Plan B Forum

For being so dismissive of Gingrich's nomination chances. I spent some time yesterday looking over recent polling results in some of the early states, and what I saw, frankly stunned me:

(all these numbers come from realclearpolitics.com for simplicity I'm just including Romney and Gingrich's numbers)

National:

Poll Date Sample Gingrich Romney
RCP Average 11/13 - 11/30 -- 26.6 20.4
Rasmussen Reports 11/30 - 11/30 1000 LV 38 17
CNN/Opinion Research 11/18 - 11/20 402 A 24 20
Quinnipiac 11/14 - 11/20 1039 RV 26 22
USA Today/Gallup 11/13 - 11/17 946 RV 22 21
FOX News 11/13 - 11/15 370 RV 23 22

Okay, one might dismiss that latest Rasmussen poll as an outlier...

Except that polling in early caucus and primary states reflect similar trends:

Iowa:
Gingrich Romney
RCP Average 11/11 - 11/30 -- 25.6 15.6 +10.0
Des Moines Register 11/27 - 11/30 401 LV 25 16
NBC News/Marist 11/27 - 11/29 425 LV 24 17
Insider Advantage 11/28 - 11/28 509 LV 28 12
Rasmussen Reports 11/15 - 11/15 700 LV 32 19
The Polling Company (R) 11/11 - 11/13501 LV 19 14

If these trends continue, (and with Cain's exit yesterday, there's every indication that they should) by the time of the voting one month from today, Gingrich could easily be polling with a 2-1 lead over anyone else in the field. With that being the case, even with any significant organization, he should still finish at or near the top, even if you assume that lack of organization caused a 50% gap between what he polls and what he receives in the caucus vote.

New Hampshire:

Romney Gingrich
RCP Average 11/15 - 11/30 -- 36.5 20.2
NBC News/Marist 11/28 - 11/30 696 LV 38 23
Rasmussen Reports 11/28 - 11/28 762 LV 34 24
The Polling Company (R) 11/18 - 11/21500 LV 35 18
Suffolk/7News 11/16 - 11/20 400 LV 41 14 14
WMUR/UNH 11/15 - 11/20 413 LV 42 15 12

Over the month of November, Romney has seen his 25- 30% roughly cut in half. The good news for Romney is that at this point the total support level for the other "Not Romneys" (except for Paul and Huntsman, who's voters aren't cut from the same cloth, and are more likely to stick with their guy regardless) is not enough to close the rest of the gap, even if it all switched to Gingrich, (though it could become very close)


South Carolina:

Gingrich Romney Cain
RCP Average 10/27 - 11/28 -- 26.3 17.7 16.7
Insider Advantage 11/28 - 11/28 519 LV 38 15 13
The Polling Company (R) 11/18 - 11/21505 LV 31 16 17
Clemson 10/27 - 11/7 600 LV 10 22 20

(I included Cain's numbers in this one because he's so close to Romney. ) These results, and the Florida one's that you'll see in a moment) are really the one's that floor me the most....

Here, Gingrich's support has gone up 28 points in just one month, and there's still a significant amount of "Not Romney" vote out there for him to round up....He could conceivably pull more than 50% of the vote in this primary over the entire field. The only bright spot for Romney in this is that South Carolina has an open primary, so his defeat might be mitigated some by moderate independents who are fed up with Obama participating in the process.

Florida:

Gingrich Romney Cain
RCP Average 11/8 - 11/30 -- 35.7 19.3 19.3
Insider Advantage11/29 - 11/29 513 LV 41 17 13
PPP (D) 11/28 - 11/30 470 RV 47 17 15
Rasmussen Reports 11/8 - 11/8788 LV 19 24 30

In my view, this one is the most potentially devastating for Romney. If does credibly in Iowa, and has a decent victory in New Hampshire, he can take a drubbing in South Carolina and still emerge victorious....

What he can't have happen is to pull single digits in Iowa, win New Hampshire by the skin of his teeth take a drubbing in South Carolina, and then get a second ass kicking in Florida a week later. If that happens, he's pretty much finished. He needs a good showing in Florida, if not a first place finish, and he's got a huge mountain to climb.....

Of course it needs to be pointed out what happens in South Carolina and Florida will to a large extent be determined by what happens in Iowa and New Hampshire. If Gingrich under performs, (which can certainly happen; Gingrich is more than capable of saying or doing something that could sink his candidacy; though if the revelations about his relationship with Freddie Mac didn't sink him with the base...on top of all the other personal and shady dealings issues...it's difficult to imagine what will.) the numbers could change dramatically.

That having been said, the really bad news for Romney in these polls, is that it appears that the "Not Romney" folks are beginning to coalesce behind a single candidate, on the eve of the beginning of the voting. Romney has desperately needed that vote to be divided between two or more candidates, at least through the early contests.

ETA:

Okay, what's going on here? when I check what I actually typed, all of the spacing for the polls is correct, but in both the preview and live on the board, the names and numbers all run together, making them very difficult to read....

I have to say, this has really been my year to see things happening in the nominating process that I never expected....

I never expected to see Herman Cain do as well as even 10% in the polls, let alone the numbers he was pulling before his campaign collapsed....

I never saw the Gingrich rise coming, and would absolutely never have guessed that he, of all people, would become the chief beneficiary of another man's women problems....

I wasn't surprised when Rick Perry vaulted to the top of the pack when he got in the race, but I certainly didn't expect that he would then promptly take a machine gun to his feet....

I knew there was a percentage of the GOP base that would, for a whole collection of reasons be reluctant to embrace Romney but by now, given the relatively gaffe free campaign he has run, and the quality of most of the rest of the field, I would certainly have expected that he'd at least have moved up to around 30%...instead, if that latest Rasmussen poll is to be believed, he's actually dropping from the low 20s where he's been stuck since the beginning of the campaign....

The guy who really must be scratching his head and wondering, "what do I have to do?" is Rick Santorum....

Santorum is considerably to my right on social issues, but while he hasn't really shined in the debates, he hasn't made a complete fool out of himself either, and he's been something of a voice of reason on foreign affairs...

He's a very likable guy, and he actually walks the walk on the kind of "family values" lifestyle that people like Cain and Gingrich have made such a hypocritical mockery of....

He's worked his ass off in Iowa, betting his whole campaign there, but even in Iowa he only pulls 4%....

When Perry collapsed, and then Cain, I expected both times that it would be Santorum who be the beneficiary....(especially in Iowa, where he's put all his resources, and where "social" issues conservatives represent such a larger percentage of GOP Caucus goers)

Santorum's inability to make any headway, given what has happened to so many of the other candidates, is just one more thing about this election cycle that I don't understand....

Lord Jim wrote:He's a very likable guy

I suppose you could think that when it isn't you he is comparing to those who engage in bestiality and incest.

But he's such a likable bigot!

I continue to have a very hard time imagining Gingrich winning the national election against Obama, and the polls support me on this...

In poll after poll, after poll, both in national results and in key states, Romney either leads Obama, or trails slightly, or is in a statistical dead heat....

While Gingrich loses by clear margins....

And let's face it, Newt isn't the kind of guy who the more you learn about him the more like him; so it's tough to see how that improves for him as the race wears on....

Gingrich is an historian so I would suggest to him that the election year he should be looking to for him to have a path to victory wouldn't be 1980....

It would be 1968...

The American people tend to elect to the Presidency people who they find likable; the only exception to this I can see in modern political history would be 1968.....

In that year, with all the rioting, the assassinations, a war that seemed to be an endless meat grinder with no resolution in sight, there was a widespread sense that the country was spinning out of control....

In that election, the country turned to a man that was not particularly likable or well liked... (and a man who also had some financial scandal accusations in his past; though none of Newt's fidelity issues; one thing you could never accuse Dick Nixon of was being a "player"...)

But, who was also a man who had the reputation at the time for being very bright, competent, strong, and a problem solver....

He was able to get elected because a significant percentage of the people were so seriously afraid of the way the country seemed to be going to hell, that they looked past their personal distaste for the guy and put their confidence in the qualities that they saw as positive; the belief that Nixon had the skills to get things under control, and bring back some semblance of normalcy.....

If Gingrich is the nominee, that's really his only hope to prevail; that the average American is so afraid about the direction of the country that they will look past his odious personality and unsavory past, and buy his argument that he is the guy bright enough and experienced enough to turn things around.

He's 68, way over the hill.

(1) Of course it's early. In a climate where a week can be an eternity...

(2) I take issue with your assessment of Gingrich/Obama. I have heard polls ( believe cited on Drudge last week) where they are dead even in a theoretical election right now. Ironically, both D's and R's alike would welcome this matchup. R's assume Newt would kick Barry's ass in any and every debate, and D's think Newt has too much baggage to win. They also cite the occasional statement that can be characterized as idiotic. When brought out serially over an entire campaign season, they could be devastating.

(3) Rick Santorum was an excellent Senator who was brought down by a compromised MSM, which pointedly parsed every public statement for years, and constantly took him out of context, with the intention of making him seem like an out-of-touch extremist.

FYI, the issue that hurt him most was the "accusation" that his primary residence was in Washington, and not in Pennsylvania. In his first campaign for Congress, he defeated Doug Walgren, a longtime Representative, whose Pennsylvania address was a broom closet in a bar on the South Side of Pittsburgh. Santorum characterized him as a Washington insider - which he decidedly was. Fast forward 16 years (or so), and Santorum, now a Senator which a small litter of Catholic Children, owns a small house in a suburb of Pittsburgh, and enrolls his kids in a "cyber school," citing Penn Hills residency. The local dems in Penn Hills make a big stink of the fact that the local school district is contributing to the kids' tuition at the cyber school, when they don't "actually" live there. Santorum was not able to make the case that a Senator (6 year term) with a passel of kids should be granted a bit of slack when it comes to residency, since his major duties are as a husband and father, and that cannot be done from 250 miles away.

His comments on the legitimization of sodomy by the Supremes (pointing out that the logic could as easily be used to make incest, bestiality, and polygamy First Amendment "rights"), brought out the howls of every pinko in the state, and he was not able to overcome these two bogus charges.

The thing that distinguishes him from just about every other candidate is that he is a True Believer when it comes to "family values." The fact that he is well-versed on all the other issues is a bonus.

I expect him to do well in Iowa, but that would be barely making it into two digits. That will be his high point.

As for "bsg's" point above: I believing what the Catholic Church and the Torah teach, then I suppose he is a bigot. Under that definition, however, more than half of the U.S. population also qualifies.