Posted on 03/18/2012 10:14:19 PM PDT by VinL
Mitt Romney is headed for a blowout victory in Illinois on Tuesday. He leads with 45% to 30% for Rick Santorum, 12% for Newt Gingrich, and 10% for Ron Paul.
Romney's particularly strong among voters who live in suburban areas (50-29) and with those who live in urban areas (46-23). But he's even running slightly ahead of Santorum, 38-36, with folks who identify as living in rural parts and that strength with a group of voters he hasn't tended to do that well with is why he's looking at such a lopsided margin of victory.
Romney tends to win moderates in most states and Santorum usually win voters describing themselves as 'very conservative.' The swing group in the Republican electorate is those identifying as just 'somewhat conservative.' Romney is winning those folks by a whooping 60-20 margin in Illinois. Romney's also benefiting from a 52-28 advantage with seniors. We've tended to find Santorum a lot more popular with voters even in states that Romney has won over the last six weeks, but that's not the case in Illinois. Romney's favorability is 57/34, about par for the course of where we've found him this year. Santorum's at only 55/36, much worse numbers than we've seen for him most places in the last couple months, and suggesting that GOP voters are starting to sour on him a little bit.
Santorum's winning the group he tends to do well with- Tea Partiers, Evangelicals, and those describing themselves as 'very conservative.' But he's not winning them by the kinds of wide margins he would need to take an overall victory- he's up only 8 with Tea Party voters and 10 with Evangelicals, groups he needs to win by more like 25 points with to hope to win in a northern state. Santorum can't blame Gingrich for his troubles in Illinois either. If Newt was out Romney would still have an 11 point advantage on Santorum, 45-34.
Newt is not going to support a big union supporter. Santorum may be a social conservative, but I do not think social issues are that important to most Americans. A few far right bible thumpers, but not most Americans. Fiscal matters are going to be the winning issues and those are not strong issues for Santorum.
This is significant because the Bible Belt runs solidly through southern Illinois. Santorum is no longer turning on the evangelicals like he hopes he will.
I don’t think they’d get any more votes by running on the same ticket than what they have combined now. Just my opinion. Do you think they would?
As a Newt supporter I have to gnash my teeth but--Hey GOP, Welcome your new nominee, Mitt Romney.
No, Einstein, I figured you'd really wasted the time necessary to come up with numbers any observer could have approximated just by watching the evening news. But hey. Feel free to continue to knock yourself out, and by all means get back to us!
I knew it. The moment I read that post I thought "CFA." I got the fuzzy idea reading it that you must've studied discounted cash flows and NPV. Nice.
You get a big post of the day nomination from me for all that splendid work.
Don't blame me. I voted for Newt.
NW Illinois has contested primaries. The Democrats will not be crossing over tomorrow.
However, the party faithful are lock-step behind Romney because he is 'more electable.'
You may be right, or it may simply be that wealthy Republicans tends to see wealthy republican Romney as someone they can relate to. its not surprising - the country club Republicans are less conservative, especially on social issues, and Romney is the country club Republican candidate. Not surprising they’d pick Romney over santorum.
“Romney’s programs will merely continue anti-wealth-producing policies of Obama. “
Romney says otherwise, eg says he will repeal obamacare, cut taxes, etc., so these voters are not thinking it that way. They may simply be buying the ‘he can win’ argument.
“These are the producers but they’re supporting a looter.”
Seriously, tell that to the millions of over $100K/yr Americans who are foolish enough to vote for OBAMA.
So true. Unlike Santorum and Newt, Romney never cared about the AM radio listener types who are conservatives. If you think Romney's a liberal now just wait until he gets the nomination, He sees moderates and democrats as his base and will be running against Obama pandering to THEM.
Santorum's doing terrible against Romney but then again... it's hard to run around the nation telling the base that Romney's not a conservative after having endorsed him as "the real deal conservative in the last Presidential primary.
It's no surprise Santorum would face this problem. Endorsements have consequences. That's why many thought Santorum and NOT Newt should have dropped out long ago.
THAT is the core of my problem with Rick Santorum, as a good man it should have happened going into Florida that Rick strongly support Newt, instead he lopped in with the RINO/Romney/media kill machine to add his few cents to pile on in the massive, unprecedented effort to mortally wound Newt, on Bloody Thursday.
That said it all about Rick, who is indebted to no one more than Newt.
Um, Newt has shown to be a poor planner in so many areas. And, to be fair, in some states - it’s winner take all - so, yeah winning states means winning delegates.
I disagree that part of Newt’s strategy is grudge. Mittnes derailed him in Iowa and Florida with his constant barrage of negative ads, and the Newtster was rip-roaring mad about it. Can’t say I blame him either.
Unless you are on the inside of the Newt campaign, its impossible to know the motives for any candidate. We can only speculate.
As an Illinois resident, my phone blew up for the last 10 days...ALL Santorum ads....not one Romney, Newt, or Paul ad. Annoying messages, I will add.
Amen. He has run a very incompetent campaign. If he can’t get it together now...Team O will clean our clock in the general.
To pay off a trillion dollars at $1.00 a second would take 31,564 years. At a billion dollars a second only 995.70 years.(220 days). Not including interest.A trillion dollars is 1,000 times a billion.
To pay off a trillion dollars at the rate of a billion dollars a second would take 1,000 seconds.
That's 16.67 minutes. Not 995.70 years.
After his massive defeat in FL, he hasn’t recovered.That is very obviously true and I say that as someone who supported Gingrich. Not only did I support him but I still think he's about a thousand times better than Santorum and a hundred thousand times better than Romney.
But I have to go with reality here. The reality is that Gingrich had to win in Florida to stay viable. He got crushed in Florida. He is not viable. He should get out.
Apparently, there are many high profile races in IL for the democrats. It appears this will slow down the cross over vote by DEMS for Santorum. However according to the blackhole, Daily KOS, Operation Hilarity, is being promoted and pushed.
If Romney has no GOP competition, he is free to make a HARD LEFT TURN. Will he? you betcha. Romney must be forced to stay with the GOP platform.
So when we hear the likes of Dick Morris making claims that having only two months to compete against Obama is a disaster, translate that as to meaning having only two months to swing HARD LEFT, which Romney cannot wait to do...
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