Santorum is cautioning Romney to temper celebration of his recent moral victories.
Romney won Maine’s caucus with 39% of the vote on Saturday, followed by Ron Paul with 36%. Santorum and Newt Gingrich did not campaign in Maine, but received 18% and 6% respectively. Romney also won the non-binding presidential straw poll at the weekend Conservative Political Action Committee meeting (CPAC) with 38% of the vote, besting Santorum who finished in 2nd place with 31%.
The Romney campaign believed he needed a win, albeit a small one, so as to stop the bleeding and present the perception that he is still the front-runner. But Rick Santorum is crying foul and has suggested that Romney’s campaign may have used campaign cash to secure some of those votes.
“Campaigns recruit people, provide free tickets, they come and vote and then leave,” he said, adding “We didn’t do that, we don’t do that. I don’t try to rig straw polls.”
Santorum downplayed Romney’s small win in Maine as well. “That was not a place we were going to compete,” Santorum said. “I’m out here in California, and we’ll be in Washington, and Idaho, North Dakota, Michigan. We’re going to spend a lot of time in Michigan and Arizona, and those are up next. And that’s where we’re really been focusing on.”
1144 delegates are needed to secure the Republican nomination. All 4 of the remaining candidates, including Romney, are very far from reaching that goal. The current delegate count is as follows:
MITT ROMNEY – 105
RICK SANTORUM – 71
NEWT GINGRICH – 29
RON PAUL – 18
"Santorum downplayed Romney's small win in Maine as well."And well it should be played down. A little over 5,000 people participated in the GOP caucuses in Maine this year (ONLY about 100 more voters than in 2008). And of that amount, Romney reportedly won by at least 600 FEWER votes than he recieved in 2008. By now everybody knows that Straw polls are a complete joke. Just ask that stellar EX-candidate, and winner of this year's Iowa GOP Straw Poll, Michelle Bachmann.Simply put: Romney remains about as weak a front-runner as there's ever been, in quite some years, and no amount of money or spin changes that fact.
And again, adding possible insult to injury:PPP: "Santorum moves ahead in Michigan"Rick Santorum's taken a large lead in Michigan's upcoming Republican primary. He's at 39% to 24% for Mitt Romney, 12% for Ron Paul, and 11% for Newt Gingrich.Santorum's rise is attributable to two major factors: his own personal popularity (a stellar 67/23 favorability) and GOP voters increasingly souring on Gingrich. Santorum's becoming something closer and closer to a consensus conservative candidate as Gingrich bleeds support.Santorum's winning an outright majority of the Tea Party vote with 53% to 22% for Romney and 10% for Gingrich. He comes close to one with Evangelicals as well at 48% to 20% for Romney and 12% for Gingrich. And he cracks the 50% line with voters identifying as 'very conservative' at 51% to 20% for Romney and 10% for Gingrich.Santorum's benefiting from the open nature of Michigan's primary as well. He's only up by 12 points with actual Republican voters, but he has a 40-21 advantage with the Democrats and independents planning to vote that pushes his overall lead up to 15 points. Santorum is winning by a healthy margin in every region of the state except for Oakland County, where Romney has a 40-26 advantage, and the area around Lansing where Paul actually has an advantage at 30% to 27% for both Romney and Santorum.<a rel="nofollow">Republican voters aren't just declining to vote for Gingrich at this point- they don't even like him anymore. Just 38% have a favorable opinion of him to 47% with a negative one.Michigan is perceived as a state where Romney really has a home field advantage, but only 26% of primary voters actually consider him to be a Michigander while 62% do not. […]Read: http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/main/2012/02/s…My usual disclosure: Nate Silver is the only guy that I trust to any degree when it comes polling analysis. That said. PPP has been on the money lately and IF their current polling trends hold up, Feb. 28th (Michigan's primary) could be a somewhat difficult night for Romney.
Ooops, I stand corrected =-O !Yesterday I wrote: "PPP has been on the money lately …..".Welp, it seems that isn't quite true. Nate Silver: "Down in Michigan Polls, Romney Needs to Find His Base""So far, in fact, Public Policy Polling (like most other polling firms) has underestimated Mr. Santorum’s performance. In the eight states that the firm polled immediately prior to the voting, Mr. Santorum had an average of 22 percent in the surveys — but he got an average of 27 percent of the vote." [….]In the same article Nate looks at Mitt's inability to generate higher voter turnout:[…] Perhaps the most interesting aspect of a new American Research Group poll of Michigan, which gives Rick Santorum a six-point lead over Mitt Romney, a native son, is the stark divide it shows in the level of voter commitment to the candidates.Among the Republicans that the polling firm classified as definite voters, Mr. Santorum’s lead was larger, 11 points over Mr. Romney. However, Mr. Romney led Mr. Santorum 33 to 22 among voters the pollsters classified as more marginal.Ordinarily, a candidate should benefit from having the support of more definite voters — and most polling firms give them the bulk of the weight in their turnout models, which is why Mr. Santorum leads the poll over all.The universe of indefinite voters is broader. But those votes don’t count for anything unless the candidate can get the voters to the polls.That’s something Mr. Romney has had trouble doing so far. In states and counties that would appear to be strong for him, turnout is generally running below its 2008 pace. […]Read: http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/02/…