| A variety of polls in this afternoon's roundup. President- Primary Texas: PPP- Romney 45% Gingrich 35% Paul 14%. Gingrich sees a bump from the Santorum withdrawal while Romney surges to dominance. Romney's favoribility has gone from a meh 44/44 in January to 66/23. In contrast, Paul has lopsided 37/48 favorables in his home state. Pennsylvania: Over at Frontloading HQ Josh Putnam takes an informative look at the delegate allocation process in Pennsylvania. A quote: Like Illinois, Pennsylvania is a loophole primary: Voters will cast a ballot for a presidential candidate of their choice, but the vote of consequence is the direct vote(s) for delegates. Unlike Illinois, the candidates to which the delegate candidates are aligned are not listed alongside those delegate candidates on the ballot. The result is that Pennsylvania Republican primary voters are essentially casting a blind vote. Now, what typically happens in these loophole primaries -- whether in Pennsylvania or Illinois -- is that the establishment candidate is able to garner the most support of known political quantities either statewide or within a district. Voters tend to gravitate toward those folks: someone they know in a political capacity versus someone they don't know.... If you were a casual voter who wanted to figure out who the delegates were for each of the candidates -- and perhaps that is a stretch (Who are those voters?) -- you would have a much easier time coming up with the Ron Paul list of delegates than the Mitt Romney list of delegates. That yields a competition that pits name recognition (Romney) against organization (Paul). Typically -- historically -- the two would overlap or the latter would be unnecessary in a late and less-than-competitive primary where a presumptive nominee has been identified and all or most other candidates have dropped out of the race. In this instance, though, with turnout looking light at best, we may have a fairly decent test case of name recognition against organization.
President- General Texas: PPP- Romney 50% (49) Obama 43% (42) New Hampshire: UNH Survey Center- Obama 51% (50) Romney 42% (40) Arizona: Merrill / Morrison Institute- Romney 42% Obama 40% National: PPP- Obama 49% (50) Romney 44% (44) National: Gallup Tracking- Obama 49% (50) Romney 42% (44) Senate Iowa: Oh Chuck Grassley. “We’re looking at something that is very, very serious when national security might not be protected properly,” Grassley told Radio Iowa. “Who knows who might be using prostitutes? The Russians are famous for that to get information out of us.”
There is a certain historical point in there, but it still sounds a bit goofy when you frame it as "Senator speculates Colombian prostitutes are Russian spies." House NY-24: McLaughlin & Associates, internal: Buerkle 42% Maffei 38% Miscellaneous NYC Mayor: Marist, Democratic primary- Christine Quinn 32% Bill Thompson 12% Bill de Blasio 10% John Liu 9% Scott Stringer 7% John Allon 1% NYC Mayor: Douglas Schoen for NYDN, general- Quinn 49% Kelly 36%; Thompson 43% Kelly 40%; Kelly 45% Stringer 39%; 42% Kelly 41% de Blasio Texas, Lt. Governor: State Rep. David Simpson (R) is a lot like State Senator Tom Davis in South Carolina- a prominent Tea Party favorite who is known for taking difficult stands in the legislature. He is facing a primary from a Joe Straus loyalist he primaried in 2010 (one of only two Republican legislators to fall in primary challenges that year). Looking at who supports Simpson can show a type of jockeying for conservative support going on- one of his supporters is state Comptroller Susan Combs, who is building a massive warchest for a run at Lieutenant Governor in 2014. |
