Tag Archives: Iowa

News

Perry and Bachmann to reassess their campaigns after disappointing loss in Iowa

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Here are the Iowa election results from Fox News as of 2 AM on Wednesday morning:

Candidate Votes Percent
Santorum 29,968 25%
Romney 29,964 25%
Paul 26,186 22%
Gingrich 16,241 14%
Perry 12,592 11%
Bachmann 6,070 5%
Huntsman 744 <1%

And now the good news for Rick Santorum: Rick Perry and Michele Bachmann are both reassessing their campaigns.

Fox News:

Michele Bachmann said she’s soldiering on, giving no indication that she would bail on her Republican presidential campaign after a last-place showing in the contested Iowa caucuses, while Rick Perry, who finished just ahead of her in fifth, said he’s going back to Texas to “determine whether there is a path forward.”

“I believe I am the best conservative who can and who will beat Barack Obama in 2012,” Bachmann told supporters late Tuesday night following projections that she would be last in the six-way contest. Jon Huntsman decided not to compete in Iowa.

“In 2012, there could be another president in the White House. Who knows? There could be another Michele in the White House,” Bachmann said, referencing her shared name with first lady Michelle Obama.

Despite her pledges to go on, Bachmann campaign manager Keith Nahigian told The Associated Press that he couldn’t say with certainty whether Bachmann would go forward with her candidacy.

“I don’t know yet,” he said. “It’s hard to tell, but everything is planned.”

Asked about the report, Bachmann Communications Director Alice Stewart told Fox News that the AP story said it’s “uncertain.” “That’s true,” she said.

Bachmann’s 6 percent showing was a sharp turn after finishing in first place during the Ames, Iowa, GOP straw poll over the summer.

Perry, who doubled Bachmann’s raw vote total but earned only 11 percent overall, said he’s reassessing what he will do. He’s making that decision in light of the first-in-the-nation vote, but not before the Texas governor announced his campaign was making an ad buy in South Carolina, the third state to vote.

Perry has described the GOP presidential race as a marathon, but after spending the most of any campaign on Iowa advertising, his poor showing in Iowa won’t lend any momentum as the candidates go to New Hampshire, the first primary state of the election season, where Perry places last in polling.

The latest results are actually worse for Bachmann – 5%, not 6%. I think she should get out now and endorse Rick Santorum.

What’s interesting is that Mitt Romney had to spend a heck of a lot more money than Rick Santorum did in order to get the same 25% of the vote. What does that tell you about Mitt Romney as a candidate?

UPDATE: Bachmann is out, Perry is still in.

News

PPP poll of 1340 likely Iowa voters: Paul 20, Romney 19, Santorum 18

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From Democrat pollster PPP.

Excerpt:

Ron Paul is at 20%, Mitt Romney at 19%, and Rick Santorum at 18%. Rounding out the field are Newt Gingrich at 14%, Rick Perry at 10%, Michele Bachmann at 8%, Jon Huntsman at 4%, and Buddy Roemer at 2%.

The momentum in the race is completely on Santorum’s side. He’s moved up 8 points since a PPP poll earlier in the week, while no one else has seen more than a one point gain in their support. Among voters who say they decided who to vote for in the last seven days he leads Romney 29-17 with Paul and Gingrich both at 13.

Santorum’s net favorability of 60/30 makes him easily the most popular candidate in the field. No one else’s favorability exceeds 52%.  He may also have more room to grow in the final 48 hours of the campaign than the other front runners: 14% of voters say he’s their second choice to 11% for Romney and only 8% for Paul. Santorum’s taken the lead with two key groups of Republican voters: with Tea Partiers he’s at 23% to 18% for Gingrich, 16% for Paul, 15% for Bachmann, and only 12% for Romney.  And with Evangelicals he’s at 24% to 16% for Gingrich, and 15% for Paul and Romney.

Other than Santorum’s rise the other big story of this week is Paul’s fall.  He was at 24% earlier in the week but has dropped to 20%. That decline in support coincides with a precipitous drop in his favorability numbers. On our last poll he was at +13 (53/40), but that’s gone down 21 points on the margin to -8 (43/51).

Robert Stacy McCain writes that Santorum has a decent ground game in New Hampshire.

If you missed my endorsement of Santorum, click here.

News

Rick Santorum surges past 20% support level in latest Iowa poll

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From Real Clear Politics:

Mitt Romney leads the Republican field in the Des Moines Register’s final pre-Iowa caucuses poll released Saturday night.

The Register’s highly anticipated survey, which was accurate in predicting both the Democratic and Republican caucus winners in 2008, shows Romney holding the support of 24 percent of respondents. Ron Paul is in second place at 22 percent, while Rick Santorum has ascended into third with 15 percent.

However, Santorum appears to have all of the late momentum on his side, having surged significantly in the final two days of the four-day polling period. If considered separately, he is at 21 percent in that period, while Romney remained atop the pack at 24 percent during the second half of the poll’s sample.

A whopping 41 percent of likely Republican caucus-goers said they are open to changing their minds.

[…]Perhaps the last significant wild card before Tuesday is the potential endorsement of Iowa Rep. Steve King, who told RealClearPolitics in an interview just hours before the Register’s poll was released that there was about a 50/50 chance he would get behind a candidate at the last minute.

“With big decisions, at some point your intellect is overcome by your instincts — at least mine is,” King said. “If I make a bold decision in the next few days, it will be one of conviction, and I will be eager to advocate for that position and defend it against all critics, if I happen to have any, and I’m sure I will.”

The endorsement of King, perhaps Iowa’s most influential conservative voice, has for months been heavily sought by the Republican candidates.

Until recently, the five-term congressman has hinted that he was unlikely to back anyone publicly, but he suggested to RCP on Saturday that he may change his mind given the recent polling gains by Ron Paul, whose foreign policy King said is “so alarming to me.”

Just before the Register poll was released, King gave his sense of where the Iowa horse race stands.

“If I had to pick them, I’d say this: Romney, Santorum, Paul, in that order — then I think likely Gingrich,” he said. “I do think Romney’s strong enough to win here in Iowa, and I do think Paul’s support is drifting away from him — people are coming to grips with what that would really mean. And the third component of this is the ascendancy of Rick Santorum. Is his ascendancy a sharp enough incline to catch up with Ron Paul and Mitt Romney?”

King said that the final poll conducted by Iowa’s largest newspaper “would be a factor” in his decision, since he wanted to get behind someone who had discernible momentum.

In 2008, King endorsed Fred Thompson, whose campaign quickly fizzled after he finished third in the Hawkeye State.

I was for Fred Thompson in 2008. If I were Steve King, I would be endorsing Rick Santorum now. So, I am predicting an endorsement of Rick Santorum by Steve King today, and a second-place finish for Rick Santorum on Tuesday in the Iowa caucuses. Santorum is the most conservative of the top 3 candidates. Gingrich is also a conservative, but he is not in the top 3 in Iowa.