The poll was (obviously) done before Herman Cain announced he was suspending his campaign, but he was clearly on the downside already.
Where do those voters go? Newt. Every poll says that. The only question is how many. My guess is the number is enough to effectively put Newt at 30%.
18% of all voters said Newt was their second choice, suggesting that as other campaigns fall off he can pick up even more ground.
We still need to keep pushing, but currently Newt is the clear frontrunner nationally, in Iowa, in South Carolina, and in Florida. He's running a close second in New Hampshire.
The trick now is to make sure our voters get to the polls and caucus sites.
Many have noted that this was about the time that Mike Huckabee shot ahead of Mitt Romney in Iowa four years ago.
Showing posts with label Des Moines Register poll. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Des Moines Register poll. Show all posts
Sunday, December 4, 2011
Sunday, October 30, 2011
Looking at the race
As most Saturdays are, the news was pretty slow. The one bit of news the new Des-Moines Register poll, which placed Newt in a statistical tie for 4th place.
The poll, which is almost seen as gospel by some people, does not have a great track record lately, but let's say it's a 100% accurate snapshot of this moment.
It's the same story as the other polls lately: Cain is the conservative alternative to Romney at this moment, Ron Paul is guaranteed to get 10-12% (and won't move up or down from that range), and Newt and Perry are vying to oust Cain as the anti-Romney.
I am not going to write off Perry at all, because he does have a ton of money and, when retail campaigning, is a good candidate. But I don't see his debate performances improving much; he's never been a good debater, going back to Texas. And he has so far been much too negative toward Romney. While Perry's attacks will probably hurt Romney -- though I think Romney is a little like Paul in that he has reached his ceiling but probably has hit his basement too -- they will not help Perry.
A Perry-Romney ad war, millions of negative ads, guarantees one thing: Perry is not going to be the nominee. This is what happened in the Democrat Primary in 2004. Heading into Iowa, Howard Dean and Richard Gephardt were seen as the two favorites. They ripped into each other so much, though, that they destroyed each other's chances, allowing John Kerry to slip in, win Iowa, and eventually the nomination.
Romney could possibly survive such a scenario if conservatives do not coalesce around a single candidate. But honestly, if conservatives do get behind a single candidate -- not splintering their vote five ways -- Romney is probably done no matter what.
So if the media tries to spin this poll as being ultra-negative for Newt, don't fall for it. They are the same people who two months ago said Perry-Romney were the only two candidates who mattered. And two weeks before that they were saying Bachmann was a front-runner.
Only about 30% of Cain's supporters say they are strongly committed to him, so this race is incredibly fluid. Newt, while not attacking Cain, is starting to draw contrasts on tax policy, experience -- and next weekend is the one-on-one debate between the two. Followed by a regular debate on November 9th. And a foreign policy debate soon after that.
This wasn't a ground-breaking post, but it was meant to fight back against the media declaring a winner based on a poll two months before votes are cast, before Newt has fully built an organization in Iowa, and before he gets to debate Cain one-on-one.
The full results of the Des-Moines Register poll will be released later this morning, and I will have more on it then.
The poll, which is almost seen as gospel by some people, does not have a great track record lately, but let's say it's a 100% accurate snapshot of this moment.
It's the same story as the other polls lately: Cain is the conservative alternative to Romney at this moment, Ron Paul is guaranteed to get 10-12% (and won't move up or down from that range), and Newt and Perry are vying to oust Cain as the anti-Romney.
I am not going to write off Perry at all, because he does have a ton of money and, when retail campaigning, is a good candidate. But I don't see his debate performances improving much; he's never been a good debater, going back to Texas. And he has so far been much too negative toward Romney. While Perry's attacks will probably hurt Romney -- though I think Romney is a little like Paul in that he has reached his ceiling but probably has hit his basement too -- they will not help Perry.
A Perry-Romney ad war, millions of negative ads, guarantees one thing: Perry is not going to be the nominee. This is what happened in the Democrat Primary in 2004. Heading into Iowa, Howard Dean and Richard Gephardt were seen as the two favorites. They ripped into each other so much, though, that they destroyed each other's chances, allowing John Kerry to slip in, win Iowa, and eventually the nomination.
Romney could possibly survive such a scenario if conservatives do not coalesce around a single candidate. But honestly, if conservatives do get behind a single candidate -- not splintering their vote five ways -- Romney is probably done no matter what.
So if the media tries to spin this poll as being ultra-negative for Newt, don't fall for it. They are the same people who two months ago said Perry-Romney were the only two candidates who mattered. And two weeks before that they were saying Bachmann was a front-runner.
Only about 30% of Cain's supporters say they are strongly committed to him, so this race is incredibly fluid. Newt, while not attacking Cain, is starting to draw contrasts on tax policy, experience -- and next weekend is the one-on-one debate between the two. Followed by a regular debate on November 9th. And a foreign policy debate soon after that.
This wasn't a ground-breaking post, but it was meant to fight back against the media declaring a winner based on a poll two months before votes are cast, before Newt has fully built an organization in Iowa, and before he gets to debate Cain one-on-one.
The full results of the Des-Moines Register poll will be released later this morning, and I will have more on it then.
Sunday, June 26, 2011
The First Des Moines Register Poll
The Des Moines-Register poll has almost a folk lore around it. It is always printed in the Sunday edition of the paper, and in the Internet age, the poll is posted online Saturday night. When it was announced last week that the first such poll of this campaign would be released Saturday, it made big news among those watching the GOP nomination.
The results:
This leaves an interesting dilemma for Romney. He has previously tried to keep expectations in the Hawkeye State down, almost to the point of saying he will not seriously compete. He and his campaign have tried to argue that he is not a good match for Iowa because he is seen suspiciously by many conservatives. However, by being in the lead in this poll, he takes the risk of looking weak should he not heavily fight for Iowa.
Is Bachmann going to be able to keep her high support, or will her poll numbers come back down some, just as Cain's did after the memories of his debate performance last month faded?
Newt has had a rough couple of weeks of press coverage, yet he still is in the running. If in fact he has finally turned the corner from the staff and other issues -- and the news that his fundraising has started to rebound is a big indicator he may have -- and the stories about him revolve more around his policies and record as a conservative reformer, then he will rise back up. From different reports, he and the campaign staff still with him seem much more comfortable since the staff shakeup. The reason is that they have all been together for a few years at American Solutions -- the ones who quit were very new additions -- and some of the replacements for those who resigned were also from "Newt World."
The results:
Mitt Romney: 23%More extensive polling data has yet to be released, but if those were the only candidates who received support, then 25% of Iowa Republicans are undecided.
Michelle Bachmann: 22%
Herman Cain: 10%
Newt Gingrich: 7%
Ron Paul: 7%
Tim Pawlenty: 4%
Jon Huntsman: 2%
This leaves an interesting dilemma for Romney. He has previously tried to keep expectations in the Hawkeye State down, almost to the point of saying he will not seriously compete. He and his campaign have tried to argue that he is not a good match for Iowa because he is seen suspiciously by many conservatives. However, by being in the lead in this poll, he takes the risk of looking weak should he not heavily fight for Iowa.
Is Bachmann going to be able to keep her high support, or will her poll numbers come back down some, just as Cain's did after the memories of his debate performance last month faded?
Newt has had a rough couple of weeks of press coverage, yet he still is in the running. If in fact he has finally turned the corner from the staff and other issues -- and the news that his fundraising has started to rebound is a big indicator he may have -- and the stories about him revolve more around his policies and record as a conservative reformer, then he will rise back up. From different reports, he and the campaign staff still with him seem much more comfortable since the staff shakeup. The reason is that they have all been together for a few years at American Solutions -- the ones who quit were very new additions -- and some of the replacements for those who resigned were also from "Newt World."
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