Decision 2012 (March 7 “Super Tuesday” edition)

Presidential

(1144 delegates to win) Romney 415 (56%), Santorum 176 (24%), Gingrich 105, Ron Paul 47, Huntsman 2 (WSJ)

President Obama Job Approval 47-49% (14 day rolling average)

Presidential Contest 3/7 (Romney = blue, Santorum = pink, Gingrich = red)

Last night, 10 states held their Presidential contests, and the results seem to indicate two things: (1) the Republican primary contest is very much still in play, and (2) the demographic battle lines are solidifying in terms of bases of support for each candidate. Frontrunner Mitt Romney’s coalition includes moderate/liberal Republicans on either coast, affluent urban neighborhoods, Western voters, and Mormons. Rick Santorum now has a national base of religious voters, middle income suburbs, and small towns, with one important exception: portions of the Deep South with a large percentage of native Southerners – that voter bloc is still solidly behind Newt Gingrich. [...]

Decision 2012 (February 29 edition)

Presidential

(1144 delegates to win) Romney 163, Santorum 83, Gingrich 32, Ron Paul 19, Huntsman 2 (WSJ)

President Obama Job Approval 47-49% (14 day rolling average)

Presidential Contest 2/29 (Romney = blue, Santorum = pink, Gingrich = red)

The ever changing Republican Presidential contest has now swung back to Mitt Romney, although not as decisively as he may have hoped. Despite the apparent inconsistency of the Republican contest, however, battle lines within the Republican Party have begun to form in terms of patterns of support each candidate has, which we think will be apparent in each remaining contest. Romney has become the candidate of more affluent white collar suburbs and moderate/liberal Republicans, while Santorum is getting his support from rural and/or blue collar areas, and Newt Gingrich’s appeal is the most potent in areas with a significant number of native Southerners. Let’s recap last night’s two contests through this prism: [...]

Decision 2012 (February 23 edition)

Presidential -

 (1144 delegates to win) Romney 123, Santorum 72, Gingrich 32, Ron Paul 19, Huntsman 2 (WSJ)

President Obama Job Approval 48-48% (14 day rolling average)

Presidential Contest 2/23 (Romney = blue, Santorum = pink, Gingrich = red)

Ever since the “mini Tuesday” Presidential contests of Colorado, Minnesota, and Missouri, the Presidential race has been relatively quiet. The Maine caucuses did conclude shortly thereafter, and while Romney eked out a narrow 39-36% victory over Ron Paul, this was, comparatively speaking, not an impressive victory for Romney. He carried Maine 51-18% over Ron Paul in 2008 (John McCain received 21%). One small consolation for the Republicans: turnout was 20% higher than it was in the 2008 caucuses. [...]

Decision 2012 (February 8 edition)

Presidential - (1144 delegates to win) Romney 107, Santorum 45, Gingrich 32, Ron Paul 9, Huntsman 2, Perry 2

Presidential Contest (Romney = blue, Santorum = pink, Gingrich = red)

The Republican Presidential contest is back to square one, so to speak.  Despite the fact that three of the four contests held this past week were in states Mitt Romney carried in his 2008 Presidential quest, he only managed to carry Nevada, and even then, he essentially matched his 2008 showing. [...]

Decision 2012 (February 1 edition)

Presidential

Even though (from a delegate count perspective, anyway), the Republican Presidential race is only 6% “complete”, the conclusion of the Florida primary is a signal that the nomination contest has entered into a new phase. This is because Florida was the first contest in which the Republican electorate was a mosaic of different ethnicities and ideologies (southerners in the Panhandle, Midwestern retirees along the southwestern Gulf Coast, northeastern retirees along the Atlantic coast, young families in Central Florida, and staunchly anti-Communist Cubans in Miami) dispersed across 10 media markets. [...]

Decision 2012 (January 23 edition)

Presidential

Rarely has a Presidential primary hinged both on a news reporter’s question, as well as the word “maybe.” Yet, the combination of these two items less than 48 hours before Saturday’s balloting during the GOP debate provided the fuel for Newt Gingrich’s 40-28% victory over Mitt Romney in South Carolina. This basically was a landslide: Romney was reduced to pluralities in three (out of 46) counties, and Saturday’s 601K voter turnout was about 33% higher than it was in the 2008 Republican primary (it’s also worth noting that the Republican primary in New Hampshire had 5% higher turnout than in 2008). [...]

Decision 2012 (January 11 edition)

Presidential

UPDATE 1/11 PM The New Hampshire primary has concluded, and Mitt Romney won a clear victory with 39% of the vote – this from a state that only gave him 32% of the vote and a second place showing in 2008. As with Iowa, the conservative vote remained splintered. Unlike Iowa, the New Hampshire Republican electorate is less hospitable to conservatives (particularly Southern and/or social conservatives), and as such, Romney mostly had the more moderate electorate to himself. [...]

Decision 2012 (January 5 edition)

Presidential

Now that the Iowa caucus has concluded with an eight vote “victory” for Mitt Romney, what are we to conclude from the results?  It is true that Mitt Romney “won” Iowa; however, if you look at the data, you realize that his victory was not that remarkable. For one thing, he essentially maintained his 2008 electoral position: he received almost the exact number of votes that he got in 2008, and he received the same 25% of the vote that he got in 2008. Additionally, Romney in 2008 had to compete against John McCain and Rudy Giuliani for the more moderate/liberal Republican voter demographic: in that election, 41% of Iowans voted for one of those three candidates. This time, Romney had that vote all to himself, so in a sense, his electoral position has slipped since 2008. You could also make the argument that conservative voters are more energized this time around. [...]

Looking back on 2011 and forward to 2012

Looking Back

Looking back on 2011, either party can claim to have “won” the elections that were held that year. From the Democratic point of view, special elections in Upstate New York and the victory on the collective bargaining vote in Ohio, combined with the near sweep of statewide elections in Kentucky, are what they believe are evidence that the 2010 Republican wave has subsided. [...]

Louisiana Decides – 2011 Runoff Edition (Legislative Races)

In the previous article, we examined the BESE races and noted that not only had the reformers swept all three races that were on the ballot last night, but that a fissure seems to have developed between the black electorate and their leadership and their presumed allies, the teachers unions. In this analysis, we will look at the legislative runoff races. [...]