Mitt Romney is headed for an overwhelming victory in Arizona's primary on Tuesday. He's at 43% to 26% for Rick Santorum, 18% for Newt Gingrich, and 11% for Ron Paul.
You can make a fair argument that Romney's already won the Arizona primary. Almost half of those planning to vote have already cast their ballots, and Romney has a 48-25 advantage over Santorum with those folks. That lead makes it nearly impossible for Santorum to make up the difference on election day, and Romney has a 39-27 advantage with those planning to vote on Tuesday anyway.
Romney's winning basically winning every voter group in Arizona, even those he's tended to do quite poorly with. He leads Santorum 39-33 with Evangelicals, 39-23 with Tea Party voters (Santorum's in 3rd, Gingrich is actually 2nd at 30%), and 37-29 with those describing themselves as 'very conservative.' We project the Mormon vote at 14%. Romney leads 77-9 with them, but he has a 38-29 advantage with non-Mormons as well. Seniors are a key base of support for him in Arizona as they are everywhere. He leads 53-22 with them.
Santorum's image has taken a big hit over the last week in the state. His net favorability has dropped 15 points from +34 (61/27) to just +19 (54/35). The debate Wednesday night may have damaged his cause. 51% of likely voters report having watched it and he's actually in 3rd place with those folks at 21%, behind Romney's 43% and Gingrich's 23%.
It's worth noting that Romney's improved his image in the closing stretch in Arizona- it's not just bringing down Santorum that's put him in position for this big win. Romney's net favorability is now +31 at 62/31, up from +24 at 58/34 a week ago.
We had been planning to do a 2 night Arizona tracking poll but with the numbers this lopsided we're not going to bother, so this will be our final word on the race there.
Full results here
Looks like Romney is going to be wrapping this thing up over the next couple of weeks... but considering the lackluster competition it's hard to see it as anything but victory by default. He hasn't had to face a single reasonable alternative yet. There is not another Republican in the race who ever had any serious chance of becoming President. (Sure someone like Santorum may do well in your general election polling when people don't know anything about him... but that's just "generic Republican" voting... when they hear about all of the absolutely crazy things he believes - he has no chance. Zero. It's completely ridiculous to imagine Santorum in the White House.)
And despite the monumental weakness of the GOP field Romney has had an extremely hard time winning this thing. And really he hasn't won... it's just that everyone else in this race has been a loser.
He won't be so lucky this fall. He's going to be going up against the President of the United States not some whacko like Rick Santorum.
Should be fun.
Posted by: Obama 2012 | February 27, 2012 at 01:26 AM