[toddausauras]

Question, who if anybody does Newt take votes from? Romney or is it a wash? Imho Newt is very smart and everything but the media would love the optics to be Obama vs another white-haired old guy.

[presidio9]

The election will be Romney vs. “not Romney.” The leading “not Romney” candidate after Iowa, NH & SC will run away with the “not Romney” vote. It won’t be enough if all other “not Romney” supporters continue trashing the leader after that point. This is how we ended up with Meghan’s daddy.

[af_vet_rr]

Question, who if anybody does Newt take votes from? Romney or is it a wash?

Romney's supporters will follow him come Hell or high water - they know what kind of person he is and they still support him, so they aren't going to leave him anytime soon. Then again, that also works against him - that 20% - 25% is about all he's going to get. He might lose some here and there, but his core supporters will follow him to the convention.

Just look at 2008 - Romney got around 22% of the actual votes. What's he polling right now? 20% - 25%. My guess is the slight bump from McCain followers.

[Boogieman]

“Question, who if anybody does Newt take votes from?”

He’ll take them from whoever he can :)

I think he’s been executing a smart strategy so far. He knows that the conservative candidates with “tea party appeal” have to duke it out and destroy each other in order to have the support to take on Romney. He also knows that, in the process, they are likely to damage each other enough that none of them will be able to emerge unscathed. He’s been generally keeping out of that fight, looking good in the debates, and hoping that, at the end of the day, he is seen as the last hope to stop Romney.