It's Super Tuesday!

Guest post by Mark Snyder

Tonight looks like it'll be a pretty bleak night if your name isn't Romney. Gingrich will win Georgia, but won't get back 50% so it'll be by congressional district and Romney might be able to pick off some of those delegates, Virginia and Massachusetts are non-contests, and the fact Mitt is running only about a point behind Santorum in Tennessee really spells the end to the idea that "anyone but Mitt" might run away with this.

The race up until this point has been about narrative, and it would be hard to imagine waking up to another Colorado/Minnesota/Missouri surprise. At this point Santorum is just shooting himself in the foot left and right, no one is willing to give Gingrich another surge because we've seen him fall too many times already, and Paul will never appeal to more than 30% of the electorate. The narrative is now that Romney has repeated beat back his opponents with his superior money machine and organization at the state level, even though much of that "organization" is a single office in the state it's still comparatively better.

So if Romney wins Massachusetts outright, a popular/delegate advantage in Ohio (bonus points if he wins by more than 5%), picks up some delegates in Georgia, takes all of Virginia, gets close or wins Tennessee, and doesn't get romped in Oklahoma/the caucus states he's going to lock this thing up in all but name. He'll have trouble in Alabama and Mississippi, but if he does better than expected in Tennessee and Oklahoma tomorrow he might sail through the states on the claim of inevitability. Republican voters will start seeing the advantage he has and settle. And after that it's even smoother sailing.

Now a warning. This contest seems to settle into the paradigm for just long enough to have people think they've figured it out, and then we have the revolt in South Carolina or Santorum's triple win. In the end Michigan really was the "anyone but Mitt" contingent’s Waterloo. The media keeps building them up only to have them torn down, first in NH, then Florida, then Michigan and Arizona; eventually voters will start listening less to how a candidate is doing right now and focus on the long term.

Romney continues to have an enthusiasm gap as compared to the supporters of Santorum and Paul, but in the general election much of his base will be made up of disaffected moderates who will be voting against Obama more than for Romney. The attacks of Romney’s moderate tendencies may in fact help him in the long run if a majority of the Republican electorate recognizes that he is their best bet to beat Obama.

After Super Tuesday we'll finally see that Republicans may not have fallen in love with Romney over the last few months, but they're going to fall in line to beat Obama.

Romney and Inevitability by Any Other Name

A Guest Column by Mark Snyder:

After his decisive victory in Florida Mitt Romney looked all but assured to sail through the rest of the
contests and to the nomination, mostly due to Rick Santorum’s persisting inability to raise money
and organize volunteers and Newt Gingrich’s rapidly declining favorability numbers. He had shaken off the rebuke of South Carolina voters in Florida and ended up winning almost every major demographic group, winning the primary 46% of the vote and leading his next closest competitor, Gingrich, by 14 points.

Romney then went on the win Nevada with a full 50% of the vote, leaving Gingrich 29 points behind him. Even though Nevada was a state Romney was all but assured to win, the inevitability narrative seemed to be building. The month of February was not going to be a kind one to Gingrich, and Santorum still was not making enough money or building enough of a ground game to be taken seriously.

With Santorum’s sweep of Colorado, Minnesota, and the beauty contest in Missouri the inevitability narrative once again comes into some doubt.

Nate Silver opined after Romney’s win in Florida (and it looked even more true after his Nevada win) that there were a number of ways forward, but can be boiled down to four: the contest ends early and Romney
wins, the battle stretches on but Romney pulls it off, Santorum emerges as the anti-Romney that the media has been saying the Republican base is looking for, or the contest stretches on all the way to a brokered convention.

The first two looked like the likely scenarios, but now with Romney’s upset earlier this week are the latter too looking like better bets?

The answer, in my mind, is no. For several reasons.

First, Romney still holds a huge money lead. According to the latest FEC filing Romney has raised over $57 million, more than the rest of his competitors combined. Not only does this mean Romney will be able to control the airwaves if his campaign so chooses, but he will be able to go to the convention with just the money he has on hand at the moment, which differentiates him from his competitors. The super PAC
supporting Romney, Restore our Future, is also sitting high above the water financially, and showed its willingness to get involved aggressively on behalf of Romney in Iowa. The super PAC has also recently made a media buy in Ohio, a state seen as key for all of the contenders.

Second, though Romney’s favorability ratings have recently taken a hit he is not alone, as mentioned before Gingrich’s has as well, and now increased scrutiny of Santorum’s record and personal statements are
starting to have a negative effect on his ratings. Romney, though not seen as a good candidate by those who consider themselves very conservative, has maintained strong support from moderate Republicans and Independents in exit polls in the first four contests.

Finally the anyone but Romney contingent, Gingrich, Santorum, and Paul, face serious questions about how electable they actually are; all three trail Pres. Obama in Gallup surveys, while Romney is running even with him nationally, and beating him in many swing states. In Iowa, New Hampshire, and Florida voters who thought that the ability to defeat Obama is the most important characteristic in a candidate overwhelmingly supported Romney. The exception was in South Carolina, where they support Gingrich 51%/37%, which can be attributed to the mini-implosion of the Romney campaign, marked by their handling of attack on Romney’s time at Bain Capital, his refusal to release his tax records, and his subjugation by Gingrich during the debates.

Looking forward Romney should be able to prove his inevitability with wins in Michigan and Arizona, but look for Gingrich and Santorum to stay long past those primaries. Due to the way the RNC fashioned
the primary season it is impossible for any one candidate to win enough delegates to become the nominee this early, however if Romney can cement his front runner status and make it stick this time, look for him to suck all of the oxygen out of the room, leaving Santorum and Gingrich languishing with dwindling funds and even dimmer prospects.

Romney’s relatively weak finish in Maine, along with the incredible low turnout, only bolsters the importance of the Michigan and Arizona primaries in the coming weeks. The current polling number suggest an interesting scenario: Romney could win Arizona by a large margin (50% to Gingrich’s 26% and Santorum’s 14%) and lose Michigan to Santorum (40% to Romney’s 27%, and Gingrich with 18%) With polling numbers in those states few and far between the current numbers should be taken with a grain of salt.

The Michigan and Arizona primaries are February 28th.

Mark Snyder is a Senior Political Science major at St. Mary's College.