A poll done by the Institute for Policy and Opinion Research at Roanoke College earlier this week showed what was expected, with Romney having a slight lead over Obama. However, something very interesting showed up in the other results. That is, that Romney has people saying they will vote for him, however the actual support is just not there. First off, let's take a look at Obama's results as to excitment for the election:
As you can see, almost 50% of those who say they will vote for Obama, will support him in some other way, whether that be through donations, phone banking, or showing campaign memorabilia. What is amazing is that 117 people say that they plan on contributing money to his campaign. Which is outstanding. Now let's have a look at Romney's poll results:
This is almost equally as amazing as Obama's numbers, except in the opposite way. Almost 200 people say that they will not make a monetary donation to his campaign. Even more amazing is that 168 people will not even do something as simple as slapping a bumper sticker on their car. Of note, is that of this poll, 40% identified themselves as Conservative, while only 17% identify as Liberal.
Let's make up a formula, I'll call it the BASE SUPPORT FORMULA. To get the result, we will take each category from the poll (Donations, Volunteering, Informing, and Campaign Items) and add them up. Then we will divide that by four and get an average support number. Then take that and divide it by the number who identify as Conservative or Liberal. So it goes something like this [(D+V+I+C)/4]/Ideology
So for Obama it is: [(117+102+136+117)/4]/101= 1.17
And for Romney it is: [(52+52+118+79)/4]/235= 0.32
*Numbers are from full poll results
You can see the HUGE gap that is between Obama and Romney. President Obama clearly has his base activated nearly 7 months away from the election. On the other hand, Mitt Romney, after a long hard and volatile primary race, has barely any base support at all. It is political fact that the base is what wins elections as they are the ones who go out to the middle and get the independent vote. Romney just does not have that. There is still an internal conflict in the Republican Party between the far right Conservatives and the Tea Partiers vs the normal Republican electorate. Unfortunately for Romney, the majority of the Republican base is made up of these far right Conservatives and Tea Partiers.