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Gingrich’s despicable robocall claims Romney forced Holocaust survivors to eat non-kosher…President Obama wouldn’t lie this badly because it’s so ridiculous that it wouldn’t even help in the long run.

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Mitt Romney Florida Supporters Feel The Momentum: ‘I just really want to see some hope restored in America,’ one voter tells MTV News a day before Florida primary.

Romney picks up endorsement from Memphis Tea Party.

Mitt Hits McDonalds: Behind the Scenes with the Romney Bus in Florida

The Daily Show uses Mortal Combat to illustrate how Mitt Romney destroyed Newt Gingrich this week. Read more…

Let’s keep the momentum going! Click here to VOTE for Mitt.

Polls are open in the First in the Nation primary!

Come chat with us about exit polls, results, media coverage… or whatever. Polls close at 8PM Eastern.

GOOD LUCK MITT!

The chat box has been moved back to the sidebar.

Any guesses on how Mitt’s vote total of 75,675 from 2008 will compare to today’s totals?

Read the text of Mitt’s victory speech below the fold. Read more…

The first post-Iowa national polls are out and Mitt’s path to the nomination is becoming clearer every day! Romney leads both the Rasmussen and the Gallup polls that were published yesterday, each by 8 points – though Gallup was +8 vs. Gingrich, and Rasmussen was +8 vs. Santorum. Here are the figures:

Rasmussen 1/4/12:
29% Romney
21% Santorum
16% Gingrich
12% Paul
4% Perry
4% Huntsman

Gallup Tracking 12/28/11 – 1/4/12:
27% Romney
19% Gingrich
13% Paul
11% Santorum
6% Perry
2% Huntsman

I’m inclined to think the Rasmussen numbers are more accurate since the entire poll was taken after the Iowa caucuses, while the Gallup poll is a rolling average of their last 5 daily polls. Their figures will be accurate soon enough.

So the Gingrich slide and Santorum surge are official. Rick Santorum finally gets his turn on the GOP pendulum – how about that? As of now, each candidates except Romney and Huntsman have enjoyed a surge. Examining the graph below you get the feeling the GOP has been taken on quite the roller coaster ride, except for Romney’s campaign whose is more of a high-wire act. (Move slowly and steadily toward your goal, and don’t stray off course… and you’ll stay on top.)

RCP National Poll Average as of 1-6-2012:

26.8	Romney +4.2	22.6	Gingrich	12.8	Paul	8.6	Santorum
5.8	Perry	2.2	Huntsman	6.3	Bachmann	–	Cain

RCP National Poll Average Chart:

Alan Greenspan once coined the phrase “irrational exuberance” to describe the feeling some investors get when witnessing rapidly rising stock market values and the “bubbles” they inevitably create. Today marks the end of “irrational exuberance” for Newt Gingrich. According to the RCP polling average, the Gingrich bubble has burst. Poll numbers on all fronts show Gingrich trending downward, including nationally where he has dropped 6 points since his height. 

The Republican presidential race has certainly resembled the turbulent stock market by having, in the short span of just 6 months, six different front-runners for the Republican nomination. At one point we had Donald Trump rise to the top by stirring the “birther” controversy. Then we had Bachmann, Perry, Cain, and now Gingrich each take their turn at the top of the standings. Romney is the only candidate who has been steadily and consistently polling at or near the top of the pack throughout this entire tumultuous year.

Interestingly, despite Gingrich’s surge in the polls, Romney continues to do substantially better in a head-to-head matchup against President Obama than Gingrich. 

However, Romney now refers to Newt as the “front-runner” and said that he expects a long drawn-out primary. Romney has said that he “never expected to win every state” so it looks as though Gingrich will be his primary competition. The prospects of long primary struggle between Romney and Gingrich delighted Obama’s re-election team in the hopes that whoever emerges from the GOP struggle will either have their reputation badly damaged or simply not have enough time to establish a strong campaign against Obama. 

With the vote in Iowa just three weeks away, more Americans are now getting interested in the race. The last debate in Iowa had a total of 7.6 million viewers, that’s 38% more viewers than the previous debate! The upcoming debate this Thursday looks as if it will draw an even bigger crowd.

Romney’s timing for his interview with Chris Wallace on Fox News this Sunday couldn’t come at a better or more crucial moment for his campaign. The Wallace interview will likely be the most watched interview of the season, and I believe Romney is going to impress a lot of conservatives and independents with his command of the issues. With so many people watching the interview, it will be a great time for Romney to make the case that his business career of turning around troubled companies and the Olympics is just the kind of skill set America needs right now. 

The most recent polls show that 73% Americans feel that the country is headed in the wrong direction. For the first time since America’s founding, kids no longer expect to exceed their parents’ financial situation. America appears to be in decline and poised to take its place as just another fallen superpower.

We believe that Romney is the only candidate who has the skills necessary to turn around the American economy. After all, Romney’s successful career in business was built on his ability to turn around troubled enterprises and to make them profitable again. That is what he has been doing his whole life. It’s what he is good at. Let’s put a businessman in the White House, a business man who knows how to turn things around, cut out the waste, and get things done. As Romney says, lets make America a place where “it is good to be middle class again.”  

James A. Baker III, who served in both Ronald Reagan’s and George H.W. Bush’s administrations has recently endorsed Mitt Romney in which he thinks Mitt Romney is the best candidate to defeat President Obama in 2012:

Former Secretary of State James A. Baker III said Thursday that Mitt Romney would be the Republicans’ strongest nominee against President Obama, arguing that the former Massachusetts governor’s private-sector experience would resonate with voters in swing states.

“I think that Romney would be our strongest candidate in the fall,” Mr. Baker said at the International Republican Institute’s annual dinner, where he was given the organization’s Freedom Award.

Mr. Baker said he is bullish on Mr. Romney “because he’s had private-sector business experience” and because he is most likely to appeal to voters in swing states.

“To win a general election, you’ve got to win the voters in the swing states,” he said. “Those swing states are Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, Florida – and I think Mitt Romney would probably appeal to those independent voters more so than any of the other people running on our side.”

James Baker III is right, in order to win a Presidential election you have to attract as many voters as you can as possible from each group of the political spectrum of liberals, moderates, independents and conservatives.

The good news is polls are showing Mitt Romney is the only candidate who remains competitive in swing states against President Obama.

A new Quinnipiac poll released yesterday shows Mitt Romney and President Obama are even in Ohio, Florida and Pennsylvania.  What’s even better is that a USA Today/Gallup poll released a poll last week showed Romney and Obama even in 12 swing states:  Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Michigan, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Wisconsin.

I would like to remind our readers of an excellent article the Daily Caller wrote in April 2011 in which the Obama team’s plan for reelection was to widen the electoral map as much as possible:

Their ‘awesome plan’ may be difficult to implement because Mitt Romney is actually shrinking Obama’s electoral map:

“Ironically, there is one GOP presidential frontrunner who is currently expanding the electoral map on Team Obama — Mitt Romney.”

How is Romney shrinking Obama’s electoral map? It’s due to Mitt’s strong appeal among Independents and moderates while retaining conservatives at the same time, which is why Mitt Romney poses a huge challenge to President Obama in all the swing states. If you want to ruin Obama’s plans for another four years in office, then supporting Mitt Romney is the best way to go since he’s the candidate best able to do it.

Debates have consequences. When you don’t prepare you don’t do well, and people will notice.

On August 15th Rick Perry announced his candidacy for the office of President and very quickly surged to front-runner status, a position that Mitt had held for some time. In the last few weeks we have witnessed three GOP debates, and we’ve received news that two major would-be candidates, Chris Christie and Sarah Palin, have declined to enter the race. These events have made a huge impact on the state of the race, which is now entirely different from just 6 weeks ago.

Real Clear Politics has a running average of national polls for the GOP 2012 that includes just the most recent numbers from a variety of polling organizations. The graph below (from RCP) shows the polling trends for each of the candidates. (Romney=Purple Perry=Blue Cain=Red)

Another site I like to follow is Intrade.com, which is online trading exchange website. Real people speculate on the outcome of certain events and basically buy and sell stocks (wager) based on how likely they feel a certain outcome is. It is interesting to follow since these are people who have money on the line and are watching the news and momentum trends with great interest. Below is a graph for the top 3 polling candidates right now and the closing values of their stock going back to the beginning of September. I included in the graph some dotted lines to signify when the debates took place, and when Christie officially declined to enter the race.

My take: Team Romney is soaring high right now and it is evident by the high number of endorsements and fundraisers that are jumping aboard. But Team Romney shouldn’t become complacent (I don’t think they will) because as Perry’s campaign is taking a nose-dive Herman Cain is there picking up much of the slack. It is true Cain is rising very fast in the polls, but whether that rise mounts to a strong challenge against Romney… we will have to wait and see. Much will be decided in the coming debates.

~Nate G.

The Weekly Standard has a short, sweet article out today worth noting…

Rasmussen: Perry Slips, Romney Improves, in Matchups With Obama

A couple of weeks ago, a Rasmussen poll showed Rick Perry leading President Obama 44% to 41%. But Rasmussen’s latest polling shows a change of fortunes, with Perry trailing Obama 39% to 46%.

Two weeks ago, Mitt Romney was trailing Obama 43% to 39%, but now Romney is leading Obama 43% to 40%. According to the RealClearPolitics average of polls, Obama’s approval rating has been consistently around 43% for the past few weeks.

[...] [I]f it becomes a clear trend that Romney leads, and Perry trails Obama in the polls, that could seriously sway the GOP presidential race.

(emphasis, italics added)

We’re looking forward to the next presidential debate on September 22. Expect to see some serious sway…


H/t Frank

► Jayde Wyatt

Public Policy Polling asks “Does the GOP need Romney to win?”

PPP research in Nevada, Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, Virginia, Michigan, and North Carolina reveals the answer…

A broad theme has been emerging in our state by state Presidential polling over the last couple months: if the Republicans nominate Mitt Romney it’s a toss up. And if they nominate anyone else it’s 2008 all over again. Our newest Nevada numbers very much reinforce that trend.

Barack Obama took the Silver State by 12 points in his first run. But if he had to stand for reelection today he’d be in a very competitive race against Romney, leading only 47-46 in the state. Pit him against any of the other Republicans there though and the numbers look pretty similar to last time- 9 point advantages over Herman Cain and Rick Perry at 48-39 and 49-40 respectively, a 10 point lead over Michele Bachmann at 50-40, and a 12 point advantage over Sarah Palin at 51-39.

Over the last month we’ve had similar findings in:

-Pennsylvania, where Obama is tied with Romney but leads all other Republicans by at least 7 points.

-New Hampshire, where Romney leads Obama by 2 points but all other Republicans trails Obama by at least 7.

-Virginia, where Obama leads Romney by 4 but has at least a 9 point advantage over all the rest of the GOP hopefuls.

-Michigan, where Obama has a 5 point advantage over Romney but at least a 15 point lead over everyone else.

-North Carolina, where the disparity between Romney and the rest of the Republicans isn’t quite as great. Obama and Romney are tied while Obama leads all the others by at least 3 points.

Taken all together it makes you ask the question: do Republicans have to nominate Romney to defeat Obama next year?
[...]
Obama’s holding his ground against everyone but Romney in Nevada because voters there find the whole GOP field even more unpalatable than him. Romney comes close to breaking even on favorability at 38/43 but the rest of the Republicans are quite unpopular- a -9 spread for Cain at 24/33, a -12 for Perry at 24/36, a -21 for Bachmann at 30/51, and a -28 for Palin at 32/60.

(emphasis added)


Read complete details here.


Considering ALL the media exposure Obama receives and that Romney, as the presumptive front runner, is taking hits from all sides, and that The Gov is just now shifting his presidential campaign into higher gear, our man Mitt is doing pretty darn well against our bully pulpit President.

H/t Lori
► Jayde Wyatt

Rasmussen reported on Wednesday:

In a very early look at Election 2012, former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney and President Barack Obama are essentially even.

A Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey shows Romney attracting 43% of the vote while Obama earns support from 42%. In April, Obama held a five-point edge over Romney.

The news continues to get better for Romney. Public Policy Poll’s most recent survey also puts Mitt up by a point against Obama:

For the first time since last July Barack Obama does not lead Mitt Romney in PPP’s monthly national poll on the 2012 Presidential race. Romney has now pulled into a tie with the President at 45%.

Obama’s approval rating this month is 46% with 48% of voters disapproving of him. There are 2 things particularly troubling in his numbers: independents split against him by a 44/49 margin, and 16% of Democrats are unhappy with the job he’s doing while only 10% of Republicans give him good marks. Republicans dislike him at this point to a greater extent than Democrats like him and that will be a problem for him moving forward if it persists.

Romney takes advantage of those 2 points of weakness for Obama. He leads the President by 9 points with independents at 46-37. And he earns more crossover support, getting 13% of the Democratic vote while only 8% of Republicans are behind Obama.

Further analysis by PPP concludes that the already wide electability gap between Romney and the rest of the GOP field is widening, and that Obama faces an uphill battle against those who are currently undecided:

An extremely wide electability gap has developed between Romney and all the rest of the Republican candidates. Everyone else we tested trails Obama by at least as much as John McCain’s 2008 margin of defeat and in most cases more. Obama’s up 7 on Michele Bachmann at 48-41, 9 against Tim Pawlenty at 48-39, 12 versus Herman Cain at 48-36, and as usual has his largest lead in a match up with Sarah Palin at 53-37.

Here’s an important note on all of this early 2012 polling though: Obama’s numbers are worse than they appear to be on the surface. The vast majority of the undecideds in all of these match ups disapprove of the job Obama’s doing but aren’t committing to a candidate yet while they wait to see how the Republican field shakes out. Here’s an idea of where these various match ups might stand once all voters have made up their minds:

-In the Obama/Romney head to head 21% of undecideds approve of Obama and 61% disapprove. If you allocate them based on their approval/disapprove of Obama, Romney would lead 52-48.

These two polls provide further evidence that Obama is losing hemorrhaging the support of independents and undecided voters, and that they are conversely warming up to Mitt Romney – I suspect this is due to his laser-like focus on the number one issue on people’s minds today: jobs. There is still a lot of time left, but it’s comforting to know that if the election were held today it’s likely Mitt Romney would be the victor.

Obama has never really taken the economy seriously. His actions, such as promising to veto the cut, cap and balance bill (even though it gets 2-1 approval in polls), show that he is out of touch with the American job seeker and is not qualified to lead lead the nation. Each day Romney continues to look more and more presidential as he makes the economy, unemployment and the national debt his singular focus of concern.

Obama is not working. Mitt Romney for President!

Rasmussen and Public Policy Polling released new numbers today. Mitt Romney leads…
Romney, Bachmann, Cain Lead The Pack Among GOP Primary Voters (poll taken Monday night after presidential debate in New Hampshire):

Mitt Romney – 33%
Michele Bachmann – 19%
Herman Cain – 10%
Newt Gingrich – 9%
Ron Paul – 7%
Tim Pawlenty – 6%
Rick Santorum – 6%
Jon Huntsman – 2% (Huntsman didn’t participate in the debate.)

Romney and Bachmann are tied among primary voters who say they are Tea Party members, with 26% support each. Romney holds a 36% to 16% lead over the congresswoman among non-members. Most primary voters regard all the candidates with the exception of Huntsman as conservative, but Bachmann is seen as the most conservative.
[...]
The survey of 1,000 Likely GOP Primary Voters was conducted on June 14, 2011 by Rasmussen Reports. Likely GOP Primary Voters include both Republicans and unaffiliated voters likely to vote in a GOP Primary. The margin of sampling error is +/- 3 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence. [...]

For the third week in a row, a generic Republican candidate leads President Obama in a hypothetical 2012 election matchup. But while 54% of Likely Voters nationwide think Obama is qualified to be president, Romney is the only 2012 Republican hopeful that a sizable number of voters feel that way about.

(emphasis added)

PPP Poll: Romney still leading the pack

[...] Romney continuing to hold his lead over the Republican field in a nationwide survey, even on a trial heat ballot with so-called Republican fantasy candidates like Chris Christie, Paul Ryan, and Jeb Bush.

Mitt Romney – 22%
Herman Cain – 17%
Sarah Palin – 15%
Pawlenty – 9%
Newt Gingrich – 9%
Michele Bachmann – 8%
Ron Paul – 7%
Jon Huntsman – 1%

While the rankings don’t change much without Palin in the race; Romney and Bachmann benefit the most:

Romney – 27%
Cain – 20%
Bachmann – 13%
Gingrich – 12%
Pawlenty – 10%

The poll surveyed 544 usual Republican primary voters nationwide, using an automated phone survey over the period between June 9 and June 12. That means that the results pre-date the debate on Monday in New Hampshire, of which Romney and Bachmann were declared the big winners. The poll’s margin of error is plus or minus 4.2 percent.

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► Jayde Wyatt

Gov. Romney gains 9% in the latest WSJ poll as well.