We had seven GOP contests since the last time I posted on the GOP nominee race and we had a debate this week (I don’t think it had much impact on the upcoming races, to be honest), so here’s an updated scorecard and some of my views.
Mitt Romney won in Florida and Nevada, while Rick Santorum won in Colorado, Minnesota, and Missouri. Romney then got some bit of momentum back by winning Maine and the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) straw poll. Let’s take a quick look at each result.
I bunch these together because, in general, I wouldn’t read too much into any single result due to the structures (a caucus or a straw poll aren’t as significant as a primary), composition (the open versus closed question), delegate awards (some of these contests yielded zero delegates), and/or the size of the samples (the CPAC straw poll was only about 3,000 people, for example).
Arizona and Michigan are next up before we get to “Super Tuesday” on March 6. I don’t plan to revisit the GOP race until then, barring a major event or a tie-in to another topic. And on we go.
Romney won Florida with 46%. Gingrich took second place at 32%, while Santorum was third place with 13% and Paul took fourth place with 7%.
In Nevada, Romney won with 50%. Gingrich was second at 21%. Paul took third with 19%. Santorum took last at 10%.
Missouri went for Santorum at 55%, followed by Romney’s 25% and Paul’s 12%. Gingrich failed to make the ballot in Missouri.
Santorum took Minnesota with 45%. Paul came in second with 27%, followed by Romney at 17% and Gingrich at 11%.
Colorado followed. Santorum won it with 40%, while Romney had 35%. Gingrich and Paul brought up the rear with 13% and 12%, respectively.
And then, we had Maine. Romney took first with 39%, followed by Paul’s 36%. Santorum was third at 18% and Gingrich brought up the rear with 6%.
Last comes the CPAC straw poll Romney won this with 38% and Santorum took second with 31%. Gingrich took third at 15% and Paul took fourth at 12%.
After Florida and Nevada, I thought Romney had regained control of the race and reestablished himself as the man to beat. I was not so quick to declare Romney as the inevitable winner because there’s still a lot to the race and there are scenarios under which Romney could be denied the nomination (as detailed previously and below). Also, I’ve been looking at the poll results not as Romney-Gingrich-Paul-Santorum, but Romney-Paul-anti-Romney (Gingrich and Santorum). We see why in Florida, for example. Romney had 46% and still won, but anti-Romney had 45%.
The Santorum sweep validates my concerns. Clearly, I was off in declaring Florida as Santorum’s last stand because Missouri, Colorado, and Minnesota really were, and he sure delivered. I’ve leaned towards Gingrich over Santorum as being the one of the two because Gingrich had performed better. That’s no longer the case.
Missouri shows two of the biggest points that I’ve been consistently making. If this remains a four-person race, Romney is the guy to beat and there is only room for either Gingrich or Santorum in this race, but not both. Missouri demonstrated what can happen if the race goes down to three. Romney lost decisively and this is the nightmare scenario I’ve rightly been concerned about for him. The anti-Romney crowd was united behind Santorum, even if not by choice due to Gingrich’s failure to make the ballot. As I’ve been saying all along, the best hope for the anti-Romney crowd is to coalesce around one candidate (either Gingrich or Santorum because Paul is his own category).
Colorado was particularly surprising to me. It should have been an easy win for Romney, and this should be a concern. Santorum alone had a close win over Romney, but the combined anti-Romney vote (Santorum plus Gingrich) decisively beat the Romney vote. Minnesota is even worse news for Romney because it was Paul, not Romney, who took second place there.
Tuesday night could not have possibly gone better for Santorum with three solid wins. Yes, you can say that Santorum only won so big in Missouri because it was a three-person race, but that doesn’t account for his strength in Minnesota and Colorado. Now, he has to keep the momentum. He was clearly unable to do so in Maine, but did well enough in the CPAC poll to show that he still has some momentum.
Paul has to be happy with his performance, mainly because of Minnesota and Maine (his performances elsewhere were more or less on par with what he’s consistently done this year). Paul is still a key factor in the race.
I don’t know whether Tuesday night was worse for Romney or Gingrich, but it’s hard to argue that it was anything but a terrible night for both of them. Yes, Romney finished higher across the board than Gingrich, so, in that more absolute sense, Romney did better than Gingrich. However, I think expectations were higher for Romney given his recent victories in Florida and Nevada. Obviously, both of them need to regroup.
Gingrich had a third place and a fourth place finish on Tuesday. Remember, he failed to get on the Missouri ballot, which is an utterly unacceptable organizational failure. To be fair, this isn’t the only candidate who’s failed to get on a ballot in a given state, but he was the only one that Tuesday. Failure to compete in Missouri doesn’t diminish Gingrich’s weakness in Minnesota and Colorado. Following those up with a distant fourth in Maine and a near third at CPAC do not bode well, either.
Clearly, Romney’s momentum out of Florida and Nevada was stunted due to the Tuesday disaster. Make no mistake about it, that night couldn’t have gone much worse for Romney. A close second in a state he probably should have won, a distant second, and a distant third are a terrible night for him. He was able to regain some momentum with wins in Maine and at CPAC.
Here’s one last parting thought that I’ll expand upon in the future if it becomes more likely. The longer the nominee battle goes on, the more possible a new scenario becomes. A plausible gridlock scenario is emerging. We could see at the least a contested convention where none of these four has a majority of delegates going into the convention. If we have a contested convention, we could also have a brokered convention in which a candidate aside from these four enters the fray. Obviously, we have a long time to go and much can change, but I just want to toss this out there.
The bottom line is there is still a lot of race to go. The keys to watch are whether anti-Romney consolidates to one candidate between Gingrich or Santorum and whether a deal is struck to get Paul on board with anti-Romney. As you can see by the results here, this Romney/Paul/anti-Romney line of thinking isn’t entirely unreasonable for now. It’s also possible that we’ll see at least a contested convention, if not a brokered convention.
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