Comparing the GOP 2012 Polls for the week ending Dec 12, 2012

Washington Monument, Source: E. McBride

Welcome back to another round of comparing the weekly GOP 2012 polls. Let's quickly recap last week's standings (polls for week ending Dec 5).
Last week I wasn't very impressed with Real Clear Politics and their overall wrap up. They were using the same polls over the same exact dates for the past three weeks, but representing it as new. They tossed in one new poll and mixed it in with the old data to create new numbers. The polls weren't even conducted in the same time period, which really throws off the accuracy of the gauge. Nationally they were showing Newt Gingrich leading by 6.2, and their one new poll (Rasmussen) had Gingrich ahead nationally by 21! So I am looking forward to figuring out today's numbers, and hoping for a lot of new data, especially since this will be our first non-Cain week.

And yet again, RCP is disappointing me by mixing old data with new data, which throws things off by keeping Cain numbers in the older data. Ugh.

Taking out the old data, and only looking at the specific polls, feels different to me. Same frontrunner, and the results don't change much. (Remember, without Cain the totals won't be 100%.) But I'm more comfortable this way. In short, Gingrich is still showing a meteoric rise. Laid out this way you can also really see how very little change the bottom 3 candidates are seeing in the polls. Why won't they just drop out? Are they hoping to be the next Gingrich?
Look at that the Gallup poll for 10/7/11. Gingrich had 7% and was in 5th place (Cain had 18%). He was still behind Perry and Paul! So I guess you can't blame the back of the pack for wanting to be a dark horse. But I really don't see that happening.
Basically it all comes down to Romney and Gingrich at this point. Romney is such a strange number in all of this. He really has managed to hold on to exactly his 20% of registered Republicans for a year now. That tells you something- he has a very solid and loyal group of supporters.
This got me to thinking. There are 312,759,000 people living in the United States according to the 2010 Census. (Source: Wikipedia.) There were 218,054,301 individuals in the "voting eligible population" for the 2010 elections (which takes out illegals, those under 18, overseas, non-citizens, anyone incarcerated, etc) (Source: US Elections Project).
It will be an imperfect number, but here's some food for thought. In 2008 (and in the 2 previous elections) we saw the country split in close to 50/50 numbers in the presidential elections. Obama won over McCain with 53%. There are 55 million registered Republicans (source: AskMe), while Pew Research Center says that 27% of Americans identified as GOP in 2008 (come to think of it, I didn't identify as GOP in 2008, because I didn't like McCain/Palin. I identified and registered as Libertarian. Living at that time in a heavily red state, I knew my third party vote and the electoral system wouldn't help Obama get elected, but would send a message to the GOP that they were losing their base.) So using these numbers, I wanted to see how many people are staying local to Romney nationwide.
We could break down the numbers a few ways-
27% of the 312,759,000? Not good enough, since that number includes the under 18, illegals, and incarcerated.
But first let's see what 27% of the voting eligible population comes out to- 218,054,301 x .27 = 58,874,661.
59 million(ish), which isn't too far off from the 55 million registered Republicans. Don't you just love it when numbers actually come close?
So of 55 million Republicans, we know that roughly 20% have stayed loyal to Romney. That comes out to 11 million loyal Romney fans.
Obama won with roughly 67 million votes in 2008. (Source: CNN)
Assuming the country goes close to 50/50 again (and really, do we have a reason to think it won't?), Romney has 8% of the base. (Erin Math: he has 16% of the 50% which is GOP, therefore 8% of the 100%). Granted, with the electoral college system, that isn't going to really make much of a dent, (especially since Utah only has 5 electoral votes), but if he were to choose 3rd party, he could mess things up for Gingrich.
But since he's never threatened such a thing, and Ron Paul does all the time, let's see what kind of damage Paul could do-
Paul holds steady with 9.5% of the GOP. That gives him roughly 55 million x 9.5 = 5.2 million Ron Paul supporters
5.2 million supporters equals 2% of the voting eligible population.
Sorry, Paulites, but I don't see him doing any significant damage. Or winning. Ever.

I was not compensated for this post. All math is mine and mine alone, and I was BA, not a BS. But I did get a B in Math 110 from a state university.