Santorum | buffaloerik

So as we enter Tuesday night’s Florida Republican primary – the choices are pretty much narrowed down to 2 candidates:

Yes, you can argue that the NOT-Romney campaigns of Rick Santorum & Ron Paul are still in the mix but in reality, neither will ever be the actual nominee. I just can’t imagine that there are enough people in America that have not “googled” SANTORUM!
As Santorum and Paul start to run out of money and resources, their voters will eventually peel off and side up with one of the two big candidates. I’m sure that most Paul supporters will hold out in hopes that he runs as a third-party candidate in November but that is yet to be seen – and that would also eventually doom any Republican candidate in a face to face with President Obama in the National election.

So let’s look at some numbers:

The latest Wall Street Journal poll (1/26) shows Gingrich with a lead of 9% points over Romney with 30% of the vote still going to Santorum and Paul. When Santorum eventually drops out, and he will drop out, his “conservative base” voters are most likely to run to Gingrich – I could see 12% going to Gingrich, 4% going to Romney and 2% not being able to hold their nose and vote for either front-runner. That leaves us with Gingrich with a strong 17% lead over Romney from a National Republican Primary perspective.

So, is Newt the man? Not so fast, let’s look at some more numbers……

NATIONAL (NBC/Wall Street Journal): Obama d. Romney (49-43); Obama d. Santorum (53-38); Obama d. Gingrich (55-37); Obama d. Romney and Ron Paul (45-32-18)

NATIONAL (Rasmussen Tracking): Obama d. Romney (46-42); Obama d. Gingrich (49-39)

NATIONAL (YouGov/Economist): Obama d. Romney (47-41); Obama d. Paul (47-40); Obama d. Gingrich (49-39); Obama d. Santorum (49-39)

MICHIGAN (EPIC-MRA): Obama d. Romney (48-40); Obama d. Gingrich (51-38)

MINNESOTA (PPP): Obama d. Romney (51-41); Obama d. Santorum (52-40); Obama d. Paul (51-38); Obama d. Gingrich (53-38)

NEW YORK (NY1/YNN/Marist): Obama d. Romney (58-35); Obama d. Santorum (61-33); Obama d. Gingrich (63-31); Obama d. Paul (62-28)

WISCONSIN (Marquette Law School): Obama d. Romney (48-40)

Three National polls and 4 statewide polls released this week show Romney as the only viable Republican that can even keep pace with Obama in a National election – Romney lags behind Obama from anywhere from 4-6% points but Gingrich comes in behind Obama by at least 10% points and as much as 18% in the WSJ poll. So……as a Republican, who do you vote for ? The guy that can’t win the State primaries or the guy that can’t win the National election – Rock, meet hard place…..

So where does this leave us?

What this tells me is that the Republican primary is far from over and there is still much blood to drawn – Let’s see what happens on Tuesday night – I predict a win for Romney but then the show goes on the road to Nevada & Maine – Find the full schedule here – Republican Primary Schedule 2012.