Posted on 03/18/2012 10:14:19 PM PDT by VinL
Mitt Romney is headed for a blowout victory in Illinois on Tuesday. He leads with 45% to 30% for Rick Santorum, 12% for Newt Gingrich, and 10% for Ron Paul.
Romney's particularly strong among voters who live in suburban areas (50-29) and with those who live in urban areas (46-23). But he's even running slightly ahead of Santorum, 38-36, with folks who identify as living in rural parts and that strength with a group of voters he hasn't tended to do that well with is why he's looking at such a lopsided margin of victory.
Romney tends to win moderates in most states and Santorum usually win voters describing themselves as 'very conservative.' The swing group in the Republican electorate is those identifying as just 'somewhat conservative.' Romney is winning those folks by a whooping 60-20 margin in Illinois. Romney's also benefiting from a 52-28 advantage with seniors. We've tended to find Santorum a lot more popular with voters even in states that Romney has won over the last six weeks, but that's not the case in Illinois. Romney's favorability is 57/34, about par for the course of where we've found him this year. Santorum's at only 55/36, much worse numbers than we've seen for him most places in the last couple months, and suggesting that GOP voters are starting to sour on him a little bit.
Santorum's winning the group he tends to do well with- Tea Partiers, Evangelicals, and those describing themselves as 'very conservative.' But he's not winning them by the kinds of wide margins he would need to take an overall victory- he's up only 8 with Tea Party voters and 10 with Evangelicals, groups he needs to win by more like 25 points with to hope to win in a northern state. Santorum can't blame Gingrich for his troubles in Illinois either. If Newt was out Romney would still have an 11 point advantage on Santorum, 45-34.
I agree. I would like to see a Tea Party backed candidate as v-p. You set up an interesting scenario—a one term Repub prez to do the “dirty work” that needs to be done. It requires getting more Tea Party backed Senators and Reps elected to push him in that direction.
Regardless of who pulled what issue off his website it’s HIS responsibility to direct the conversation. He had a national audience, free publicity...NATIONAL free publicity. He could have said something that acknowledged the importance of morality and enforcing the law, then added BUT right now the American people are hurting, etc. It’s not that I or anyone else thinks morality isn’t important but he had a chance to talk to the American people about what he’s going to do turn the economy around. Of course we expect him to enforce the laws on the books. The problem is, someone who wants to be president has to know how to control a conversation and talk about 1st priorities. How I feel or how you feel about porn is NOT the issue. Even if a majority of the country agrees with Santorum about pornography, the family whose house is underwater, struggling to buy gas to get back and forth to work isn’t going to think, “Whew! Glad he’s going to do that!” They’re thinking, “but what is he going to do about lowering gas prices?”. Yes, he was asked about it, but he’s got to be smart enough to not get sucked in. THAT’S the point. I understand it’s at the bottom of his website but most of America doesn’t know that and doesn’t know much about Santorum (remember we’re political junkies). He could have been that candidate “with the strong moral compass who has great ideas for turning the country around”. Instead he’s the guy that wants to ban porn. Either he frames the message or the press will do it for him. As long as he’s been in public life he should know this by now.
Cindie
Obmitt Robama
Newt’s people are against Santorum winning. That’s cool, they beleive in Newt, and are loyal to his campaign. And truth be told, Santorum isn’t that great a candidate or likely to be the type of hellraiser we really need to gut the beast, though he is light years ahead of Romney.
On top of that Newt has access to internals which may show his people breaking for Romney, so by staying in maybe he helps Santorum. (Newt may be getting a lot of support from a bloc which want’s an “electable” candidate. If he drops, they may go to Romney, because they think he will do better than Santorum against 0bama.)
All of that is fine so far, but we are coming to a point (if it hasn’t passed already) where Santorum will not be able to win.
At that point, Newt’s people need to vote for Santorum to keep Romney below 1140 delegates, and send this to the convention. We need to make clear that at that point, a vote for Santorum becomes a vote for “Neither Santorum or Romney.”
Our nation has one last hope in this election cycle. If we send it to the convention, we have a chance at the delegates selecting a highly electable Conservative of some sort.
I think God has shown us that when our nation hangs in the balance, He is not averse to diving in, and gving us the bump we need to make good things happen. We need to give Him a chance here.
Gingrich has said he won’t win outright now. That means if we don’t send it to the convention we will have Santorum or Romney.
The problem is we can’t wait too long for Newt’s people (and those unhappy with Romney) to join with the Santorum vote to keep Romney from 1140. There will be a sweet spot when we can act and still have an effect, and it will be passed quickly.
Once again, Rino Romney wins a primary in a state which will go for Obama in Nov.
This is what is so important to understand. Romney is doing well where Obama did well in ‘08. Now who do you think will get those votes this time? (I don’t know. am asking what y’all think).
“have Romney do the very hard things that must necessarily be done”
Apparently you’ve been drinking the Romnuts kool-aid, citizen.
Don’t count on the Massachusetts Moderate to do anything even faintly resembling Conservative reform.
He’s an appeaser, McCain II, Obama Light, who would “reach across the aisle” and not give Tea Partiers any more time or attention than he gave his dog.
And look at Biden to know how much influence a Veep has. Biden’s only job right now is to attack Republicans so Bam doesn’t have to get his hands dirty.
The Massachusetts Moderate and his Ego would be in it for the long haul... and in 2020, who knows what the political landscape will look like? Could be a Rat’s dream if they have a majority in either the House and Senate or both.
I could just as well argue that we should push for more big government socialist programs in our campaign because we don't want to lose the votes of people who are afraid we'll cut off their welfare bennies. Why you or me should argue against promoting conservative principles in order to get votes is a mystery to me. And you're darn tootin' the Republican party should be in the business of legislating morality. We want Roe vs. Wade overturned and we want a federal definition of marriage amendment for two things. We're not libertarians, thank God. Nor are we liberals. The desire of too many RINOs to saw off the social conservatism plank of the Republican party all of a sudden is insidious and dangerous and must be rejected if either the country or the party is to survive.
I’ll vote for Santorum if he’s our nominee (although I find his pompous demeanor irritating), but if he makes his moral prescription for the country a centerpiece of his platform I think his chances of prevailing are non-existent.
Santorum outperforms the polling, ROmney underperforms a bit and Newt couldn’t get elected dogcatcher in a national election. Those are the cold, hard and cruel facts. And here’s another one, Romney is gonna be the nominee. I’m sure I’ll throw up a little in my mouth when I vote for him in the race against Obama but vote for him I will for all the usual reasons, number one being that there may still be time for the nation to recover though that’s a big “may”.
They're such stupid ads that their success speaks ill of the average Illinois Republican. Knocking Santorum for voting for some bills that included Planned Barrenhood funding - while all Mittens did was run against Ted Kennedy with a pledge to be the most pro-choice senator in state history.
Newt get out now! Oh wait...that means Romney wins 51-36.
naps I hate to point out that Rick blew big leads in both Michigan and Ohio, and Newt withdrawing from Illinois would mean that Romney would win 51-36.
1144 needed to clinch, 1324 remaining
Candidate, Won, percent of remainder needed
If Romney is awarded all of Puerto Rico (23) and Santorum all of Missouri (52) under standard rule of winner take all if absolute majority is won, then the numbers are:
IOW, the trend is our friend. But the gap isn't closing fast enough. Yet.
Things get even more bleak, however, if you add the 69 delegates of Illinois to the Romney column:
Sure, it is mathematically possible for any of them to still win. Even if they hadn't won a single delegate, it would be possible to win by getting only 97% of the remaining delegates to be awarded. But what is possible isn't what is likely. The window of opportunity for Newt to put his ego on the shelf is rapidly closing.
Well 2006 many Repubs were thrown out giving us the worst Speaker of the House in history.
Yes, Lincoln won because the Democrat party was split due to the Southern States, however most of New England which was where the majority of the population was voted for Lincoln.
I agree that we should hope for a brokered convention. If that happens, the convention would be more suspenseful and exciting, causing more people to watch and hear the great republican ideas.
The result of what you advocate could be Romney at 49-51% and Santorum at 36-38% in Illinois based on multi-state polling which asked about a three-way race with Romney-Santorum-Paul only.
North Carolina is 31-27-20 (M-S-N), if Newt got out the most favorable expected split puts Mitt at 40, Santorum at 38. Santorum loses.
Alabama? Santorum is third, 34-28-33 (M-S-N), no Newt? Santorum loses 48-46.
If he's not within 2-3% of Romney on his own, he would lose even assuming the highest polled percentage, 57%, broke his way.
The way to stop Romney, if that's your aim, is for everyone to stay in and block him from an outright win.
If Newt endorsed Santorum, campaigned with him, and was announced as Santorum’s V.P., Santorum would get most of his votes. Also, the way the IL polling looks, Santorum could end up losing conservative districts in the South by a few points that could have been made up with votes from the Newtster. These guys are going to have to team up at the convention with their delegates anyway to win anything. Why don’t they team up now and form a ticket that might be attractive to more voters than they are separately?
Newt is not going to support a big union supporter. Santorum may be a social conservative, but I do not think social issues are that important to most Americans. A few far right bible thumpers, but not most Americans. Fiscal matters are going to be the winning issues and those are not strong issues for Santorum.
This is significant because the Bible Belt runs solidly through southern Illinois. Santorum is no longer turning on the evangelicals like he hopes he will.
I don’t think they’d get any more votes by running on the same ticket than what they have combined now. Just my opinion. Do you think they would?
As a Newt supporter I have to gnash my teeth but--Hey GOP, Welcome your new nominee, Mitt Romney.
No, Einstein, I figured you'd really wasted the time necessary to come up with numbers any observer could have approximated just by watching the evening news. But hey. Feel free to continue to knock yourself out, and by all means get back to us!
I knew it. The moment I read that post I thought "CFA." I got the fuzzy idea reading it that you must've studied discounted cash flows and NPV. Nice.
You get a big post of the day nomination from me for all that splendid work.
Don't blame me. I voted for Newt.
NW Illinois has contested primaries. The Democrats will not be crossing over tomorrow.
However, the party faithful are lock-step behind Romney because he is 'more electable.'
You may be right, or it may simply be that wealthy Republicans tends to see wealthy republican Romney as someone they can relate to. its not surprising - the country club Republicans are less conservative, especially on social issues, and Romney is the country club Republican candidate. Not surprising they’d pick Romney over santorum.
“Romney’s programs will merely continue anti-wealth-producing policies of Obama. “
Romney says otherwise, eg says he will repeal obamacare, cut taxes, etc., so these voters are not thinking it that way. They may simply be buying the ‘he can win’ argument.
“These are the producers but they’re supporting a looter.”
Seriously, tell that to the millions of over $100K/yr Americans who are foolish enough to vote for OBAMA.
So true. Unlike Santorum and Newt, Romney never cared about the AM radio listener types who are conservatives. If you think Romney's a liberal now just wait until he gets the nomination, He sees moderates and democrats as his base and will be running against Obama pandering to THEM.
Santorum's doing terrible against Romney but then again... it's hard to run around the nation telling the base that Romney's not a conservative after having endorsed him as "the real deal conservative in the last Presidential primary.
It's no surprise Santorum would face this problem. Endorsements have consequences. That's why many thought Santorum and NOT Newt should have dropped out long ago.
THAT is the core of my problem with Rick Santorum, as a good man it should have happened going into Florida that Rick strongly support Newt, instead he lopped in with the RINO/Romney/media kill machine to add his few cents to pile on in the massive, unprecedented effort to mortally wound Newt, on Bloody Thursday.
That said it all about Rick, who is indebted to no one more than Newt.
Um, Newt has shown to be a poor planner in so many areas. And, to be fair, in some states - it’s winner take all - so, yeah winning states means winning delegates.
I disagree that part of Newt’s strategy is grudge. Mittnes derailed him in Iowa and Florida with his constant barrage of negative ads, and the Newtster was rip-roaring mad about it. Can’t say I blame him either.
Unless you are on the inside of the Newt campaign, its impossible to know the motives for any candidate. We can only speculate.
As an Illinois resident, my phone blew up for the last 10 days...ALL Santorum ads....not one Romney, Newt, or Paul ad. Annoying messages, I will add.
Amen. He has run a very incompetent campaign. If he can’t get it together now...Team O will clean our clock in the general.
To pay off a trillion dollars at $1.00 a second would take 31,564 years. At a billion dollars a second only 995.70 years.(220 days). Not including interest.A trillion dollars is 1,000 times a billion.
To pay off a trillion dollars at the rate of a billion dollars a second would take 1,000 seconds.
That's 16.67 minutes. Not 995.70 years.
After his massive defeat in FL, he hasn’t recovered.That is very obviously true and I say that as someone who supported Gingrich. Not only did I support him but I still think he's about a thousand times better than Santorum and a hundred thousand times better than Romney.
But I have to go with reality here. The reality is that Gingrich had to win in Florida to stay viable. He got crushed in Florida. He is not viable. He should get out.
Apparently, there are many high profile races in IL for the democrats. It appears this will slow down the cross over vote by DEMS for Santorum. However according to the blackhole, Daily KOS, Operation Hilarity, is being promoted and pushed.
If Romney has no GOP competition, he is free to make a HARD LEFT TURN. Will he? you betcha. Romney must be forced to stay with the GOP platform.
So when we hear the likes of Dick Morris making claims that having only two months to compete against Obama is a disaster, translate that as to meaning having only two months to swing HARD LEFT, which Romney cannot wait to do...
To pay off a trillion at at billion dollars a second will not as you claim take a mere 16.67 minutes what ever the hell that is . A billion seconds equals 31 years. My decimal point was in the wrong place and the figure was wrong it isn’t 9.955 years it’s 10.years 4 months .Thank you for calling that to my attention
A successful civil war (or world war, since the left dominates worldwide politics) won by non-leftists is the only way to, completely, end the ongoing domination of politics by the left. No civil war=victory for the left. The left, always, wins, when the final major candidates for POTUS is between a leftist and a RINO, and the left, still, has its moments, whenever the final GOP POTUS candidate is a “Big Government Conservative”! RR was the last POTUS that’s closest to what the majority of conservatives really want in a president. Frustrating!
What is one trillion divided by one billion?
How many times does one billion go into one trillion?
What is 1,000,000,000,000 divided by 1,000,000,000?
What is 1 to the 12th power divided by 1 to the 9th power?
How many seconds will it take to pay off a trillion dollar debt if you pay it off at the rate of one billion dollars a second?
(Hint: all these questions have the same answer.)
The same reason Dole did?
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