The Republican presidential nomination contest reached another milestone yesterday with two more major primaries, in Arizona and Michigan.
The delegate “haul” in both states was reduced by half, since they violated the RNC’s calendar rules by holding their primaries before March 1. But since these primaries were the first events to occur after Rick Santorum’s three-state sweep on Feb. 7, and because Santorum had risen rapidly in both national and Michigan polls since then, they became something of an existential threat to the Romney campaign. Indeed, prior to the results the air was full of panic-stricken, if largely anonymous, claims that party leaders would have to recruit a late-entry candidate if Romney failed to win in Michigan, his native state.
It turned out, of course, that Romney did win Michigan, though by a narrow 3-point margin. He also won Arizona, and all its delegates, by an impressive 20-point margin, but that contest drew little national attention. The tendency of the chattering classes to focus on Romney’s weak spots and defeats rather than his points-of-strength and victories remains a big problem for his candidacy going into the Super Tuesday events in ten states.
The exact extent of Romney’s Michigan win remains a bit muddled. His camp is claiming the victory was larger than it appeared because Santorum deliberately sought mischief-making Democratic crossover votes, trying to “hijack” the primary. According to exit polls, Santorum did indeed win by a 53-18 margin among the 9% of primary participants self-identifying as Democrats, and also uncharacteristically ran well, just a few points behind Romney, among voters calling themselves “moderates or liberals.”
Santorum is, of course, claiming his strength among Democrats and independents is proof of his superior appeal to blue-collar workers, and an example of why he is typically running ahead of Romney in general-election trial heats in “Rust Belt” states. There’s no way to definitively resolve this argument without the administration of sodium pentathol to Michigan voters. It is worth noting that the next big “Rust Belt” test, in Ohio, is often described as a closed primary, but actually involves a system where registered indies may vote in either party’s primaries, and voters can easily change party affiliation at the polls.
One much-discussed aspect of the MI results requires a bit of explanation. There was a lot of talk on primary night that Rick Santorum had “lost” the Catholic vote in the state by expressing strong disagreement with John F. Kennedy’s famous 1960 statement on church-state relations. An examination of earlier contests with exit polling, however, pretty clearly establishes that the Catholic vote was never Santorum’s to lose; his actual electoral base has been conservative evangelical Protestants (and more generally, voters identifying as “very conservative” or especially opposed to legalized abortion) all along.
There’s a caucus-with-straw-poll event in Washington State on Saturday, March 3, in which Santorum, Romney and Paul are all competing aggressively; a Feb. 21 PPP survey showed Santorum with a comfortable if not overwhelming lead. That evening, we have just learned, three of the remaining candidates (Ron Paul has decided to spend the entire day campaigning in Washington State) will appear in a “forum” on Mike Huckabee’s Fox News show, which will be broadcast from Ohio.
The “Super Tuesday” events include primaries in: Ohio, of course, which could get the lion’s share of attention; Romney’s home state of Massachusetts and nearby Vermont, both of which he is expected to win easily; Virginia, where only Romney and Paul are on the ballot; Gingrich’s home state of Georgia, which along with other Dixie-flavored primaries in Tennessee and Oklahoma is where he is placing his emphasis. There will also be low-attendance caucuses in North Dakota, Idaho and Alaska, where Ron Paul is expected to concentrate his resources (in addition to Virginia).
There are two ways to look at the Super Tuesday dynamics: Romney is the only candidate with significant strength in all these contests, and will definitely come away with a plurality of delegates. But on the other hand, if he loses to Santorum in Ohio, Gingrich or Santorum in Oklahoma, Gingrich in Georgia and Tennessee, and Paul in Virginia or the caucus states, it could be perceived as a real fiasco for his candidacy.
Romney might have hoped that his rivals would tear each other apart in the continuing competition for the “non-Romney vote” of hard-core conservatives. But aside from the likelihood of geographical specialization by these candidates, they aren’t holding their fire against Romney to go after each other. Newt Gingrich’s Super-PAC, with a fresh infusion of money from casino mogul Sheldon Adelson, is beginning to run a new round of ads in southern states almost entirely focused on attacking Romney. Santorum is totally focused on fighting Mitt. And even Ron Paul, who has often been accused of an implicit alliance with Romney, is beginning to include him alongside Santorum and Gingrich as targets in attack ads.
With the GOP contest still up in the air, the Obama campaign has remained upbeat and engaged (viz. the President’s fiery speech to a UAW convention yesterday). Most observers figure he is only being helped by the GOP slugfest, and that has been the clear trend in the polls, with one rather startling exception: a new Gallup-USA Today survey focused on 12 battleground states that shows Obama in trouble in most of them and actually trailing both Romney and Santorum nationally. While that may be an outlier, there’s a broader concern that sharply higher gas prices are undermining the earlier perception of an improving economy. The next set of “jobs numbers” for February will be watched closely.
In down-ballot news of national significance, Maine Sen. Olympia Snowe surprised virtually everyone by announcing she would not, after all, seek re-election in 2012, citing her concerns about partisan polarization in Washington. This is being widely viewed as a major blow to Republican prospects for a Senate takeover in November. But it’s also being viewed as a possible opening for a Snowe bid (or draft) for the presidency on the Americans Elect ballot line. Yes, this election year really is turning into a big game of three-dimensional chess.
Photo credit: Dave Lawrence
