The 2012 Republican Primary Field: March 8, 2012

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Still Five Alive

Strange days, indeed, when a NotNotRom­ney begins to out­per­form on Intrade a live can­di­date with actual del­e­gates. Such is the case this week. For a brief intra­day trad­ing period on Wednes­day, for­mer Florida Gov­er­nor John Ellis “Jeb” Bush was ahead of Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Ron Paul (R-​​Lake Jack­son, TX). But…it didn’t last.

On Intrade, for­mer Mass­a­chu­setts Gov­er­nor Mitt Rom­ney now has a com­mand­ing lead. In the real world of real del­e­gates, his lead is less com­mand­ing. He now holds about 55 per­cent of the to-​​date avail­able del­e­gates with about one-​​quarter of the del­e­gates cho­sen or committed.

The del­e­gate math is clearer in the after­math of Super Tues­day (March 6). A major­ity of Repub­li­can del­e­gates is 1,144. Using the del­e­gate counts from The New York Times, I’ve devel­oped the graph below. Each step rep­re­sents one of the 22 delegate-​​bearing pri­maries or cau­cuses held so far. Includ­ing declared “superdel­e­gates” from states that haven’t voted yet (not on the graph), the Asso­ci­ated Press/​New York Times counts are: Rom­ney 415, for­mer Sen­a­tor Rick San­to­rum (R-​​PA) 176, for­mer House Speaker Newt Gin­grich 105, Paul 47. Note, too, that Paul has been work­ing behind the scenes to strip a few del­e­gates here and there from the oth­ers in the non­bind­ing cau­cus states; those activ­i­ties are not reflected here, as it’s unclear exactly how many he has “stolen” and from whom he has “stolen” them.

 

I’ve listed the poten­tial Repub­li­can can­di­dates below, in order of their Intrade per­cent­ages, from high­est to low­est. In each case, the polling num­bers are given in paren­the­ses after the candidate’s name, rounded to the near­est whole num­ber, fol­lowed by the change from last month:

RCP = the most recent (Feb­ru­ary 29-​​March 6) avail­able Real Clear Pol­i­tics national aggre­gated polling data.

In = Intrade March 7.

In the inter­est of space and clar­ity, I’ve dropped the May-​​October monthly stand­ings columns. The horser­ace stand­ings now start in Novem­ber, but you can go to the Jan­u­ary 5 arti­cle to see the entire set going back to May, 2011. There haven’t been any changes in the rank­ings for three weeks now, so the last three weeks are con­sol­i­dated into a sin­gle col­umn. This lack of change also sug­gests that it may be time to retire this fea­ture. Then again, Jeb did have the #4 spot for a few hours…

Can­di­date Nov Dec Jan 5 Jan 12 Jan 19 Jan 25 Feb 2 Feb 9 Feb 16 Feb 23
– Mar 8
Rom­ney 1
 1
 1
 1
 1
 1
 1
 1
 1
 1
San­to­rum none
 none
 3 (tie)
 4 (tie)
 none
 4
 4
 2
 2
 2
Gin­grich 2
 2
 2
 2
 2
 2
 2
 3
 3
 3
Paul 4 (tie)
 3
 5
 3
 3
 3
 3
 4
 4
 4
Bush, J none
 none
 none
 none
 none
 none
 none
 none
 5
 5

1. For­mer Mass­a­chu­setts Gov­er­nor Mitt Rom­ney (RCP 38% +5; In 87% +5)

Rom­ney had a good Super Tues­day. To be sure, he didn’t deliver a knock­out punch, but he pre­vailed in 7 of 11 states (includ­ing Wyoming, which merely began the pri­mary process). His Real Clear Pol­i­tics polling aver­age is up five points, as is his Intrade per­cent­age. His nom­i­na­tion is begin­ning to gain an aura of inevitabil­ity; the only thing that harshed the campaign’s buzz was a Wednes­day press con­fer­ence in which an unnamed advi­sor claimed they’d won the nom­i­na­tion already:

Those guys [San­to­rum and Gin­grich], it’s going to take some sort of act of God to get where they need to be.

This kind of talk is unnec­es­sary if it’s true, and fool­hardy if it’s not. Espe­cially if you’re invok­ing God against San­to­rum. As John Prine said, don’t wish for bad luck and knock on wood.

2. For­mer Sen­a­tor Rick San­to­rum (R-​​PA) (RCP 26% –5; In 4% –2)

San­to­rum didn’t per­form to expec­ta­tions in Okla­homa and Ten­nessee, and he faded in the stretch in Ohio. Worse, there was much dis­cus­sion of his campaign’s fail­ure to file a full del­e­gate slate in Ohio, so he gave away about nine del­e­gates to Rom­ney. That sort of Ama­teur Hour stunt makes a cam­paign look bad, and cuts their Intrade per­cent­ages to less than one in 25 odds.

3. For­mer House Speaker Newt Gin­grich (RCP 14% –1; In 2% –2)

Gin­grich didn’t get any trac­tion, despite win­ning his home state of Geor­gia. He fin­ished third or lower in every other state, and like San­to­rum, didn’t even appear on the bal­lot in delegate-​​rich Vir­ginia. He will do bet­ter in the upcom­ing South­ern state pri­maries, but he’s split­ting the vote with Santorum.

4. Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Ron Paul (R-​​Lake Jack­son, TX) (RCP 12% +1; In 2% –1%)

Paul was expected to per­form well in cau­cus states. Alaska should have been great ter­ri­tory for him, but he got fewer del­e­gates (six) than either Rom­ney (eight) or San­to­rum (seven). His cam­paign is sput­ter­ing, and there’s only so far the gad­fly role can take him.

5.  For­mer Florida Gov­er­nor Jeb Bush (RCP no data; In 1% –1%)

Jeb Bush is still the rumored favorite of the “bro­kered con­ven­tion” crowd.

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  1. Yes it would seem to many that Mitt will get the nom­i­na­tion, which quite hon­estly I had doubts about on more than one occa­sion but at what price? I was bump­ing around the net of late and there are actu­ally folks out there that still think Mitt could get blanked in the remain­ing deep South con­tests. Some inter­est­ing divides if one thinks about it and even tak­ing into account Shiloh’s reminders that Repub­li­cans will duti­fully line up behind the even­tual nom­i­nee there are indi­vid­u­als out there that aren’t sure how deep that sup­port will be.
    Will the San­to­rum evan­gel­i­cals ever fully or even in luke warm fash­ion sup­port Mor­mon Mitt? Will the Gin­grich teapers buy Mitts prof­fered con­ver­sion? Will the Paulites sup­port any one else? And will the deep South of any right­est per­sua­sion be able to pull the han­dle for a damned Yan­kee? It shall be inter­est­ing to see will it not?

  2. Mainer,

    there are actu­ally folks out there that still think Mitt could get blanked in the remain­ing deep South contests

    Intraders are pretty sure of that.

    Will the San­to­rum evan­gel­i­cals ever fully or even in luke warm fash­ion sup­port Mor­mon Mitt?

    That’s not the rel­e­vant ques­tion. The rel­e­vant ques­tion is, will their hatred of Obama be enough to drive them to vote for the dis­liked Rom­ney. And it’s not a national pop­u­lar vote that decides the win­ner, and it’s not as if there’s a real chance of Mis­sis­sippi send­ing elec­tors to DC to vote for Obama, so who cares if the state’s turnout in Novem­ber is 12%? Where the fac­tor really mat­ters is in the swing states.

  3. Michael says:

    Where the fac­tor really mat­ters is in the swing states.

    That, and the (very small) pos­si­bil­ity that the Tea Party or social con­ser­v­a­tive wings of the Repub­li­cans become dis­sat­is­fied enough to run a third-​​party can­di­date, à la 1968 or 1992.

  4. Michael I ref­er­enced Shiloh’s thoughts that right along have said that in the end they would vote for a rock if it had an R in front of its name. I guess the thing the Repub­li­cans are going to have to do is con­vince them­selves that Mitt could win the gen­eral and then get every one in line. I think, and it is only my opin­ion, that if Mitts poll num­bers stay well behind the pres­i­dents then it is going to be a hard sell. It is funny in some respects that one does not have to look very hard to already find indi­vid­u­als lament­ing that they were going to lose because they didn’t have some one con­ser­v­a­tive enough to win.
    You watch and see if we do not get some really odd polling com­ing up as an effort is made to visu­ally tighten the race. Can any con­ser­v­a­tive can­di­date pick up enough of the mid­dle to win with out los­ing some of the base in the process. If much of that base is already think­ing not con­ser­v­a­tive enough any effort to mod­er­ate posi­tions to gain some mid­dle ground vot­ers is going to set off a fire storm.

  5. San­to­rum has been pub­licly urg­ing Gin­grich to get out of the race, under the argu­ment that Newt doesn’t have a chance, but with Newt’s vot­ers added to Santorum’s, they can together beat Romney.

    Rom­ney has been pub­licly urg­ing both San­to­rum and Gin­grich to get out of the race, under the argu­ment that Mitt is inevitable, and to main­tain the rivalry just makes Pres­i­dent Obama stronger.

    Despite Romney’s argu­ment to Newt and San­to­rum, his peo­ple are telling the media that the pri­mary race is a Good Thing, because it makes Rom­ney a bet­ter can­di­date. I’m not sure if we should believe Rom­ney (that the pri­mary race is hurt­ing him) or Rom­ney (that the pri­mary race is help­ing him).

    Much of the pop­u­la­tion of Repub­li­can vot­ers have been urg­ing Rom­ney to get out of the race under the argu­ment that he’s Mitt Romney.

    Newt has been urg­ing both San­to­rum and Rom­ney to get out of the race under the argu­ment that Newt wants to win and he’s a his­to­rian and a Big Thinker.

    I think we can buy some more popcorn.

  6. Polling would seem to indi­cate Newt los­ing ground in Alabama and Miss. Oh my are we about to see another San­to­rum surge?

  8. A poll was released today cov­er­ing the period from March 1 through March 6 in Alabama. Rom­ney has the lead by nine points over San­to­rum, who is vir­tu­ally tied with Gin­grich. San­to­rum was ahead by four in the March 1 poll con­ducted by Alabama State University.

    Granted, it’s just two polls, but if Romney’s per­for­mance on Tues­day is going to have that much of an impact, he could take both Alabama and Mis­sis­sippi. And if he does that, then it’s truly over.

  9. Here’s some stuff that’s going to be hard for Repub­li­cans to explain away.

    Employ­ment Num­bers Show Uptick in Hiring

    New York City expe­ri­enced record-​​breaking job growth in Jan­u­ary. Employ­ers added 31,200 jobs — the high­est one month gain in the last 23 years — accord­ing to analy­sis of New York State Labor Depart­ment by the real estate firm East­ern Consolidated.

    Private-​​employment growth pick­ing up

    U.S. private-​​employment growth is pick­ing up, accord­ing to data released Wednes­day that showed pay­rolls rose in Feb­ru­ary for the 25th month.

    Private-​​sector pay­rolls increased 216,000 on the month, led by the service-​​providing sec­tor and small busi­nesses, accord­ing to the Feb­ru­ary labor-​​market report from payrolls-​​processor Auto­matic Data Pro­cess­ing Inc. Over the last three months, gains have aver­aged 223,000, com­pared with a monthly aver­age of 156,000 for 2011.

    No won­der Repub­li­cans are turn­ing to far-​​right social wedge issues.

     

  10. dc: Employ­ers added 31,200 jobs (in NYC)

    I’ve offi­cially been a Repub­li­can for five days now, so allow me to swat that lit­tle gnat for you.

    Obama was loudly opposed to all of those jobs.  My source tells me that 30,890 of those new jobs were in adver­tis­ing, sell­ing polit­i­cal ads all over our great nation.  310 of those jobs were new bar­tenders and liquor store staff.   They were all made pos­si­ble by Super­PAC money that Obum­mer whined like a girl about in his SOTU last year. 

    Oh, and some­thing about Kenya, too.

    :oops: Sorry. JPIMM.

  11. It seems to me that San­to­rum has such an over-​​inflated ego, even by politi­cian stan­dards, with his being anointed by doG to save our fair nation from moral decay and ruin, that he might well launch his own cam­paign backed by teapers to run against Rom­ney and Obama.  What do y’all think?
    His fol­low­ers cer­tainly are rabid enough to vote for him, although these are per­haps not yet old enough to vote.
    http://​gawker​.com/​5​8​9​1​3​6​6​/​w​h​i​t​e​s​t​-​f​a​m​i​l​y​-​o​n​-​e​a​r​t​h​-​s​i​n​g​s​-​a​b​o​u​t​-​r​i​c​k​-​s​a​n​t​o​r​u​m​-​b​r​i​n​g​i​n​g​-​j​u​s​t​i​c​e​-​f​o​r​-​t​h​e​-​u​n​b​orn

  12. Wa7th,
     

    “I’ve offi­cially been a Repub­li­can for five days now,  …  made pos­si­ble by Super­PAC money that Obum­mer whined like a girl about in his SOTU last year…

     
    May I say you have learned fast and well from your fig­u­ra­tive lead­er­ship, made obvi­ous by your min­i­miza­tion of women in the above com­ment!
     
    Bwahahahahahahaha!

  13. Rose,
     
    I dunno ’bout that. His “block” is lower income and evan­gel­i­cals. Even the major­ity of Catholics went against him, so he does NOT have the sup­port of  his co-​​religionists. He loses among women Repub­li­cans!
     
    If we give a large ben­e­fit of doubt in a San­to­rum 3rd-​​party run, I could not see more than 9–12% in Novem­ber. Obama: 52–38-10. And still 300+ EV.

  14. Rose,
    I’ll add to what Max has said that, given the San­to­rum campaign’s evi­dent lack of orga­ni­za­tional abil­ity (see, for exam­ple, how they failed to get peo­ple to agree to be del­e­gates in some parts of Ohio), a third-​​party can­di­dacy would be beyond even an ordi­nary débâ­cle.
     
    And who would finance it?  He’s got a sugar daddy right now, as long as there’s hope (fad­ing, but still hope) that the Rom­ney jug­ger­naut can be derailed.  Once he gives in on that, his money is gone.
     
    So — no money, no orga­ni­za­tion, no abil­ity to gen­er­ate either.  That’s a one-​​way ticket to oblivion.

  15. Max,
     
    I sus­pect Santorum’s ter­ri­ble sup­port among Catholics is because his views are way the hell to the right of where most Amer­i­can Catholics, who are noto­ri­ous for being much more lib­eral than the Vat­i­can, actu­ally are.

  16. I live around a bunch of Catholics and Rick scares the hell out of them.  Arm­Chair the Pope just more or less com­ing down on San­to­rums side prob­a­bly just did him in.

  17. Mainer,

    As a papist myself I can tell you Rick the crypto-​​evangelical lost my sup­port a long time ago. ;)

  18. I just noticed the col­ors inthe accom­pa­ny­ing graph.  San­to­rum is brown.  A coincidence?

  19. Arm chair I think I read some where that it was his loss of Catholics in PA that did him in there too. I have found it odd for some time that priests at the local level work so hard to hold their flocks together and con­stantly fight those at the top. Not being a very reli­gious per­son it has always made me curi­ous how church higher ups that had to have started out in the field then go on to become maybe bish­ops and totaly for­get all the lessons they must have learned when deal­ing with peo­ple on the low end of the oper­a­tion. San­to­rum talks to the bishop end of the equa­tion and the fringe old­sters that are still in Latin mode.
    Rose being color blind I would have missed that nuance. Priceless.

  20. Rose said:

    I just noticed the col­ors in the accom­pa­ny­ing graph.  San­to­rum is brown.  A coincidence?

    I’m not sure what you mean ;-)

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