Wednesday, April 4, 2012

Hat Trick Romney! So now what?

Mitt Romney waves to supporters in Wisconsin. Linked to source: newsobserver.com

Mitt Romney made a clean sweep last night and won in Maryland, DC, and Wisconsin for a grand total of ---

Romney 654
Santorum 270
Gingrich 137
Paul 71

So now what?
Will his challengers go quietly into the night?
Of course not.
Next up we have Pennsylvania, Rick Santorum's sort of stomping grounds. He was their Senator and Congressman for several terms, but really he lives in Virginia, and he was born in VA as well. It is also the state the soundly kicked his butt and didn't re-elect him in 2006.  But nonetheless, he ain't dropping out of this race until he's gone back to PA. In his "concession" speech last night he said we're at "half-time" in this race. If by half-time he means he now has less than half of the delegates Romney has, I guess that makes some sense.
So other than being Santorum's home state, what does Pennsylvania have to offer?
72 proportional delegates.
The primary is on April 24 along with Connecticut (28 proportional), Delaware (17 winner takes all), New York (95 proportional), and Rhode Island (19 proportional). Obviously, Pennsylvania isn't even the most profitable state that day, with NY on the calendar as well. The only reason it is a big deal is because it is Santorum's "home."
The PA polls are all over the place, thanks to super old data in them, but they do consistently show Santorum ahead.
click image to enlarge
Source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/election-2012/post/rick-santorum-pennsylvania-polls-showing-close-race-are-work-of-democratic-hack/2012/04/01/gIQA7yE2oS_blog.html

This second screen shot might be one of my favorite Santorum quotes ever. He's really showing his colors lately that when he doesn't like something someone says or does, he insults them. "...Democratic hack... has probably singularly gotten more polls wrong..."  And what was the hack's big offense? He only shows Santorum leading by 2 points. Heaven forbid. It's almost as if Santorum was winning in every single state, and the front runner, and suddenly somebody dared to say he has some competition.
Meanwhile, talking about really old data, check out the Real Clear Politics offerings for New York-
Click image to enlarge. Screen grab from Real Clear Politics.
Yes, that would be data from nearly a full year ago in the mix. And the most recent data is from February. So yeah, that's not too helpful either. And things aren't much more useful for CT and DE polling either.

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