Illinois is now in the rear view mirror, having given us an "as expected" outcome. Pre-election polls had Mitt Romney beating Rick Santorum in the 10-15 point range, and that is exactly where the race landed (Romney defeated Santorum by a 47-35 margin).
Few pollsters even bothered to poll Illinois, which might be the most telling piece of data of them all. Perhaps the polling community is telling us what the hardening conventional wisdom is now also positing: this GOP primary thing is just about done.
Louisiana looms this weekend (and Rick Santorum is considered the betting favorite). Then, it is ten days off until Maryland and Wisconsin chime in. So, the natural question is: how long does this thing go on?
I have an educated guess, and it comes after the jump. But first, the numbers:
GOP PRIMARY POLLING:
NATIONAL (Gallup Tracking): Romney 37, Santorum 27, Gingrich 13, Paul 10
NATIONAL (PPP): Romney 34, Santorum 31, Gingrich 20, Paul 9
NATIONAL (YouGov): Romney 31, Santorum 23, Gingrich 21, Paul 12
NORTH CAROLINA (SurveyUSA): Santorum 34, Romney 26, Gingrich 18, Paul 10
GENERAL ELECTION TRIAL HEATS:
NATIONAL (Rasmussen Tracking): Obama d. Romney (47-44); Obama d. Santorum (49-40)
NATIONAL (YouGov): Obama d. Paul (47-42); Obama d. Romney (49-42); Obama d. Gingrich (51-39); Obama d. Santorum (52-40)
MASSACHUSETTS (PPP): Obama d. Romney (58-35); Obama d. Paul (58-30); Obama d. Santorum (61-29); Obama d. Gingrich (62-28)
So ... does Mitt Romney really have this thing on lockdown? And when, if ever, is this Republican circus going to be over? A few thoughts, on both subjects, after the jump.
From my perspective, Mitt Romney has been something of the "inevitable nominee" for a while now. Even as his national poll numbers have swayed to and fro, he has still been collecting delegates at a better clip than his colleagues. As Jed Lewison so ably noted earlier today, even when his popular vote wins are somewhat underwhelming, we forget he is still cleaning house in the delegate count. Take last night: while claiming 47 percent of the popular vote last night, he was also claiming nearly 80 percent of the delegates.
That said, he hasn't closed the deal, and that remains a huge problem for him. For the second consecutive month, Romney spent more cash than he took in, though he did slow his burn rate from around 300 percent of his cash haul down to a more manageable 108 percent. That said, he is sitting on $7.3 million in the bank. President Obama, meanwhile, is sitting on close to $85 million cash on-hand.
The problem, of course, is Romney's campaign has a great habit of saying or doing something fairly dumb every time they get on the cusp of looking inevitable. Which, of course, is how a reference to a favored toy from my youth made its way into the title of tonight's Wrap.
That failure to lock this thing down in the early days now presents a huge challenge and problem for him. This thing, by all rights, is essentially guaranteed to go an entire month longer. Here's why:
Let's stipulate two things: Ron Paul and Newt Gingrich are going nowhere. They've got no place to go, and no future campaign bids that might make a "take one for the team" early exit more attractive. Hell, even though neither Gingrich nor Paul are likely to be eligible to have their names entered into nomination at the convention (RNC rules require five state wins, something both lack), they'll keep campaigning until then, in all probability.
That leaves Santorum. And, c'mon ... can anyone realistically envision a scenario where he gets out prior to his home state Pennsylvania primary? I can absolutely see him getting out after that (still in his relative political youth, he might need to collect chits for down the line), but there is no way, as some have suggested, that he'll bail if he loses both Wisconsin and Maryland.
The best Romney can hope for, and this is a very legitimate possibility, is that the media will treat the nomination contest as a non-event from this point forward. That would allow him to train all of his attention on Barack Obama, and try to frame the race as a general election contest from this point forward.
This daily feature may help us understand if that shift is occurring. If you start seeing fewer primary polls, and more general election polls, you know that the inevitability meme has hardened in the minds of the press. If you start seeing few polls overall, the same rule applies.
