It looks like all the voters GIngrich is turning are Santorum voters. For all his focus in Tennessee, he’s not making a dent in ROmney’s support. ROmney got 32% of the “early vote”, and he’s at 32% for the latest poll. Santorum has dropped, and Gingrich has risen.
FOrtunately , Tennessee is a proportional state, so if GIngrich doesn’t actually cause Romney to beat Santorum, taking votes from Santorum doesn’t help Romney win any more delegates.
Except with it getting so close, it is likely that GIngrich will pull down Santorum enough that Romney might come in 1st in some districts he was going to come in 2nd before, giving him 2 delegates instead of 1.
So probably, this late surge by Gingrich will mean that Romney will be closer to the nomination. Gingrich needs to end up in the top 2 in a district to get any delegates for a district, and maybe he’ll get close in a couple; it is unlikely he’ll end up in the top two statewide.
Mistake in that one. Romney is now at 29%, which while statistically insignificant, is a slight drop from 32%.
WHich is odd for a poll that says Romney is “coming on”, if his current poll number is lower than the number for early voting.
Maybe the full numbers will make more sense.