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After losing both Alabama and Mississippi last night it seems Newt Gingrich really has no legitimate path forward. His Southern strategy was proven to be a total failure, and he has only managed to win two states. The only thing Gingrich’s continued presence in the race is doing is to be a spoiler for Rick Santorum.
According to PPP Romney would win North Carolina by four points if Gingrich stays in the race. But Romney would lose that state to Rick Santorum by four points if Gingrich dropped out. From PPP:
North Carolina provides a great example of the spoiler role Newt Gingrich is now playing in the Republican Presidential race. With Gingrich in the field a split conservative vote allows Mitt Romney to lead in the state with 31% to 27% for Rick Santorum, 24% for Gingrich, and 8% for Ron Paul. But if Gingrich was out of the picture most of his support would go to Santorum, giving last night’s big winner 42% to 38% for Romney and 10% for Paul.
Digging in on the numbers with some key groups shows how the conservative split aids Romney. Among Tea Party voters Santorum gets 31% to 30% for Gingrich and 25% for Romney. Take Gingrich out and Santorum’s advantage with those folks is 52-37. Similar story with Evangelicals- full field it’s Santorum at 31% t0 28% for Romney and 26% for Gingrich. Take Gingrich out and Santorum’s advantage with that group is 49/33. And with ‘very conservative’ voters Santorum’s at 35% to 28% for Gingrich and 23% for Romney full field, but up 57-28 on Romney if Gingrich was out of the race.
Looking at polling and demographic data I assume we would see a similar impact from Gingrich dropping out in most of the other remaining states. Not all Gingrich supporters would move to Santorum, but enough would to allow Santorum to perform noticeably better. There is an identifiable anti-Romney vote out there that Gingrich and Santorum are currently splitting.
At this point it seems Gingrich and billionaire Sheldon Adelson, who almost single handedly has kept Gingrich’s campaign afloat with millions in Super PAC donations, are Romney’s best friends in the GOP primary.
22 Comments
Is there any FEC regulation that says candidates may not coordinate with SuperPACS that support other candidates? I know they can’t coordinate with SuperPACS that allege to support the same candidate they do, but what about others in the field?
What I mean is, are Mitt Romney and Sheldon Adelson in cahoots?
i was wondering the same thing, teddy.
What I find more interesting is that liberal media outlets have been gunning for Newt as much as the Republican establishment has in this race, from day one, despite disparate interests. Is it now because they don’t want Romney to be either the nominee or anything but a hobbled nominee? Or is this just the media picking favorites like usual (i.e. Gore bad, Bush good, Obama good, Hillary bad).
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Heh. Maybe factions within PTB are scratching each others’ eyes out.
Or, as Teddy says, playing dirty pool behind each others’ backs.
Maybe we can goad them into destroying each other.
Well, a gal can hope (TM) anyhow.
It depends what Gingrich’s motivation is. If his desire is to minimize the number of delegates that Romney gets than staying in the race could make sense. I don’t know the rules for NC, but many states have proportional representation coupled with a minimum participation rate. Something like you get delegates if you have more than 15% of the vote. Let’s also assume NC has 50 delegates.
Situation 1)
Romney 38%
Santorum 42%
Romney gets 24 delegates
Santorum gets 26 delegates
Situation 2)
Romney 31%
Santorum 27%
Gingrich 24%
Romney gets 19 delegates
Santorum gets 16 delegates
Gingrich gets 15 delegates
In situation 2, Romney gets less overall delegates, making it harder for him to get a majority at the convention.
It all depends on what Gingrich is after, and what the rules are in each state.
I’d gladly watch eye gouging with great interest if the PTB ever decide to do it in public. Just sayin.
For my part, I thoroughly enjoy having Newt in the race, but for purely entertainment purposes.
I agree on Newt. He’s the most entertaining of them all.
I think I typed this once as a comment but might be worth repeating here.
My MIL was already senile and in a nursing home when I met my late husband. When we visited her, we would wheel her down to the end of a wide hall, sit on the bench and talk with each other. One visit, when our son was 2 and wearing a sailor suit outfit, dashing up & down the hall, a spry 60-something gentleman was attracted. He came down the hall to speak to us; had a charming Irish lilt. I wondered what someone so young, in such good health, was doing in a nursing home. Every word that came out of his mouth was English. I realized after a couple of sentences that the way his words were strung together made no sense at all.
That’s who Newt reminds me of, only without the charming Irish lilt.
Often in wrestling shows there is usually a person lurking outside the ring ready to smash someone over the head with a chair or some other object, Newt Getting Rich is that guy. Wrestlemania 2012 prelims carry on for a few more months.
Eh? Newt? Sort of like Palin in drag??? heh
Must be something in the R water bottles.
Noted that ironcomments has quite a different analogy for Newt.
what do you expect from a bunch of hillbilly hitlers brought to you by the pricks r us party
It’s clear Newt is going nowhere but “all the way to the finish line”. Then, he has his delegates to negotiate with. For those of you who aren;t old enough to remember the old days, many political conventions went this way. No clear winner. Floor fights. Back room deals. Ohhh the excitement is back in politics.
I’m with you ysd. I hope it all goes to “sudden death ovetime”.
Looking at some different tables I have seen comparing the 4 main remaining candidates, Newt does better than Santorum in some measures than others. It could just as well mean that Santorum is the spoiler because he doesn’t have the backing and staff support to truly take on Romney for the rest of the primary. Just saying. I think both are equally horrible. The only saving grace about Romney is that he probably thinks more about what people think of him to make him change his mind…. so the GOP followers he brings along with him in gov. might not be as bad as with the other 2. Paul, however, is a loon.
“Hillbilly Hitlers…”
Works! :o)
But I keep thinking Newt has a price point for staying in. For a while there, he was bedeviling Romney; now it’s Santorum. And you can bet the farm that hamstringing Santorum out of the race will please the GOP punjabs.
After all these years and years of whoring around with the knuckle-draggers, they do NOT want to have them come to the convention with enough power to do anything but shriek and rant and then they might throw them a plank or two in the platform, to hack around on.
Hey! Maybe Obama can find the price-point for getting Newt OUT, so that the peckerhead vote can unite behind Santorum and extract some decent-sized chunks of political flesh from the body-politic of the republicans.
Same-old: I hate the idea that the chaos is making Obama’s bogus-progressive stock go up (temporarily, I believe…) but watching the repubs carving each other up as the bill comes due for all those years of making neanderthal policies look respectable, is a pure delight. :o)
Conservative Republicans are thoroughly disgusting people, totally lacking in human empathy, but they have developed a certain low cunning, together with the ability to hate to a previously undreamed-of degree. Now that it’s apparent to even the dullest among them that Gingrich has zero chance of getting the nomination, I suspect that they will largely swing behind Santorum, but it’s probably too late for him to put together a majority of delegates without making a deal with Gingrich at the convention. So he probably promises Newt the State Department.
:…he doesn’t have the backing and staff support to truly take on Romney…”
Well, Newt’s “staff” seems to change week-to-week, and his only real backer is that peckerhead in Nevada.
While Santorum does fire up the flat-earthers, for true.
Newt scratching in the Old Confederacy last night is going to be tough to explain, politically.
There’s a thought!
Newt stays in; slices Santorum up some, and gets State if Romney wins.
Good noodlin’ Ron! :o)
Newt at State. LOL.
If that doesn’t bring about Armageddon, nothing will.
The proof will be in the pudding.
If Newt doesn’t drop out following his less than stellar performance yesterday, then he is working with Romney against Santorum.
BTW, Adelson is known to have been meeting with Romney and pledging support.
Yep. He’s he very soul of thoughtful, judicious, decision making, in’t he? :o)
BTW, being a “spoiler for Santorum” is not the only thing that Gingrich is doing: he’s also making it tougher for Barack Obama to sit on his bi-partisan ass, do practically nothing to solve our problems (which capability he lost at the mid-terms…) and yet still have a large chunk of democrats cover his butt by their refusing to do anything to put any pressure on him.