The "not Romney" wave cycle

I'll go out on a limb now and say that there is a larger than 50% chance that Newt will pull out having lost these southern states and throw all his support to Santorum. If so, I'd make Santorum a very slight favorite to win the nomination.

Whatever you think about Santorum, these were impressive wins overcoming both Romney's huge financial advantage and Newt's homefield advantage.

This isn't about Santorum, its the voice of the people letting everyone know what they have been saying all along. They want a conservative.
 
I'm socially conservative. I admire Santorum's stance on social issues. I think it'd be a great direction for the nation to take.

But, the economy is a more important issue now. I'd rather have Romney, who will have a focus on the economy, moreso than Santorum.
 
I'll go out on a limb now and say that there is a larger than 50% chance that Newt will pull out having lost these southern states and throw all his support to Santorum. If so, I'd make Santorum a very slight favorite to win the nomination.

Whatever you think about Santorum, these were impressive wins overcoming both Romney's huge financial advantage and Newt's homefield advantage.

This isn't about Santorum, its the voice of the people letting everyone know what they have been saying all along. They want a conservative.


There aren't any conservatives running.
 
Wow were the pre-vote polls really off this time. Wasnt santorum a distant third according to them?
 
I think a lot of the time the polls are cooked. There was no reason for a late shift that I know of.

Anyway, after hearing from Newt just now, I'd guess he ain't going unless he gets some pressure from his backers.
 
Wow were the pre-vote polls really off this time. Wasnt santorum a distant third according to them?

The Southern polls have been all over the place, and these states were not as extensively polled as others were in the lead-up to primary day.

According to 538, though, Santorum was estimated to be 4 points behind the other two in Alabama and 7 points behind in Mississippi. A rare miss for Nate Silver, I'll be interested to see the analysis afterwards to figure out what happened.
 
The Southern polls have been all over the place, and these states were not as extensively polled as others were in the lead-up to primary day.

According to 538, though, Santorum was estimated to be 4 points behind the other two in Alabama and 7 points behind in Mississippi. A rare miss for Nate Silver, I'll be interested to see the analysis afterwards to figure out what happened.

Nate is a world class numbers guy. And as far as I know, not yet sold out to the establishment. Hope he stays clean.
 
Yeah, Nate's website was the best in class over the last 2 election cycles. It's only as good as the data coming in though. Atilogic is right that deep south polling was pretty tricky...looks like the poopsmith just pulled a big upset.

Newt has got to leave in the next week.
 
Yeah, Nate's website was the best in class over the last 2 election cycles. It's only as good as the data coming in though. Atilogic is right that deep south polling was pretty tricky...looks like the poopsmith just pulled a big upset.

Newt has got to leave in the next week.

Another factor I saw on the 538 blog: cell phone households. Surprisingly, one of the regions with the greatest concentration of cell phone-only households is in the Deep South. Since only landlines were called for the polling, it is possible a significant fraction of the population was not adequately surveyed or accounted for.

Seems like a rookie mistake for the pollsters to make, this sort of thing was supposed to be figured out by now.
 
This isn't about Santorum, its the voice of the people letting everyone know what they have been saying all along. They want a conservative.

I assume by "the people", you mean "registered Republicans in the deep South"?
 
"The people" or "America" always means "those who agree with me" in that context. Just like: "America is fed up with Obama".

Lets look at the the voice of the people so far. Who's ahead in the primaries?
 
Newt may be just crazy enough to stay in the race. It's funny, since his only major reason for sticking around seems to be a personal hatred of Mitt...but the longer he's there, the more he helps him.

I don't think Santorum can get enough *delegates* at this point. He really screwed up his math and left a lot of people on the table in places like Ohio and Virgina. Mitt is taking a page out of Obama's 08 playbook....run up the score in all those little places, and keep getting more delegates...

The primary next week in my home turf should be fun!
 
Gingrich, in the brokered convention with 4 candidates scenario, would be the #1 kingmaker since he would have the third-most delegates under his control and could thus be a significant asset to either Romney or Santorum. However, I don't think this is a particularly likely scenario.

I can think of no realistic scenario that gives Santorum the nomination outright. His only chance is to force a brokered convention, and to get close enough to 1,144 that he can cut a deal for Gingrich's or Paul's delegates to push him over on a later ballot.
 
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