The Candidates
SurveyUSA California GOP Primary
- John McCain 39%
- Mitt Romney 36%
- Mike Huckabee 9%
- Ron Paul 7%
517 had already voted or were determined by SurveyUSA to be likely to vote at the precinct on 02/05/08. Among those who have already voted, McCain leads by 5. Among Conservatives, Romney now leads by 10. Among Moderates, McCain leads by 16. Romney has tied McCain among men. McCain leads among women, as he has for all of January. McCain leads by 21 in greater San Francisco. Romney leads by 6 in the Inland Empire. The two are effectively tied in Greater Los Angeles and in the Central Valley.
February 4th, 2008 at 4:08 pm
As evidence that I hate both McCain and Romney equally (for entirely different sorts of reasons) my state, CA, is approaching a tie, yet I will still vote for Rudy Giuliani tomorrow.
I suspect I will be more proud of that vote during the rest of my lifetime, then any other I may cast.
February 4th, 2008 at 4:10 pm
Go Rudy!
February 4th, 2008 at 4:12 pm
Metro sticks to his position to the end. Such loyalty is commendable.
February 4th, 2008 at 4:17 pm
Last Survey USA had McCain up by 12%. Romney has gained 11% in about 4 days.
http://www.surveyusa.com/client/PollReport.aspx?g=bf0e709e-c744-426f-ae48-9943cb1ed383
Definite movement for MITT!!
February 4th, 2008 at 4:19 pm
Metro,
You were making such progress in your rom-bot re-education program. What about all your talk favoring Romney so as to get your brokered convention? What happened?
February 4th, 2008 at 4:20 pm
Anyone else think that McCain’s huge lead in the Bay area and (presumably) in hispanic/military base congressional district will send him to big wins in those districts but narrow losses nearly EVERYWHERE else?
It could be pretty close in the total vote, but ROmney could definitely win more delegates out of this.
February 4th, 2008 at 4:25 pm
Jeff,
I think the opposite is true. McCain will win liberal districts by a lot and rack up delegates there even if Romney wins the popular vote.
February 4th, 2008 at 4:28 pm
With most of the dels being distributed by CD, it seems that neither side will win a decisive victory. One other wild-card is that since in terms of the popular vote, it will likely be so narrow that the vast majority of viewers in the East (and their morning newspapers) are going to be asleep prior to any call by the networks of the statewide winner.
McCain has an advantage b/c of the fact that the winner-take-all mid-Atlantic states, where he has a wide lead, will obviously not only be reported but will likely be called very early in the evening. The same will be true of Illinois, which is not winner-take-all but where he has a comfortable lead. Mitt will win in Mass and Colorado. Missouri and the South are the toss-ups
February 4th, 2008 at 4:29 pm
Adam,
Winning any district by “a lot” is wasted votes in a winner-take-all by congressional district race. If you have a limited number of votes statewide, you’d like to lose a few places BIG and win by narrow margins everywhere else.
Or are you arguing that Mitt’s actually gonna win big in a few districts and McCain will win narrowing in more?
Confused with your thinking . . .
February 4th, 2008 at 4:32 pm
murphy, as soon as the Rombots starting talking about Mitt in 2012. I want him humiliated so badly he never THINKS about running again.
February 4th, 2008 at 4:33 pm
Besides, even if I were rooting for one side or the other in this race, I would still vote for Rudy for personal reasons, such as the pride I will take in it for the rest of my life.
February 4th, 2008 at 4:36 pm
Metro,
I’ll pay you $50 Bucks to vote for McCain tommorow, would you do it??
February 4th, 2008 at 4:38 pm
Jeff,
Here is what I think. You have 34 blue districts in California and something like 19 Red districts. Not a lot of Republicans live in those blue districts but in terms of delegates each district (whether red or blue or whether it has 1000 Republicans or 20,000) gets three delegates. Romney may well clean up in red districts. I’m not sure he will but lets say he does. Say Romney wins most of the red districts. He gets three delegates from each red district he wins.
That leaves the blue districts. A lot of these districts are very left-leaning and even if only 100 Republicans cast their vote in these liberal districts, it counts just as much as say…Orange County. So now let’s think about the composition of these blue districts. Lots of minorities. Lots of Hispanics. Romney does very poorly among Hispanics and we can look at the FL results to prove this. I think that in these blue districts, McCain has a big opportunity to rack up win after win because the Latinos aren’t going to vote for Mitt, especially not now because of his immigration stance. So I can see a situation where lots of conservative Republicans in red districts vote for Mitt, but they can’t for just as much as the liberal voters in blue districts.
Maybe I’m wrong. We’ll see. But do you get where I am coming from?
February 4th, 2008 at 4:38 pm
Sorry that last line should have read “but they count for just as much as the liberal voters in blue districts”
February 4th, 2008 at 4:39 pm
I’ll take it. (I am in Florida though).
February 4th, 2008 at 4:40 pm
Billy,
I’ll take it too, if you are giving out money.
February 4th, 2008 at 4:41 pm
I think Romney will take California from both a popular vote and a delgate count, but the difference will npt be meaningful. I could see Romney getting 90 delegates and McCain getting 80. Romney really needs to make something happen in Missouri, a winner-take-all state that is up for grabs right now. Potential victories in Georgia and Missouri would make Romney viable in the rest of the South.
February 4th, 2008 at 4:45 pm
Greg,
Are you from Iowa?
February 4th, 2008 at 4:47 pm
Greg,
I’m with you. I think it’s going to be close to a wash. Which means that Mitt needs to find somewhere else to make up delegates he’s going to lose to McCain in the South and Northeast. I don’t know where he’s going to find them.
February 4th, 2008 at 4:47 pm
Greg,
I agree with that but here in Missouri, all signs point to a McCain win, and that would be big for McCain, especially since Georgia is proportioned out delegates and all three of Romney,McCain,and Huck. So it doesnt look to good for Romney
February 4th, 2008 at 4:50 pm
Yea i think that McCain will win Missouri, GA,TN,and AL. If that happens, along witht the other states that mccain will win, wont it make it nearly impossible for Romney? Even if he wins Cali by 5 points and gets a little more del’s?
February 4th, 2008 at 5:06 pm
Billy,
Probably - but Romney is stubborn. If he ekes out a win in CA he is going to try to claim he has this great mandate to continue, even though he was soundly rejected in the most highly contested primaries and caucuses in IA, NH, SC and FL.
February 4th, 2008 at 5:13 pm
Adam: “[Romney] was soundly rejected in the most highly contested primaries and caucuses in IA, NH, SC and FL”
McCain was more rejected in Iowa than Romney. Huckabee was more rejected in NH and FL than Romney was.
February 4th, 2008 at 5:14 pm
Adam, I might add that Huck is the stubborn one. What mandate does he have to continue, and under what scenario could he win?
February 4th, 2008 at 5:19 pm
Emtee,
Romney was “all in” in IA. McCain wasn’t - and everyone knew it. Also, Huck isn’t playing for president anymore. He’s trying to deny this to Romney in hopes of McCain returning a favor.
February 4th, 2008 at 5:21 pm
Adam, you’re using the same logic that lost Giuliani the nomination. He wasn’t “all in” because he simply wasn’t competitive. McCain would have been “all in” if he thought he could win, but since he couldn’t, he just wrote it off, just like he wrote off Nevada.
February 4th, 2008 at 5:22 pm
Adam, you also forget that Michigan was a highly contested primary.
February 4th, 2008 at 5:25 pm
“McCain would have been “all in†if he thought he could win, but since he couldn’t, he just wrote it off, just like he wrote off Nevada.”
You mean like Romney wussing out at the last minute in SC?
“Adam, you also forget that Michigan was a highly contested primary”
Indeed it was. 1 of 5.
February 4th, 2008 at 5:27 pm
Romney tried to be competitive in S.C. but wasn’t. Of course, there was one moderate running and at least three others splitting the conservative vote (Thompson, Huck, Romney).
February 4th, 2008 at 6:00 pm
It will be hard for Romney to plausibly justify a continued campaign IF (note that I capitalized “IF”) things play out tomorrow as they look likely to. Unless he ends up well over 400 (I currently have him at 377) he would need 800 or so more delegates with less than 1000 to go. In short, he’d have to run the table, and that isn’t going to happen.
At that point, staying in benefits only the Democrats — he’d be serving as Hillary’s stalking horse. If he were to do that, he’d be totally finished in politics, and I have no doubt he’s a lot smarter (and classier) guy than that.
February 4th, 2008 at 6:11 pm
#30 After tomorrow we can say the same to Huck as well, although he said he was going to be in it for long haul becuase the issues were personal to him. We’ll see.