PPP Poll Minnesota (tweet) Santorum 33, Romney 24, Gingrich 22, Paul 20

Public Policy Polling ^ | 2/6/12 | staff

[TexasFreeper2009]

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Minnesota is Santorum 33, Romney 24, Gingrich 22, Paul 20. 35% still say they could change their minds though...

[cookcounty]

The Mormon/Vegas thing has always struck me as very odd. Then again if you’re a serious Baptist living in Las Vegas, I would imagine there are plenty of contradictions to struggle through as well.

All I know is that it is DEFINITELY the LAST town in America I would want to live in.

[RasterMaster]

Agreed, 100%.

[cookcounty]

"For me, it was 90% with Santorum"

Me too, but I won't caucus for him tonight. He's not a great communicator, and I would rather support a good communicator I agree with 80% of the time than a candidate whose heart is pure and a great guy but can't find his words. Rick is effective with the right BECAUSE OF HIS POSITIONS....but that won't be sufficient in the general election.

[Personal Responsibility]

Isn’t there a rule about noo winner take all states before a certain date? (March? April?)

[pgkdan]

Deserves to be repeated!

I’m probably gonna get flamed for this, but God willing Santorum surges more and more, so we don’t have to hold our noses and vote for someone who will just bring more of the same big establishment, big government, big spending crap.

[JediJones]

I would send her info to Mike Gallagher at mikeonline.com. He’s been willing to discuss Romney’s Mormonism for a long time and I think he claimed Romney won’t come on his show anymore because he brought it up. Mike’s one of the most Newt-friendly or non-Romney friendly conservative radio hosts there is.

[katiedidit1]

Minn is a winner take NO delegates. MO is a winner take NO delegates and Colorado is a winner take NO delegates. MO won’t decide until March. Very LOW turnout at the poll in my area. I am going to vote for Paul since Newt is not on the ballot because I can’t stand Santorum. I know freepers that are only voting for Santorum in Missouri to send a message to Romney but are crossing over to Newt in March.

[JediJones]

Santorum is either the same or worse than Gingrich on big government/big spending. There’s no reason you shouldn’t trust Gingrich as much as Santorum. He fulfilled everything in the Contract with America. Despite all the negative attacks, I’ve not once seen Gingrich accused of breaking a campaign promise, and he was in Congress for 2 decades.

[JediJones]

You guys need to read this thread about what Ron Paul supporters are doing. They are becoming delegates no matter who wins their caucuses. So they’re saying even though Ron Paul may have got 10% of the vote, they’ve signed up to be 60% of the delegates. That means that if there’s a brokered convention, they can vote for whoever they want to and that will be Ron Paul.

Newt and Rick people need to stay after the caucuses and sign up to be delegates (which means traveling to the state convention, and hopefully being picked to travel to the national convention). That’s the only way to ensure Newt or Rick get the vote in a brokered convention. The buzz seems to be that Ron Paul and Mitt’s people are nearly the only ones becoming delegates.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2843327/posts

[Utah Binger]

I cannot stand Las Vegas. And never go south out of Vegas on a Sunday night. Pissed off gamblers speeding out of town.

When I lived there I was driving a gravel truck for a construction company. We would start the day at 4:00am to avoid the heat of the day.

We have to go to Vegas for air travel. Great rates from there to almost anywhere.

[Lucky9teen]

While I agree, he has done alot in terms of the helping economy during Reagan and Clinton years, I think one of the things I have a hard time with is the whole snuggling on the couch with Pelosi/Climate Change thing.

But I do love how he isn’t PC and It would be quite entertaining seeing him take it to Obama the way he has the ENEMYdia.

[JerseyanExile]

Probably someone who is not particularly controversial and who is considered acceptable to a majority of the party. Someone who hasn’t made lots of political enemies on the national stage. So people like Palin are out right away.

[fwdude]

What’s “sanctimonious” about wanting to stop the killing of babies and having proper, rational disgust for homosexuality?

[Vigilanteman]

Polls on caucuses (as opposed to primary or general elections) are notoriously difficult because you are polling a subset of a subset.

Comparing 2008 turnouts is a fairly good idea since the base year is one of the few in recent history where both parties start out without an incumbent president or vice president as the perceived front runner. You have to go back to 1952 to get a comparable situation.

Good laboratory states to pick for comparison are New Hampshire, Iowa and Minnesota. Not only because they are early in the process when the interest is the highest and the field completely winnowed down, but also because they are very high voter turnout states.

Here are the statistics from 2008:

Iowa:
Republican Caucus participants 118,696
Democrat Caucus participants 13,485
General Election voters 1,537,123
Caucus participants as percent of General Election voters 8.6%

New Hampshire:
Republican Primary voters 239,793
Democrat Primary voters 287,556
General Elections voters 710,970
Primary voters as percent of General Election voters 74.17%

Minnesota:
Republican Caucus participants 62,828
Democrat Caucus participants 214,066
General Election voters 2,910,369
Caucus participants as percent of General Election voters 4.51%

You can run this type of math on any of the other states, but a few general rules hold sway:

1. Primary voting or caucus participation is largely a function of general election participation of registered voters.
   
2. Caucus participation, even in the most ideal conditions, seldom will reach even 10% of those voting in a General Election. As the process continues, the participation rate drops even in high voter participation states.
   
3. Same trend for primary states. In ideal situations (e.g. the publicity whores in New Hampshire), participation rates in the primary may approach the same high level of participation with respect to general election voters as do general election voters with respect to total registered voters. But the overall trend is still downward as the nominating process moves on.

Just to verify, look at the latest labatory ideal primary state in 2008 (also a high turn-out state).

South Dakota:
Republican Primary voters 60,964
Democrat Primary voters 97,797
General Elections voters 381,975
Primary voters as percent of General Election voters 41.56%

Bottom line is that while Primary polls tend toward accuracy because you have a large participation rate, Caucus polls can be all over the place because even in a high turnout state like Minnesota, you have less than 1 in 20 voters who ends up participating in the general election actually turning out to caucus.

[hoosiermama]

THANKS. Have added the link to the rule to the t-shirt page.

----------------------------------------

After NV
Delegate tally approximately
Romney 51 Newt 45
when FL vote divided per RNC rules!

Pass the word!

CLICK TO DONATE TO NEWT

CONTACT FOR RNC:
website@nrcc.org

310 First Street
Washington DC 20003

Encourage them to do the RIGHT thing: end the FL fiasco NOW!
Follow RULE 15:B:2

[wallcrawlr]

I just don’t see any destruction happening.

Whoever wins at the caucus level I sure hope can put their shoulder back in the socket from patting themselves on the back, it’s no big deal.

This state will go for Obama in November.

Minnesotans need to focus no winning at the local level and take this state back.

[katiedidit1]

No way will I get behind Santorum. He voted to fund the National Endowment for the Arts and to increase funding for them; he opposes privatization of Soc Sec and allowing younger workers to invest a portion of their OWN money towards retirement; he supports the min wage and govt regulation of wages; he was named PORKER of the month by Citizens Against Govt Waste which is a bipartisan taxpayers watchdog group. He is an earmark king and his irresponsibility in DC played a role in getting this country into the mess it is in today..along with his endorsement of Spector who caste the 60th vote to pass Obamacare. NO SANTORUM! GO NEWT!

[HamiltonJay]

Odd, Santorum is going to win the most liberal state in the midwest....

[katiedidit1]

LOL! well, Minn. voted for Jessie “the body” Ventura and home of the Mondales. A rather strange group of “conservatives” behind Little Ricky. Also, I can’t remember his name but there was a funeral in Minn for a prominent democrat that passed away and it was turned into a 3 ring circus and campaign for dems. I think it was when Bush ran against Kerry.

[TheOldLady]

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