Posted on 05/07/2007 9:32:58 AM PDT by Unmarked Package
In the first poll of New Hampshire Republican Primary voters since the GOP debate at the Reagan Library last week, Mitt Romney, former Governor of neighboring Massachusetts, jumps into a breathtaking lead over Rudolph Giuliani and John McCain, according to a SurveyUSA poll of likely NH Republican Primary voters conducted exclusively for WBZ-TV Boston.
Romney gets 32% today, measurably better than Giuliani at 23% and McCain at 22%, who tie for 2nd place. Actor Fred Thompson, who was not included in previous SurveyUSA polling of New Hampshire GOP Primary voters, but who is included in these results, finishes 4th, at 11%.
Who is Up? Who is Down?
Compared to a NH SurveyUSA WBZ-TV poll released 1/29/07, Giuliani and McCain have each lost 10 points. The two had been tied for first, 33% then for Giuliani, 32% then for McCain.
Romney is up 11 points, from 21% then to 32% now. That's a 21-point swing to Romney among likely GOP Primary voters.
What's changed?
In January, Romney got 16% among those in favor of stem-cell research. Today Romney gets 31% among those in favor of stem-cell research. Romney's debate answer on this question -- so scholarly that moderator Chris Matthews momentarily thought Romney had mis-heard the question -- appears to have resonated. But at the same time, Romney's stem-cell answer has not cost Romney support among pro-life voters.
Romney gets 38% among pro-life voters today, 19 points higher than McCain, 22 points higher than Giuliani and 26 points higher than Thompson, who are clustered far back.
Among the 60% of NH Primary voters who say they are Conservative, Romney gets 35% today, 15 points better than McCain, 18 points better than Giuliani, 21 points better than Thompson.
Giuliani's support skews young. McCain's support skews old. Romney's support is even across all age groups.
Because SurveyUSA's questionnaire in January did not explicitly name Thompson, SurveyUSA does not here produce tracking graphs, since an exact, apples-to-apples track, is not possible. However, you may access the 1/29/07 New Hampshire data here.
Look at the cross-tabs of that poll. Romney gets wide support from all factions of the GOP, and the political spectrum. Almost as many moderates as conservatives support him. The idea that he can’t win the national election is laughable.
On another note, with Romney’s obvious strength in NH, Iowa is going to be especially important. If Romney wins Iowa, he will without question win New Hampshire. And candidates simply don’t lose the nomination after winning Iowa AND New Hampshire. It’d require a collapse of monumental proportions.
Hey, why not. If Romney is liberal enough to get elected in Mass, he’s liberal enough for NH.
Arghhhhh! Aye, mate! All he needed was a parrot on his shoulder cackling! LOL
MITT-MENTUM!! ;-)
The only people saying Romney didn’t win the debate are the abortion-uber-alles crowd and Mormon haters. The man looks like he could be President or at least Vice-President.
I agree with everything you said.
They met the man. It's hard to not be impressed by him.
He came right off the H.M.S Bounty!
ping
If you think Romney is more liberal than Rudy then I don’t even know what to say. And to say that McCain and Rudy are more electable is just wrong. No Democrats are going to swing over to those guys and they are going to lose a large part of the Republican base. Mitt can keep the base and win with the red state strategy that got Bush elected twice probably adding Michigan as well. The more people see of Romney the more they like him, except for the mormon haters and the extremely small but very vocal minority of people on here that constantly distort his record using the same dossier that has been debunked 300 times.
Are you crazy? Winning some blue states is the only way we are going to win. Ohio won’t be going Republican next year.
Early reports have indicated that around one quarter of the money is from Mormons. That still leaves 15 million and change, out of his 21 million haul. Better then any other any other Republicans.
It’s funny because in the post I wrote above that you replied to I said that the only evidence the anti-Romney forces have of his “liberal” record is that same old “Mitt Romney Deception” dossier that has been debunked 300 times. Then you proceeded to reply by giving me a link to that very document. Thank you for proving my point.
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