Posted on 03/16/2012 7:57:55 AM PDT by parksstp
Chicago - The Republican race for president looks like a two-man contest in Illinois Thursday night.
Mitt Romney is ahead of Rick Santorum among Illinois Republicans, even after Santorum’s big victories in Alabama and Mississippi on Tuesday. But Santorum is within striking distance for next Tuesday's primary.
An exclusive FOX Chicago News poll found a six point lead for Romney among those likely to vote in the March 20 presidential primary.
Romney had the support of 37 percent on Wednesday. Rick Santorum earned 31 percent of the vote.
(Excerpt) Read more at myfoxchicago.com ...
The Newtbots, nonetheless, will stick with Newt because Rick Santorum has minor imperfections as a conservative and Newt has none.
I hate to say it, but it’s time for Newt and Paul to drop out.
ping!
Whatever. If Romney can’t crack 50% in a state like Illinois when he is calling himself the inevitable candidate, he has SERIOUS problems.
Since Rick has out performed the polls time and again, try a magic eight ball for predictions.
Politics as usual fools the American electorate one more time.
This looks like the state where the split conservative vote can do some of the most damage.
This state is direct delegate election by district. That means just like with Clinton/Bush/Perot, whichever candidates’ delegates get the most votes in that district win. They don’t need 50% or a majority, just the highest amount of votes. Romney will walk away with all 69 delegates if this poll holds across all counties. Yet if Newt’s votes went to Rick, Rick would walk away with all 69 delegates.
Losing this state’s delegates is a loss we probably can’t afford to take if we want to stop Romney from winning the nomination. There will probably be no contested convention if he gets more than half of the Illinois delegates. Every single delegate counts and given all the upcoming states Romney is guaranteed to do strong in, we need to win these “swing” states decisively to beat him.
for the good of the nation.
“I hate to say it, but it’s time for Newt and Paul to drop out.”
Agreed. At this juncture, they’ve made their points and only ego is causing them to ‘hang on’.
Illinois is being bombarded with massive pro-Romney robocalls, media ads, and glowing commentary on even the “conservative” talk radio station. The only thing mentioning Santorum or Gingrich is highly negative. I have not heard a single positive ANYTHING from or about Santorum. NOTHING.
It seems that Newton is again playing the role of Perot. Is Perot one of his contributors, or is Perot with Obama?
Romney doesn’t have to get 50 percent anywhere, does he? It’s delegates that count, and he has the inside track, with Newton helping Romney.
Is IL Mormon friendly? Is Nauvoo still a Mormon enclave?
Feels like it though.
In 08, Romney ran well in the Quads area and along the MO/IL border counties. However, it’s hard to tell what support is actually still intact because at the time, he was garnering a strong Anti-McCain vote.
Turnout will be key. If it’s low in the North, Santorum may not have to make up as much as Romney did when he was blown out by McCain.
If Rockford is truly purple (CNN’s Santorum color), then Santorum will be in good shape. I have my doubts about that area though.
Gee, I did not know there were 14 Republicans in Chicago!
It could make for a good convention floor fight. I expect one if Romney can’t reach at least 1180 delegates (Florida and Arizona will be challenged).
Romney’s a phoney!
I’m a Mitt guy. But Newt shoulld get out.Let Mitt and Rick duke it out and I will enthusiastically to vote for either candidate in the election.
Willard should not have been in a Republican race to begin with. If anyone has screwed up things it is Barack McBomney. Certainly not Gingrich.
Be careful what you wish for.
Remember that if Newt drops out, EVERY one of his delegates becomes a free agent, free to vote for whomever they want.
The GOP-E and Team Romney will be at the door of every single one of those delegates, promising them influence, jobs, positions, and future support. They will have bottomless wallets, and all of the party machinery to back-up those promises.
In other words, do you really want to wake-up after the IL Primary and see Romney with over 750 committed delegates?
Rick Santorum has said it himself: the key is a brokered convention; neither he nor Newt can get to 1144.
Also not Bachmann, not Cain, and not Perry... but Rinostablishmentarian and fake conservative Willack McBomney.
Then it will all depend how the districts are divided. If no district has Romney between 30% and 50%, then the vote-splitting between Newt and Rick won't make a difference. There would be no way to defeat Romney in the 50%+ districts and one of our guys would already beating him in his 30%- districts. But if any district represents the spread in this poll or another spread where Romney is between 30-45%, then our vote splitting will hand him delegates. If he continues being able to get half the delegates from big states like this (and Pennsylvania, West Virginia, California, Texas, Wisconsin, Missouri, North Carolina, Indiana), then there's probably no path to stopping him from winning the nomination by June.
Wouldn't that happen at a brokered convention too? They can't win unless they can hold onto their delegates after they become free agents.
Rick Santorum has said it himself: the key is a brokered convention; neither he nor Newt can get to 1144.
The problem is Mitt's on his way to 1,144 without a game changer in this race. If we can mind control everyone to vote for Santorum instead of Newt, then we can win if he stays in, but that's the only way. 2/3rds of the upcoming delegates are subject to winner-take-all rules...about 800. If Ross Perot-style vote splitting causes us to lose any to Romney, then he's going to hit 1,144. We can just barely deny him the nomination if we win in every single moderate/swing state/district where vote-splitting is putting us at risk.
I agree with your take on how well Santorum is doing considering he’s being outspent six or more to one in most states.
And this despite so many top level Republican leaders coming out for Romney.
Folks are braving a very strong headwind, to go in Santorum’s direction.
If what you say is true about 1,144 delegates for Romney..then what does it matter if a single candidate (Satorum according to your analysis/) or if Santorum and Gingrich double team Romney and deprive him of reaching 1,144 delegates?
I agree with your thoughts, and it bothers me that a candidate would play into this eventuality. I was prepared to call on Santorum to drop out after last Tuesday if he lost those primaries.
Romney MUST NOT get our nomination. I could vote for Newt if he prevailed, but it’s not going to happen. Be the bigger man. Save your efforts for 2016 if you don’t want to give your goal to be president.
No honest Republican can dominate over the Illinois Dead Vote,
The Vaporous Chicago Ballot Box,
The Ghost of Daleys Past,
The Prison Reunion of Illinois Governors,
The 24 Volume Partial Cyclopedia of Indicted Illinois Public Servants...
NH set the course for the awful results since.
The IL elite don’t care how a Republican primary turns out. Such primaries are meaningless there with so many wall-to-wall liberals. But 37-31-14 says it all, and it must be discouraging for Santorum to go through the motions. At least he will get a broad look at IL, but I think he lived there in boyhood.
So let me understand this. From what it seems the best chance of beating Romney is to keep Newt IN the race, to ensure that we go to a brokered convention.
However....If that happens, won’t the GOP establishment just hand the nomination to Mittens anyway?
Read no further 37-31-14 is the recipe for conservative disaster.
Chicago would NEVER vote for a true conservative. Rino #1 in first; rino #2 in second. Your are talking Obamaland
Perot? well let me tell you one thing..Bush 41 was not the conservative we hoped for..read my lips. This is America and Newt should and will stay in..Newt already helped Santorum win one election...the gop revolution when Newt was speaker.
Yes,
when one candidate had THERE bound delegates, it was different, throwback.
Duh.
—”Wouldn’t that happen at a brokered convention too?”—
No, because the spotlight would be on them, and everyone would be making a pitch and paying attention. The delegates could be “bought” now because of the endless time and secretive deals that would certainly be made.
Buying delegates one-by-one at a brokered convention will be impossibly harder, because we’ll know each delegate’s name by heart, and they will be asked where they stand by the press every five minutes of the day.
Your analysis is not confirmed by this poll:
Romney will get LESS delegates if Newt stays in based on above poll.
I don't think the poll is correct.
When are you people going to wake up and realize that this proposition is a pipe dream?
If all those Newt voters were potential Santorum voters, they would be Santorum voters now. It isn't going to happen, and Santorum will not gain much if any ground at all on Romney when/if Newt drops out.
Reality. Deal with it.
Most times he can’t crack forty, nevermind fifty. Look at how he did in his ‘home state’ of Michigan.
So if Santorum announces Newt will be his V.P., Newt supporters will vote for Romney instead? I’ve been saying that’s the move that needs to happen for them to win. They have very few options now to deny Romney 1,144 delegates short of crossing their fingers, wishing upon a star, praying that Romney gaffes himself to death, or doing this combined-conservative ticket. If you want Romney to hit 1,144 in June and win the nomination, then keep arguing for the status quo in this race.
Santorum wouldn’t even need all of Newt’s votes to deny Romney additional delegates. If Santorum is close to 50% in some states and is already ahead of Romney, all he needs is enough votes to push him over 50% to trigger winner-take-all threshold rules that would deny Romney delegates. If this happened in Alabama, for instance, Romney would have received fewer delegates than he got and Santorum would have got all of his, all of Newt’s, plus extra.
I’m a Newt supporter and I’ve said the same thing....but I just saw a shocking poll on FoxNews. Apparently the second choice of Newt supporters breaks down 44-39 FOR ROMNEY!
This doesn’t jive with my sense of things and I sure hope it isn’t correct. If it is, though, I think I just give up.
Hank
.....Actually, what will happen will be that Obama will win in a landslide because some how Romney is leading. Newt is the only one who can beat Obama, and Santorum is splitting the anti-Romney vote. Santorum does not have the experience or the gusto to lead. He comes off as a rookie. If Santorum runs again, people will remember how he botched this. We actually could have won it.......
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