Posted on 01/12/2008 8:15:09 AM PST by GOPGuide
The seven day campaign leading up to Michigans Republican Presidential Primary began with a toss-up between Mitt Romney and John McCain.
The latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey found Romney with 26% of the vote, McCain with 25%, and Mike Huckabee with 17%. The survey was conducted on Wednesday night, immediately following the New Hampshire Primary.
Those results reflect a substantial turnaround since the last Rasmussen Reports survey in the state. In early December, it was a three-way race with Huckabee, Romney, and Rudy Giuliani all within two points of each other. At that time, McCain was a distant fifth, attracting just 8% of the vote.
The current election poll finds that Giuliani has slipped from 19% support in early December to 6% today. In addition to the frontrunners, he now trails Fred Thompson who is the top choice for 9% of voters and Ron Paul who attracts 8%.
As was the case in both Iowa and New Hampshire, the race in Michigan is likely to be quite fluid during the final week of campaigning. Just 57% of Likely Republican Primary Voters are certain they will end up voting for their current favorite. Fifty-seven percent (57%) of McCain voters are certain they will vote for him along with 55% of Romney supporters. As for those who support Huckabee, just 41% are that certain.
McCain and Huckabee are leading in the South Carolina Primary which will be held just four days after Michigan votes.
In Michigan, Romney is viewed favorably by 71% of Likely Primary Voters. Sixty-nine percent (69%) have a favorable opinion of McCain. For Giuilani 64% offer a positive assessment, Huckabee gets good reviews from 59%, Thompson from 57%, and Paul from 33%.
McCain is seen as the most electable candidate. Seventy-two percent (72%) say he would be somewhat or very likely to win the White House if nominated. That figure includes 30% who consider McCain Very Likely to win if nominated.
Romney is close on the electability front67% think he would be at least somewhat likely to win including 25% who rate his prospects as Very Likely.
Electability used to be the strongest suit for Giuliani among Republican Primary voters. However, in Michigan, just 49% think he would be even Somewhat Likely to win if nominated.
Forty-six percent (46%) say Huckabee would be at least somewhat likely to win in November, 33% say the same about Thompson, and 17% believe Paul would have a chance.
Following a pattern seen in other places, Romney has a slight lead among Republican voters while McCain leads among Independents and others. If Independent voters make up a larger share of the Primary voters, that will help McCain and hurt Romneys prospects. The current survey estimates that 76% of the voters will be Republicans.
I can’t believe McCain is doing so well. He’s a good man but way way way too liberal and too cozy with enemy democrat combatants. No way he can be trusted; besides there’s that rumor about McCain and Huckabee making some secret agreement to hurt Romney which if true stinks.
Romney looks good for Michigan. Go, Mitt!!
You are all missing the point.
Anyother Canidate vrs Democrat Canidate and the Democrats have a chance of losing in the Gerneral Election. It might be a very small chance but it is a chance.
McCain vrs any Democrat and the Democrats win no matter who wins the General Election.
McCain is a Democrat in everything but name. In fact, he is a lot closer to your average Conservative Democrat, (and there are still a bunch of Conservative “Reagan” Demcorats) then he is to any Conservative Republican. So the best of all worlds for the Democrats would be McCain to win the election in Nov 2008.
Take note that this poll was done BEFORE the debate this past Thursday night. Things will change soon! GO FRED!
I cannot believe Michigan will go for McCain. McCain-Feingold alone is enough to choke any real conservative. And the list goes on . . . McCain is palsy walsy with so many liberal democrats, it is absolutely shocking. McCain cannot be trusted . . . even though he is war hero which no one can dispute. But that ain’t enough.
~”Rominey will NOT be the nominee!”~
Is that sentence perpetually in your clipboard? It must be, since I’ve now seen you misspell “Romney” the same way twice. I’ve never seen you defend your assertion, and I’d like to know what you think. Why do you think that Romney will not be the nominee?
“Rudy McRombee”
That pretty much says it all. Feh, indeed.
Probably, but some Dems will vote for Huck as a dirty trick and other Dems will vote for Huck as the candidate for End Times (big in Mich). Hard to poll.
The most liberal Governor in the history of the Republic, the enemy of the First Amendment, and Huey Long with an "R" by his name. Joy.
If Huckabee wins MI for those reasons, the polling will clearly bear it out, and MI will be invalidated completely in the public eye. If that’s the case, the damage to Romney would be minimal, and I think his campaign would survive credibly.
After all, it’d be a great line against Huckabee: He never loses the Democrats’ vote.
The same thing could be used against a McCain victory, but it would probably not be as effective.
The misspelling is purposeful so that it rhymes. It’s not a mistake.
I really don’t think that Romney will be the nominee.
Mitts always argued that by securing the border, enforcing the laws and removing the magnets that attract the illegals (free benefits, illegally obtained jobs, health care, sanctuary cities etc), they will remove themselves through attrition.
The key is that he supports securing the border once and for all and he rejects the Z visa which would give the illegals immediate and indefinite legal status.
Plus, Tom Tancredo thinks Romney's plan is acceptable. That's good enough for me and preferable to what McCain, Huck or the dems have in store.
Snort.
flouish=flourish
Romney was my preferred candidate at the beginning. He has run a very poor campaign so far, and is only now starting to be the “real” positive Mitt Romney.
If he had adopted that persona to begin with, instead of pandering to the right of Huckabee in Iowa, he could well be the leader now.
I am going to sit back and see how he does in Michigan. If he wins, great. If not, I don’t want to hear his excuses about why he lost.
He himself said, “If I can’t win in Michigan, where can I win?”
We NEEEEED Romney to Win Michigan to take the steam out of McCain’s sails.
Has it been a perfect campaign? Of course not. But nobody else has been savaged in the MSM like Mitt has been. And, to date, nobody else has had his record, or decades old statements, scrutinized in the same fashion. Being the early frontrunner with the biggest target on him, Mitt's had to wage a two-front battle against his opponents and the MSM. He's held up pretty well.
Also, we could argue that Iowa and NH were not true tests of his strength. In Iowa we saw an unprecedented number of first-time evangelical voters turn out and in NH we saw democrats and independents vote for McCain (it's unclear whether they actually support McCain or were just attempting to weaken Romney). In one of the most conservative states, Wyoming, Mitt won by a large margin.
Given the fact that it's an open primary in MI, I don't think MI is do or die for Mitt either. People are not stupid (well, not all of the people) and they can see what is going on with the cross-over voting.
The tough anti-illegal immigration sheriff from Arizona who is a Romney backer points out that Romney was the first governor to have his state police trained and certified by ICE to go after illegal aliens. Romney also insisted that there be English immersion, not bilingual education, for students in Massachusetts who cant speak English. I noticed that Massachusetts ranks in the top five states in educational achievement in a recent survey. And Romney is an executive whos had to meet payrolls and has created jobs and turned around failing companies. Hes also familiar with international business and the growing economic competition from China and India. These are all unique qualifications that no other Republican or Democrat can match, certainly not McCain or Huckabee.
Bears repeating. And is why I'm supporting him myself.
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