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.
Rick messed up in Ill like he did in a few previous states. From what I understand because of this incompetence he’s handed Romney 10 delegates before the polling places even open.
If he can’t manage a campaign, what makes you think he can manage America?
Rule number one for every candidate: get on the ballot!
>> it has been ruined by egos and selfishness.
What a pant load. The indignation of Team Santorum knows no limits.
Newt peeled away the Romney voters, not Rick.
Here’s Santorum’s entire speech in Ilinois. “Rick Santorum makes his case to voters in Effingham, Illinois, ahead of that state’s primary on Tuesday, where 69 delegates are up for grabs.” HE SPENT THE ENTIR SPEECH TALKING ABOUT MITT AND OBAMA. Nothing about what HIS PLANS ARE. HIS SOLUTIONS OR DETAILS! Nothing but pablum. http://www.c-span.org/Campaign2012/Rick-Santorum-Campaigns-in-Illinois-Ahead-of-Tuesday39s-Primary/10737429126-1/
I have an assignment for those FReepers with absolutely no life and a lot of time on their hand.
I’ve run the numbers in my IL simulation for only 10 counties, but I’m basically coming up with what PPP is. Your looking at the following:
Romney: 46-48%
Santorum 34-36%
Newt: 8-11%
Paul 5-7%
Anyway, for those of you that want to go through the assignment, here’s what you’ll need to do:
OPEN UP THE FOLLOWING PAGES:
(1) Go Here to look at the Bush/Kerry vote Totals for Each IL County in 2004
http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2004//pages/results/states/IL/P/00/county.000.html
(2) Go Here to look at the McCain/Obama vote Totals for Each IL County in 2008
http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2008/results/county/#ILP00p1
(3) Go Here to look at the 2008 Republican Primary Results for IL
http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2008/primaries/results/state/#IL
With those 3 pages in Hand, here’s what you do.
1. Record the 2004 Bush Kerry Vote Total for the County
2. Record the 2008 McCain Obama Vote Total for the County
3. Determine how much the vote total increased/decreased by dviding the 2008 number by the 2004 number
4. Use this Percentage Increase/Decrease to Multiply by the 2008 Total to get the projected 2012 Vote Total for the County
5. Compare the Percentage of the Vote Bush got in the County to the Percentage McCain got in the same County for the 2004/2008 General Elections. Try to use a middle number or number closer to Bush, if possible. This is what the GOP needs in the County to be “compettiive”.
6. Multiply this percentage by the 2012 Projected Vote Number. Then Multiply (1-this percentage) by the 2012 Projected Vote Number to determine what the votes Obama should be held to in the County.
7. Add up the 2008 Republican Primary Votes and divide it by the total number of votes John McCain got in the county in the General Election. This is a rough estimate of the primary turnout for 2008.
8. For every 3.5% the County Increased or Decreased in Voter Population, Add/Subtract 1 Percentage Point to determine the projected 2012 Primary Turnout.
9. Allocate 2012 Primary Votes based on the following formula:
a. Assign Santorum 90% of 08 Huckabee Total, 40% of John McCain Total, and 70% of the Voter Increase (if one exists for that county)
b. Assign Romney 08 Vote Totals, 50% of John McCain total, 10% of the Voter Increase
c. Assign Gingrich 10% Huckabee, 10% McCain, 10% Voter Increase
d. Assign Paul 08 Vote Totals, 10% Voter Increase.
——————————EXAMPLE——————————————
Alexander County:
2004 Votes: 3,847
2008 Votes: 3,881
1% Voter Increase
Projected 2012 Votes: 3,920
GOP Needs: 1,764 (Bush got 47, McCain 43, aim for 45%)
Hold Obama: 2,156 (55%)
2008 Primary Turnout: 24% (400/1692)
2012 Primary Turnout: 24% (423 Votes)
Allocate 424 Votes:
Santorum (90% of 118, 40% of 137, 70% of 23) = 177/42%
Romney (100% of 130, 50% of 137, 10% of 23) = 201/48%
Gingrich (10% of 118, 10% of 137, 10% of 23) = 28/6%
Paul (100% of 15, 10% of 23) = 17/4%
And hence we see the problem. These small counties look like Romney’s going to hold sold in the middle part of the state. As you cover more counties, you’ll see the voter population actually decreased for many counties, similar to what happened in IA. Rick needs to take all of these small counties by 500-1000 votes, but there just doesn’t seem to be enough voters.
Fast forward for Cook County with just the projected numbers:
Romney 99,394/52%
Santorum 68,016 /35%
Gingrich 13,169/7%
Paul 12,340/6%
No way for Rick to make these margins up.
I’ve actually ran this for 10 counties so far including: Alexander, Cook, Carroll, Calhoun, Bureau, Brown, Boone, Bond, Adams, and Pulaski Counties. So if you want to pick up from where I left off, there’s only 92 Counties to go.
So far for the 10 Counties I’ve done, the aggregate numbers are:
Romney: 110,984/51.16%
Santorum: 77,607/35.77%
Gingrich: 14,822/6.83%
Paul: 13,527/6.24%
Romney’s numbers will come down somewhat with more midstate/downstate counties, but not by much. His final number is probably around 46-47%. Rick is probably capped at 38%, and if Newt gets closer to 11%, 35 may be is cap.
So if you’ve got free time to surf the data and finish the simulation, I’d be grateful because this stuff takes way too much time to do by one person.
What, you thought I pulled these numbers out of my a$$ or something?
After having taken onboard Cain and Perry, Newt offered a partnership to Santorum before SC but got sneered at.
Look how that is turning out...
>> Nothing about what HIS PLANS ARE
That’s not what his campaign is about. He’s the underdog, dagnammit, and he’s serious!
>> Nothing but pablum
Ironically, it worked for Obama in 2008.
Rick Santorum:
“If you look at the voters who voted for me, and where they would go if I was not in the race it would be divided between Romney and Gingrich, actually more toward Romney than Gingrich.”
The insertion of any HTML tags will hammer simple carriage returns.
Thanks for the data. I’ve seen similar numbers.
How was W or Reagan any less socially conservative than Rick?
That’s what I was thinking also. Why waste time in Peurto Rico when Illinois will be such a pivotal state from here on. May be he needed a vacation in sunny PR?
I posted the same thing a few days ago here as soon as it was announced Rick was going to Puerto Rico. It's the same mistake Rick made on Super Tuesday by wasting time in Georgia instead of going to Ohio more. It's complete inexperienced stupidity. Romney is a terrible candidate with a top-flight campaign operation. Newt and Rick's campaigns are amateur hour operations.
It did not have their desired outcome there and it might not in Illinois, especially in terms of delegates.
IL doesn't award delegates unless you get the most votes in a district. There is no proportional distribution. This has Romney beating Santorum in every single region. Therefore Romney will get all 54 delegates and Santorum will get 0 if this holds.
If Newt was out Romney would still have an 11 point advantage on Santorum, 45-34.
Makes no sense, they're saying Newt's 12% if he drops out only had 4% go to Rick and 0% to Romney. The other 8% went to Paul I guess? Just shows you can't do polling on this second choice stuff. Sounds like most voters just said they'd be undecided at that point. Obviously if Gingrich endorsed Rick or was announced as V.P. Rick would get most of his support, and the undecided of Newt's voters would probably break mostly to Rick anyway.
No big wonder, socialists are attracted to each other!
Why is it always someone else’s fault when their candidate doesn’t win? The idea between a primary is for all the candidates to showcase who they are and may the best man (or woman) win. Honestly, after the whole porn fiasco (part of the vetting) it’s obvious Santorum would go down in the polls. It’s not that it’s not an important issue, it’s that he took his eye off the ball (it’s the economy stupid). You simply can’t legislate morality no matter how much you try. He lost sight of what’s important to the majority of Americans RIGHT NOW. His morals are in the right place but he simply doesn’t have the experience necessary to be president. That’s nothing to be ashamed of, he just might want to start with something smaller, like governor of PA. That would give him executive experience and the opportunity to learn to deal with the press in a smaller venue.
Cindie
Gingrich is holding a huge grudge against Romeny, (can’t say I blame him) but, dang it - his super-inflated ego is giving us Romney. Newt won’t win a brokered convention - he can’t win any more than 2 states. What the heck is wrong with him?
This is nothing more than personal politics for him - his crowds are waning, his poll numbers are in the toilet, and he thinks he has a chance at the nomination? What alternative universe is he living in?
I liked Newt, but, am starting to get very angry at him because he is putting his personal feelings and politics ahead of country. And, for that reason - I can no longer support his efforts. He needs to get out NOW! He doesn’t have a prayer. If he is a conservative, as he claims, then he should want another conservative to take on Romney, because it sure isn’t going to be him!!!!
Once again, Rino Romney wins a primary in a state which will go for Obama in Nov.
The obscenity issue is Rick’s opponents taking a policy position off his web site that’s been there for months and trying to make it sound like it’s something he’s bringing up now. Are you saying you want every candidate to remove anything related to cultural/moral issues off of their platforms and web sites, period? That’s what it would require to stop their opponents from trumping up stories that they’re “focusing” on these issues.
If the moderates in the GOP wanted to wage all out internal war to remove cultural/moral issues from the platform, the effort would look exactly like this primary. They’re handing us a moderate and trying to convince the voters that talking about cultural/moral issues makes our candidates unelectable.
How would they react if someone tried to do the same with a Republican candidate who was saying the U.S. needed to go communist, because talking about capitalism right now would make our candidate unelectable? Obama is more ready to make the argument against capitalism than anything else. He’s been doing it for most of his presidency.
Cultural/moral “wedge” issues could arguably be our best shot at winning the presidency. With economic issues, you’re also taking the risk that the economy is doing better or gas prices are lower by November, in which case Obama has all the credibility in the world to claim that his economic policies are the right ones. But what’s morally right doesn’t change.
If you put 4 exact clones of Rick Santorum into the primary up against one Mitt Romney, and Mitt Romney was winning every primary with 21% of the vote vs. 20%, 20%, 20% and 19%, would you still say that it wasn't the fault of the Rick Santorum clones? We've already lived this story once with Ross Perot and Bush Sr. and apparently learned nothing. Splitting the vote among similar candidates hands the minority candidate a win. It represents a flaw in our voting system (being able to score candidates on the ballot on a scale of 1 to 5 would solve the problem), but we have to work with the system we have and build our strategy around it. The candidates who are similar need to work together, not compete against each other if they want a candidate who is closer to them on the issues to win.
Well id it weren't for Newt and the media lifting up Rick he'd not be any further now then he was early on. He's an amature and that's why we see all his errors of judgement in what he says and does.
Do not underestimate Newt....as so many do. He said from the beginning this would well go to convention...and further would not be a “ Traditional Primary’. Of course that’s exactly what we are seeing, as none other before.
This isn’t about a “grudge” toward Romney...this is all about ‘stopping’ Romney as Newt recognizes that a Romney win isn’t going to re-set this country. Newt’s in this to win in the end so don’t make the mistake of thinking he’s going to be out anytime soon. Newt and SAntorum are setting this stage...not Romney!
Besides...It was not until June that Reagan began to move fast across the stage.....and we’re only half way there . I have no doubt that Newt has already been planning, (which Santorum never does), for how he’s going to play his most vital hand ahead.
Do not underestimate Newt....as so many do. He said from the beginning this would well go to convention...and further would not be a “ Traditional Primary’. Of course that’s exactly what we are seeing, as none other before.
This isn’t about a “grudge” toward Romney...this is all about ‘stopping’ Romney as Newt recognizes that a Romney win isn’t going to re-set this country. Newt’s in this to win in the end so don’t make the mistake of thinking he’s going to be out anytime soon. Newt and SAntorum are setting this stage...not Romney!
Besides...It was not until June that Reagan began to move fast across the stage.....and we’re only half way there . I have no doubt that Newt has already been planning, (which Santorum never does), for how he’s going to play his most vital hand ahead.
PS. It’ not about winning states...it’s about winning delegates.
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