National polls do not seem useful except to sway potential primary voters. The nomination is a primary battle. Influencing primary voters is different than influencing the public and general elections.
The Republican party is split so I am not optimistic about electing any candidate. I think that Rudy will be nominee but he will split the party. FDT can unify the party and win in November but I doubt that he will be nominated. He does not seem to have the local organization to win key primaries. Perhaps he also lacks money.
“National polls do not seem useful except to sway potential primary voters. The nomination is a primary battle. Influencing primary voters is different than influencing the public and general elections.”
This is correct.
The polls that matter are the polls that operate state-by-state since that is how the election will occur.
In those polls, Mitt Romney is leading by various margins in IA, NH, MI, and is close in SC, NV, and elsewhere.
Rudy and Thompson enjoy higher name ID than Romney, so even though they are ahead in national polls, the Romney campaign can look to this and see some good news in that with upside as he gets better known, he can reach Rudy’s levels at national level, just as he is ahead of Rudy in key early states. Also, shows that Romney’s pulling away from Huckabee and McCain at national level.
“FDT can unify the party and win in November but I doubt that he will be nominated. He does not seem to have the local organization to win key primaries.”
Correct.
” Perhaps he also lacks money.”
He has some money, but his bigger issue is that he is late and slow to get things together and organize his campaign. Lower levels of organization, fewer endorsements, and less campaign infrastructure makes it harder to win.
Fred probably will need to focus on key winnable states like SC and not even bother with IA, since that is now a mere 8 weeks away.