Posted on 03/15/2012 7:40:58 PM PDT by Keyes2000mt
Newt Gingrich in the wake of two losses in deep South States is seeking a justification for remaining in the race. When challenged by Brett Baier, Gingrich was unable to name a single state that he could win. Indeed, after playing hard as a "Southern Candidate" Gingrich has lost three straight Southern States including two deep South States near his home state of Georgia, so it's hard to imagine Gingrich winning elsewhere. Still Gingrich claimed a role in the race.
His argument for continuing is that he and Senator Rick Santorum are playing a "tag team" that is denying Romney the nomination. Gingrich argues that should he leave the race, his supporters will split between Rick Santorum and Mitt Romney and that Romney will turn all of his considerable resources on defeating his remaining foe-Santorum.
The second argument is fatuous. Campaign ads have not been running against Gingrich for some weeks, at least not in any number. The vast majority of its fire has been on Senator Santorum already and will remain so, particularly as Gingrich is no longer a serious threat.
The first argument is worthy of some consideration. The idea that the presence of two conservatives in the race has hurt Romney's progress is at least mathematically accurate. One can't take Newt Gingrich's total support and added it to Rick Santorum. Without Gingrich in the race, some of Gingrich's support would go to Romney. One poll showed with Gingrich gone, 56% of his supporters would go to Santorum, 27% to Romney and 16% to Ron Paul. Nate Silver of the New York Times did an analysis on this basis that showed that while Santorum would have won Ohio and Alaska without Gingrich in the race, Romney would have netted more delegates because most of the contests up until now have proportionally allocated their delegates.
However, in Alabama and Mississippi, this may not have been the case. Both states allocated congressional districts and an at-large delegation proportionally. With 56% of Gingrich supporters going to Santorum, Santorum would have won Alabama 51-36%, and Mississippi at 50.2%-39%. Santorum would have captured all the at-large Delegates for both Alabama and Mississippi as well as won a majority in most of the eleven congressional districts in the two states, leaving Romney with perhaps as few as six to twelve delegates as opposed to the twenty-three he won through Gingrich's presence which left the winner with less than a majority.
Looking down the road, there are even more states that are either winner take all by Congressional District or winner take all by state. In addition, Nebraska and Montana will elect their delegates at their June State Conventions, so their primaries are non-binding. However, any chance that Santorum will have of getting delegates in these states will be greatly enhanced by winning the primaries. So, Gingrich splitting the vote isn't going to help.
Of course those states that have proportional allocation with a relatively low threshold to obtain delegates that allow Gingrich to theoretically help stop Romney by winning voters who would have otherwise supported the former Massachusetts Governor. On the other hand, those that are winner take-all by Congressional District or proportional with a threshold above 15% are likely to have Gingrich advancing the cause of Mitt Romney by splitting the conservative vote and allowing Romney to win a plurality.
How do the remaining states line up?
Gingrich's Presence Will Help Romney
Illinois
Louisiana (Proportional-25% threshold)
Wisconsin
Maryland
Delaware
Pennsylvania
Indiana
West Virginia
Nebraska
Arkansas (Proportional, but if a candidate wins a majority, they get all delegates.)
California
New Jersey
Montana
South Dakota (Proportional-20% threshold)
Gingrich's Presence will hurt Romney:
North Carolina
Oregon
Texas
Gingrich's Presence Will Likely Help Romney
Rhode Island
Connecticut
New York
Kentucky
New Mexico
In fourteen states including California, the presence of Newt Gingrich will help Mitt Romney pick up delegates either by stopping Santorum from winning a majority of the vote (in Arkansas), enabling Romney to win either statewide or in congressional districts, by taking votes from Santorum in proportional contests where Gingrich is unlikely to reach the high delegate thresholds.
In three other states, the pure proportional nature of the contests and lack of thresholds means that Gingrich is marginally hurting Romney by filching a few delegates that would have gone to the former Massachusetts Governor. If we assume 12% for Gingrich in Oregon and Oregon and 20% in both Texas and North Carolina, that would give Gingrich forty-four delegates, of which twelve would have gone to Romney otherwise.
The five other states are somewhat harder to call. While Rhode Island and New Mexico divide their delegates proportionally at fifteen percent of the vote, results in other contests in these regions suggest Gingrich is unlikely to meet the threshold given the momentum in the race, so his presence is most likely to only reduce Santorum's delegate haul rather than generate any of his own.
Connecticut and New York are dicier. Both states offer some delegates as winner take-all by Congressional District. The remaining delegates (ten in Connecticut and thirty-four in New York) are awarded to the winner of the state if he wins a majority. If no one wins a majority, the delegates will be split proportionally among all candidates winning 20% of the vote or more. Romney is expected to win both states. However, Gingrich's presence could cost Santorum districts in upstate New York. In addition, if Romney finishes solidly under 50% in both states, Gingrich would cost Santorum at-large delegates.
There is one scenario under which Gingrich's presence could hurt Romney slightly. If due to a Gingrich split, Romney wins in New York, but not with a majority (say with 48% and Gingrich wins 10%), Gingrich could help Romney win a Congressional District or two in upstate New York while at the same time he could hold Romney under 50%, allowing Santorum to pick up slightly more at-large delegates in one or both states.
Kentucky is also complicated. The state awards eighteen delegates winner-take-all by Congressional District and Gingrich's presence could help Romney by splitting the conservative vote. On the other hand, it awards twenty-four statewide delegates proportionally with a fifteen percent threshold that Gingrich would probably still be able to get to. However, Gingrich would be unlikely to win enough proportional delegates that Romney would have otherwise won to make up for throwing even one Congressional District to Romney.
The math is simply against Newt Gingrich having a positive impact in terms of stopping Mitt Romney. Overall, Gingrich is now Romney's best friend in this race.
However, the race is more than math. There is psychology and how voters and activists feel about the race. More victories and wider margins make conservatives feel more confident that Romney can be stopped. Santorum won three of ten states on Super Tuesday, a majority of the vote in Kansas, and single digit wins in Mississippi and Alabama. Without Gingrich, Santorum would have won five of ten states on Super Tuesday to Romney's four, a super majority in Kansas, and won both Alabama and Mississippi outright by double digit margins over Mitt Romney. This situation may not have changed delegate math much, but it would have increased conservative sentiment that Mitt Romney wasn't so electable after all and that he could be beaten.
Conservatives can win in fight for someone under one banner, rather than working under multiple banners and attempting to be too cute by half in playing strategy games.
The results are clear, as is the way forward. If conservatives want to nominate an alternative to Romney, their only hope is to unite behind Rick Santorum.
What year was it that Speaker Gingrich got on the soapbox for Puerto Rican statehood? And then nothing happened. One would think Newt would be full time this weekend in Puerto Rico.
I a thread dedicated to his post, I would discuss his post. This thread is about the topic “Is Newt Gingrich helping or hurting Mitt Romney”. Notice that there is no mention of Rick Santorum, or what he voted on, nor is that topic at all relevant to the discussion of whether Newt Gingrich staying in the race will end up helping Romney win, or keeping Romney from winning.
Some people don’t want to discuss the topic at hand, and so they spam threads with other topics, to change the subject or take the focus away from something THEY don’t want to discuss.
So I find it funny that you are defending someone who doesn’t want to discuss this topic by asking why I won’t answer the off-topic comment.
Gingrich has certainly been the most rabidly anti-Romney candidate of the two. So it would make sense that his supporters would be unlikely to jump to Romney, or they would have abandoned Gingrich already because of his rhetoric against a candidate they might support.
Two candidates always draw more total votes than one; so he helps keep Romney down, so long as the only measure of success is a comparison of the popular vote; true for some of the proportional states, not so much for winner-take-all.
But as I’ve said elsewhere, the “status quo” is a Romney victory. We need some game-changer. Like a football team switching quarterbacks NOT because the other guy is better, but simply to change the dynamic.
We don’t just need Santorum picking up Gingrich votes, or Gingrich picking up Santorum votes. We need one of these two guys to get a couple of majority victories, and have some fundraising that convinces the much larger GOP population that the candidate has “made a move” and is now “a viable candidate”.
Most people aren’t voting to play games, or to “deny someone” a nomination, they want to pick a winner they can support, and be done with it. That is primarily perception, and we need to change that perception. The only way I see that perception changing is for one of the two conservatives to get a significant “jump” in the polls and in margin of victory.
So long as Gingrich and Santorum split the vote, they can come in 1 and 2, and it doesn’t change anything. Look at this week in the news. There is almost NO talk of Romney now being hopelessly ruined, even though he came in 3rd. Instead, he was “virtually tied” with the other two, like it’s a 3-man race and every one has the same support so it’s not clear which one should be chosen.
If instead of 33/32/30, the results were consistantly 55/45, people understand “majority”. Even if Romney was getting MORE delegates, people would say “hey, why would we keep voting for a guy who can’t get a majority, when the other guy keeps getting a clear victory”?
But you might notice that this is all “logical argument”, not a factual analysis. It’s all guesswork, nobody knows. And I think the likely result of Gingrich dropping out is a Romney victory, because I think the dynamic wouldn’t change enough at this point.
If there was a time for this, it was right after Super Tuesday. Santorum had a bit of momentum, Gingrich was pretty much done. If he had thrown with Santorum then, and Santorum then won Kansas more decisively, and took the next two states with a majority vote and almost all the delegates (giving Santorum a delegate WIN, rather than Romney getting more delegates), MAYBE, just MAYBE, the tide would have turned.
And anyway, I’m not calling on Gingrich to drop out. I still say candidates mostly are “dropped out” by the electorate, and I think that is happening here, maybe too slowly. But nobody likes when people force out a candidate — we needed Gingrich, or Santorum, to drop out freely and to be enthusiastic about the other guy.
what's the Hail Mary Pass? And I don't really get what you are saying... just keep on keeping on...? I think what he was saying was - Romney isn't Mr. Electability any longer... that was what I got mostly from it..
By Hail Mary pass, I mean some event that would seriously hurt Romney's popularity, or seriously increase Newt or Rick's. These projections are obviously not based on any drastic shifts in the candidates' popularity, but are expecting future states to perform as past similar states did.
So I'm saying the decision for both Newt and Rick to stay in is most likely going to lead to a flat-out Romney nomination by June. All I'm saying is we just might be able to stop Romney if we consolidate all the support between one non-Romney, which will help us sock Romney in the jaw in the various types of winner-take-all states and districts coming, which make up 2/3rds of the remaining delegates.
Newt........is a superior candidate to Rick.
_____________________________________________________________I agree. So, can you please tell me why Rick keeps winning and Newt, for all intents and purposes, is out of the race, even though he’s hanging in there? Why is Newt not winning?
You are dead on right. Newt cannot win, even at a brokered convention. I do not understand the denial of pure logic by the newt supporters here.
The ONLY way one could still support and enthuse over Gingrich for president is if one wished for Gingrich, but Romney were your second choice. Because at this stage for the Gingrich campaign, it’s time to say , “Well, Newt can’t get it, but his still being in the race helps Romney, my next best choice.”
And I’m not sure how conservative that thinking is, but it’s a free country. Obviously a lot of people out there like Romney. I just thought Free Republic wasn’t among the fans of Mitt.
Thanks. The article was missing this. It’s crystal clear. We must unite behind Santorum in order to fight for a conservative in the White House. If we are stuck with the Romninee, there won’t be anything to fight for. Remember the supreme court.
From a psychological perspective, what you see as a “big ego” in someone like Gingrich and his behavior is actually a very needy ego. He is a bottomless pit of need.
Like Clinton and Obama, two famous needy Presidents, Gingrich came out of childhood lacking. He seeks approval and mass attention to such a degree that it will tend to cloud his ability to prioritize. He will choose what he wants over the best plan of action. Yes, he is smart and verbally adept. But he can’t use his powers well without emotional stability.
I did not support him for President because of this character flaw. A religious conversion can’t change it. And now you see his prioritizing in action: he chooses what he wants over statesmanship. We do not need another one of these as President.
>Santorum can’t get 1,144 delegates, Newt or no Newt.
The goal at this point is a brokered ocnvention. Even though RIck can’t win outright, if he keeps romney below 1140 delegates, it will go to the convention floor, and our nominee will be Newt, or some other real Conservative, maybe even Duncan Hunter.
We’re better off giving it to the delegates at this point, as the only other option is to just take the elite’s Romney Candidacy.
So the goal is not to hand victory to Rick, but rather to simply deny Romney a clear win.
That is a pretty broad statement.
I think you missed the point of the article. I LOATHE Romney. Yet he will win the nomination if Gingrich doesn’t combine his vote with Santorum’s in the winner take all votes.
Note, this doesn’t help Santorum, as Santorum can’t win outright either, especially if Newt’s people only cross over to him in the Winner take all contests. What this does is deny Romney enough to win outright, and send it to the convention floor. I doubt Romney will win among the delegates, and I doubt Santorum will either.
Newt has a chance there, but so does any other candidate who the delegates like enough to put up. Think Hunter, Sarah, Marco Rubio, Allen West, and probably a few others who will emerge as the bartering among the Conservative delegates begins.
The bottom line is both Gingrich and Santorum are done in the main race now. I don’t know who is voting for Romney, or how a leftist is so far ahead of the Conservatives he is actually winning. What I do know is the only chance we have is if we can all team up in the winner take all contests, and give rick enough to beat Romney in those contests and send it to the convention floor.
Again, I hate Romney, and am not supporting any other candidate here. I’m just trying to avoid the embarrassment of seeing Romney as our nominee.
I don’t know if it will help make the case, but I think Jedi is right here. You’re still arguing about whether it should be Newt or Santorum, but that fight is over. At this point, even if all of Newt’s people joined Santorum, Santorum is done, as is Newt, at least in the Primary voting. I really don’t understand how Romney’s “organization” (Whatever the hell that means) could beat real Conservatives in the Republican Primary, but so far, it is on course to if we don’t adapt to the current circumstances.
At this point, both Rick’s people and Newts need to realize Romney will win outright if nothing changes.
We have one option, and it isn’t Newt or Rick. It is to vote however we have to in order to deny Romney 1140. Newt’s campaign said this already here:
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http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2858883/posts?page=51
“Our goal first is to keep Romney well below 1,000,” Gingrich spokesman R.C. Hammond said an hour before Gingrich addressed a small crowd of disappointed supporters gathered at the Wynfrey Hotel. “It doesn’t have to be 1,000, or 1,050 — it has to be below 1,100.” If Gingrich succeeds, Hammond continued, “This will be the first time in our party in modern politics that we’re going to go to the convention floor.”
****************
Newt is saying that his best chance is to see his supporters simply focus on keeping Romney below 1140. This presupposes Rick is out of contention, which he is.
If we can all focus on this one goal, we may be able to send this to the convention floor, and get a great Conservative to beat Obama (It could even be Newt, I don’t know how it will go).
But we all need to accept that our candidates lost, and that we all now have the same goal. Keep Romney below 50% in every winner take all contest, be it state or district.
Many haven’t seen this yet, and if they don’t see it soon, we will have Romney as our candidate. The last battle is over, now we have a new one. We need to start fighting it.
Thank-you for your timely post!
I didn’t miss the point of anything.
Romney is just as done as Rick or Newt.
FMR and I am for anything that will deny this deciever his aspiration.
Newt is my guy, Rick is my back up plan and I’d like to see this thing hashed out in Tampa.
We stand on the shoulders of men (& women) who have given their all, their lives even....to overcome evil.....to put others before themselves.
I’m so grateful for your concern. Go, Newt!! Best man for the job.
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