Based on what? His incredibly high negatives or him not gaining any traction in any of the upcoming states. Like it or not, if you look at the poll chart, Newt isn’t benefiting from the Santorum slump. Mittens is.
Based on Newt is the superior candidate and time. Still much time left and 80 to 90% of delegates are left to be won. How long did it take Rick to get in the game? He was mired for months in single digits. Newt has been on top twice before and can be again.
What are you talking about? Like most Newt bashers, you are posting totally false statements. The chart clearly shows that both Newt and Romney have risen as Santorum has dropped. Based on what do you expect Santorum to reverse this trend? The public got their first good look at him after a meteoric rise and now he’s starting a meteoric fall. The argument that Newt was not electable was not compelling or convincing at all, not for the guy who led Republicans to win the House after 40 years of being out and who increased turnout both in 1994 and this year in South Carolina by huge margins. But the argument that Santorum is not electable IS compelling, based on his Senate loss and the fact that the media can paint him as a single-issue candidate in the general election. Newt is perceived as a broad-based conservative on all issues, not just on religious-themed issues.
I won’t argue that it looks like Romney is well on track to winning the primary at this point. He’s going to win Michigan and Arizona. Santorum’s disastrous debate performance sealed that deal. And those wins will have the RINO media arguing Mitt is inevitable again, as if they ever really stopped. Newt has proven he has the ability to rise in the polls based on skill, policy matters and natural appeal, not based on luck or winning by default after the other candidates smeared each other and ignored him. But women voters are determined to hand this thing to Romney and I don’t see Newt or Rick having anything close to a message that’s going to change that trend.
At this point, Mitt is the likely winner of the primary, followed by Newt, with Santorum a distant third. It is STILL likely however that Mitt wins without a plurality of delegates and it will have to be decided at the convention. Our only chance then will be for Newt + Rick to have more delegates than Mitt + Paul, which is still possible. But it will be a disaster if Newt + Rick splitting the votes gives Romney future winner-take-all states. That is where Newt + Rick will have a difficult choice of having one of them drop out.