Posted on 03/09/2012 3:25:34 PM PST by Red Steel
UPDATED 1:58 p.m. ET
(CBS News) Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich is leading Mitt Romney in the latest poll of likely Republican primary voters in Mississippi, where voters head to the polls Tuesday to choose the candidate they want to take on President Obama in November.
Gingrich garnered 35 percent support in Mississippi, compared to Romney's 31 percent in a poll released Friday by American Research Group, Inc. Former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum took 20 percent while Texas Rep. Ron Paul received just 7 percent.
Gingrich, who won his home state of Georgia three days ago, has said Mississippi and Alabama are must wins for his campaign, which is floundering behind front-runner Romney and Santorum.
Santorum defeated Gingrich in Tennessee on Super Tuesday, which Gingrich had also hoped to win to jumpstart his candidacy which had not had a win since late January when he won the South Carolina primary.
The Gingrich campaign said it was spending slightly more than $200,000 combined in Mississippi and Alabama on television ads to build support ahead of Tuesday's contests.
Among men, Gingrich has nearly double the support of either Romney or Santorum, according to the poll. Gingrich took 39 percent of men compared to 21 percent each for Santorum and Romney. Among women, Romney leads Gingrich 42 percent to 30 percent, followed by Santorum's 19 percent and Paul's 2 percent.
Among those who identify with the conservative Tea Party wing of the party, Gingrich took 49 percent, more than twice Romney's 24 percent support. Santorum took 17 percent of the tea partiers and Paul just 5 percent.
The telephone poll of 600 likely Republican primary voters living in Mississippi was conducted March 7 through March 8 and has a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points.
Rick pulls in only 19%. So what's up with that?
Look at the Tea Party split.
49-17.
Ouch.
A Ricky ouch is right.
And the Rasmussen Poll I read about here a couple hours ago showed Romney way ahead.
Rick will not appeal to Southern rough necks...neither will Mitt!
Rick’s on the ropes!
This poll makes more sense to me than Rasmussen's. I am not, however, ready to throw Rasmussen from the train. He's generally pretty good.
I just a clip on CBS news where he says "many of these delegates aren't committed. They can go anywhere"
No Ricky. Many of YOUR delegates aren't committed and can't wait to get away from you.
Our country will be lost/either one of those up against the
Obama Intl regime is NOT a Good plan.
Newt is advancing into the first leg of his Southern Strategy - MS and Alabama. This may be the most critical time since the campaign started. He MUST win both of these states to continue on successfully. Please, this weekend, and through Monday, try to make as many calls as you can into both of those states.
I was on the ground in SC, on the phones, and door to door. There were almost 10,000 calls made in SC the last 2 weeks... and the last 2 or 3 days, you could feel the momentum changing on the phones... Earlier, it was maybe 2 Newts out of 10, and by the day before the vote, it was 8 out of 10 for Newt. You could feel the change, and it happened very quickly in the final 72 hours. Newt went out of his way to salute the phone call and grassroots efforts in SC... please... please... there is still time to call for Newt, and get involved for Newt...
From Newt 2012: friday
Field and Phone Leaders, CALLING ALL HANDS ON DECK!!
Our national phone team has successfully called through the original 18,000 volunteer sign-ups. This has resulted in a refined list of volunteer prospects for all 50 states. In 3 weeks our national call team has increased by 300%, or 50 new people per week.
Our increased call capacity will help us now begin to make calls into “Super Tuesday” states or those close by that can assist and or deploy to active states.
... YOU CAN NOW CHOOSE THE STATE THAT YOU WOULD LIKE TO CALL
http://newtsnetwork.com/ (click Make the CAll in upper right hand corner)
NOTE: The list filters itself by time zones. It will not show you California at 10am Eastern Time because that is 7am Pacific Time and too early to call there. Once a state’s call list opens up the state name will be added to the dropdown list for you to call. (And in the reverse, Eastern Time Zones will be removed from the list as the night wears on.)
This new reality will enable us to be highly flexible in how we operate and target prospects for GOTV and or volunteer recruitment.
Please disseminate this information to your call teams and volunteer lists.
Thank you
Either Newt or Romney has 35% with the other 4 or 6 points behind.
Santorum has either 20% or 27%.
Even if he's going to win, Newt should still drop out before Tuesday. /s
Santorum supporters can try to reconcile the polls by guessing Santorum and Romney were surging and Newt was falling on the 8th. He could get a bounce from his expected win in KS tomorrow.
“Rick pulls in only 19%. So what’s up with that?”
His style and manner are ‘not from around here’, he comes across as cold and aloof. He is Big Washington. He has a tough row to hoe in the South, just as Perry did in Iowa. That said, he has the most visible support in my immediate area, and his ads are really ramping up and going toe to toe with Bishop Willard’s. The (radio) ad war just got started in earnest this afternoon. I think Willard’s numbers are lower, and Santorum’s numbers are higher than this poll sets forth.
“Rick will not appeal to Southern rough necks...neither will Mitt!”
Agreed. I am seeing increasing visible support for Santorum however, and nothing for Bishop Willard. That does not mean it is not there, just that Bishop Willard supporters are ashamed. There is more visible support for Obama than for all the Republican candidates combined, but it is still far less than the support shown for ‘W’ several years ago. That only faded with the lunacies of ‘07.
He’s melting. Little Ricky is M-E-L-T-I-N-G.
Those folks love the fact that Newt is one of them, thank goodness some folks in the county have some sense.
The south don't hanker to fast talkers, trying to pull the wool over their eyes.
Two very smart Freepers, VinL and RitaOK, posted these two posts last night on a different thread, and I think they sum up exactly where things are right now. And during that thread Newt was on Greta, and said the three conservatives had to “short” Romney at the convention… that’s the path to victory.
VinL:
Newt can’t beat Romney one on one- neither can Rick. Romney has too much money and institutional power.
Rick and Newt only have a chance. They they stay in, and don’t campaign against each other. Instead, each attacks Romney and the Gop-e for having “fixed” this GOP primary- and they threaten to bolt the party.
The battle is grassroots against the establishment— and Rick and Newt have to make that argument together.
RitaOK:
” Newt can’t beat Romney one on one- neither can Rick. Romney has too much money and institutional power. “ ——
Vin, I’m glad you lay the truth out there. It is a fact.
I have known this also for weeks, but clung to hope, which led to prayer, and that somehow this cycle was so very different that the truly daunting events and the present facts could be reversed, that Republican voters would wake up and see the machine fix in place.
What is left is to pray that ALL three candidates can mess with Romney long enough to GET US TO CONVENTION, so that we will have earned a hearing of our complaints there, a seat at the table, and be in a position to offer up the delegate war as our bono fidis!
THE DELEGATES, OF ALL THREE, ARE OUR FINAL AND ONLY WEAPON
TO HAVE A VOICE OF OPPOSITION TO THE RINOS OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY.
Alone, none of these candidates against Romney have a prayer, and We The People, the instance one drops out, are silenced and dismissed, left with nothing but theater.
The Establishment is in no real panic and that is quite telling, but for Barbara Bush, of course. But the Establishment knows exactly how this ends because we have failed to unite in time to overwhelm.
Santorum will NEVER be the nominee, one on one.
Newt will NEVER be the nominee, one on one, maybe period.
Ron Paul will certainly NEVER be the nominee by any math.
IMHO, Rick and Newt are unlikely to allign because Rick is so naieve, but as you said, to have a prayer they MUST together get radical and present a united front against Romney at all costs, for us to have a prayer to change the party apparatus, agenda and defeatism of RINO leadership.
I am certain Newt knows this and has tried with smoke signals to confer with Santorum, but Rick is small picture and mostly for Rick, and runs on just enough grandiosity and battle drama to blind him to any need for unity. This is not a sign of wisdom.
We can not be demoralized but instead must push for a united front, and in a serious rebellion against the Establishment, rather than push for one to get out.
Now, the truth is out there.
RitaOK:
Just saw Newt on GRETA, and I am pretty sure he said the same thing we are discussing. I would have to catch it on a rewind, but he is definitly convention bound for a purpose, and it includes hoping to short Romney on delegates.
The odds for change rise or fall with holding delegates from Romney.
The man invented how to score big. He knows.
Just hope we don’t fail to get the message.
************
Greta Vid:
http://video.foxnews.com/v/1496616401001/newts-last-stand-in-the-south/?playlist_id=87485
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2856604/posts?q=1&;page=51
This is true.
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