2012 Republican Primary in Review: April 2012

Each month, Elephant Watcher recaps the activity that occurred in the Republican primary during the previous month. Follow these links to read earlier recaps: May 2011, June, July, August, September, October, November, December, January 2012, February, March.

The 2012 Republican presidential primary came to a close in April. The month opened with contests in Wisconsin, D.C., and Maryland. While Mitt Romney was heavily favored to win D.C. and Maryland, Wisconsin was a pro-Santorum state by nature. Earlier in the primary season, Rick Santorum would likely have won Wisconsin with little problem. But by the time April rolled around, Santorum had been weakened by successive defeats and a thorough vetting by the media. Moreover, widely-publicized delegate counts showed Santorum with no chance of getting a majority of the delegates--he could only hope to force a contested convention. Since Republican voters were less than enthused about the prospect of a contested convention, and since they increasingly understood Romney was the inevitable nominee, Santorum's support dwindled.

On April 3rd, the three contests were held, and Romney won them all. Santorum's early lead in Wisconsin was obliterated; Romney won Wisconsin by 7 points. Wisconsin marked a turning point, as no one could any longer deny that Romney was going to win the nomination. Romney was still far from having accumulated a majority of the delegates, but it was only a matter of time.

Looking ahead, April 24th looked to be a good day for Romney: A number of pro-Romney states, plus Santorum's home state of Pennsylvania, were set to hold their primaries. Santorum was faced with a decision. On the one hand, he could stay in the race, attempt to win Pennsylvania, and then ride the pro-Santorum calendar in May. On the other hand, he could save himself the trouble, concede the race, and avoid the possibility of an embarrassing defeat in his home state.

As with Wisconsin, Ohio, and Michigan, the early polls showed Santorum with a shrinking lead. Santorum realized that although he still had some chance of winning Pennsylvania, it wasn't worth the risk. Were he to stay in the race, he would be continually pressured to drop out and make room for the Party's obvious nominee. If he stayed in the race and lost Pennsylvania, it would be a humiliation. On April 10th, Santorum suspended his campaign, conceding the race to Romney.

Santorum's decision effectively marked the end of the primary season. Newt Gingrich attempted to capitalize on Santorum's departure by claiming he was the "last conservative standing." But Gingrich's campaign was long dead, having been killed by Santorum's Southern wins in March. The last gasp of Gingrich's campaign took place in Delaware on April 24th. As with the other states voting that day, Delaware gave Romney the win by a huge margin. Gingrich reportedly made plans to drop out of the race, though he did not make any public statements to that effect.

By the end of the month, Romney was still short of the magic number for a delegate majority, but virtually all opposition to him ceased. Romney was spared the difficulty of dealing with an anti-Romney calendar in May. Romney's campaign and the news media shifted their focus toward the general election.

Romney Sweeps the Northeast

For all intents and purposes, the Republican 2012 presidential primary ended earlier this month, when Rick Santorum announced he was dropping out of the race. Even so, there's still a technical requirement that Mitt Romney must win a majority of the delegates in order to win the nomination. From Romney's perspective, it makes sense to continue "competing" in these contests--while spending less money and devoting no resources to attack ads--because it looks good for a candidate to win. Romney will continue running victory laps as long as there are states yet to vote. Do the results in these states tell us anything? Not really. The voters are aware that the contest is over, and they have little incentive to participate, particularly as time goes on. People who really want to cast a vote for the winner will show up, as will the people who really want to cast a protest vote. Prior to today's contests, Newt Gingrich maintained that he was still running; Ron Paul will always be willing to fight on. But they couldn't make much of a dent: Romney won each contest by 30 or more points, including Pennsylvania.

Connecticut Primary (90% reporting)
Romney -- 67%
Paul -- 13%
Gingrich -- 10%
Santorum -- 7%

Delaware Primary (100% reporting)
Romney -- 56%
Gingrich -- 27%
Paul -- 11%
Santorum -- 6%

New York Primary (35% reporting)
Romney -- 58%
Paul -- 17%
Gingrich -- 14%
Santorum -- 10%

Pennsylvania Primary (71% reporting)
Romney -- 56%
Santorum -- 20%
Paul -- 13%
Gingrich -- 11%

Rhode Island Primary (88% reporting)
Romney -- 63%
Paul -- 24%
Gingrich -- 6%
Santorum -- 6%

In a little-noticed move, Gingrich placed all of his hopes on Delaware, where he spent whatever resources he had left. It made a difference, but only compared to the other states, where Gingrich did even worse. If Gingrich held onto any hope that Santorum's departure would consolidate the conservative vote around him again, that hope must be abandoned. As it turned out, the Wisconsin Primary on April 3rd was indeed the last competitive primary. Going forward, the only interesting data will be the numbers from Southern states voting in May; they may tell us something about the extent to which the Anti-Romney vote is coming around to their party's nominee.

Rick Santorum Concedes the Race

Santorum

The Republican presidential primary effectively ended today. Rick Santorum gave a speech to announce that he is suspending his campaign; he conceded the race to Mitt Romney in a phone call. As Elephant Watcher predicted, Santorum's loss in Wisconsin changed the race in a fundamental way, such that no one could any longer deny that Romney was going to win the nomination. Although there were many states left in the primary calendar that favor Santorum, it's likely that Santorum's campaign was able to conclude that Santorum would lose in Pennsylvania. A few days ago, a poll was released showing Romney with a lead in Pennsylvania; Santorum's campaign probably had access to some private polling data as well. Though Newt Gingrich and Ron Paul have not officially dropped out of the race, their efforts to amass delegates were even less successful than Santorum's--and they are no longer considered genuine candidates. At this point, Gingrich would struggle even to win Southern states with a protest vote in May.

Barring a tragic accident, Romney will be the Republican nominee for president this year. A little over six months ago, and about three months before voting began in Iowa, Elephant Watcher was able to project that Mitt Romney will win the Republican nomination. Although Romney could never hope to consolidate both wings of the Republican Party, he won because he was the only remaining candidate who was considered highly electable (aside from Jon Huntsman, who ran to the left of Romney). The rest of the candidates had serious issues, though primary voters tended not to be aware of those issues until after each candidate was brought under media scrutiny. In December, Elephant Watcher explained this was the fundamental driver of the ups and downs in the polls, which in fact continued until Santorum's collapse in March.

Throughout 2011, the conventional wisdom among the news media and political pundits was that Romney was limited by a ceiling of 25% of the Republican primary electorate. Elephant Watcher debunked the 25% ceiling myth in November. As Romney's competitors' electability issues surfaced, Romney surged and broke through the ceiling.

Many in the Tea Party could not believe--especially after their victories in 2010--that the Republican Party would end up nominating another "RINO" for president. They were certain that someone with unimpeachable conservative credentials would win the primary, rather than a moderate. But the fact is that by the beginning of October, the Party had no alternative. A number of highly-electable conservatives could have run (and in Tim Pawlenty's case, did run until his early exit), but they chose not to run. Romney's own weaknesses forced him to fight for the nomination, but the ultimate outcome could not be in serious doubt.

Could Santorum Lose Pennsylvania?

On April 24th, primaries will be held in Connecticut, Delaware, New York, and Rhode Island. Mitt Romney is expected to easily carry each of these states and add a huge haul of delegates to his already insurmountable lead. But there's another state voting on the 24th, one that isn't favorable to Romney at all: Pennsylvania. A Midwestern state, Pennsylvania is inherently friendly to Rick Santorum. It's also Santorum's home state, which gives him a huge bonus.

How big of advantage is the "home state" advantage in a primary? Big. A distinction should be drawn between a typical "home state", and Romney's home state of Michigan--which Romney only carried by a few points. Although Romney undoubtedly has ties to Michigan, a more apt comparison would be to Massachusetts, where Romney is better-known and recently served as governor. On Super Tuesday, Romney won Massachusetts with 72% of the vote, beating Santorum by a whopping 60 points. That same day, Newt Gingrich, whose campaign was already in tatters, won his own home state of Georgia with 47%, just over 20 points higher than Romney; other Southern states voting on Super Tuesday were carried by Santorum.

In summary, it ought to be understood that Santorum is starting out with an enormous advantage in Pennsylvania. Indeed, on February 20th (roughly at the height of Santorum's surge), a Franklin & Marshall poll had Santorum ahead by nearly 30 points there. A lot has changed since then, namely Santorum's key defeats in the Midwestern states of Michigan, Ohio, Illinois, and Wisconsin, along with the overall impression taking hold that Romney is inevitable. Still, that's quite a gap to close, and Santorum's campaign is taking an "all-in" approach in Pennsylvania, if only to avenge his infamous senatorial reelection loss. Here are the most recent polls in the state--most of which were taken prior to Santorum's loss in Wisconsin on April 3rd:

Pennsylvania Primary
04/04 PPP (D) -- Romney 42, Santorum 37, Paul 9, Gingrich 6
04/04 Rasmussen -- Santorum 42, Romney 38, Paul 7, Gingrich 6
04/01 Quinnipiac -- Santorum 41, Romney 35, Paul 10, Gingrich 7
03/27 Wenzel -- Santorum 45, Romney 25, Paul 10, Gingrich 8
03/25 Franklin -- Santorum 30, Romney 28, Paul 9, Gingrich 6

Even looking at the two polls taken after Wisconsin, there's quite a bit of variation: One has Romney up by 5, and the other has Santorum up by 4. But the bottom line is that both of those polls are terrible for Santorum. Romney has repeatedly overcome Santorum's early leads of more than 4 points. Santorum is in deep trouble--Pennsylvania is already competitive.

There are some silver linings for Santorum. As his home state, Pennsylvania may choose to reward Santorum's persistence in a last-minute fit of nostalgia. Santorum will also have three weeks to campaign there. And since Pennsylvanians are already familiar with Santorum, Romney's attack ads should have less effect.

But there's one big problem that could trump all that and give Romney the win: Over the next few weeks, the idea that Romney has already won the nomination will sink deeper into the minds of Republican voters. Without victories to sustain the Santorum campaign, potential Santorum voters will be poisoned by the toxic idea that a vote for Santorum simply helps Barack Obama.

Elephant Watcher believes that Santorum could be persuaded to quit the race early if he loses in Pennsylvania, or if the early Pennsylvania polls are bad enough to convince Santorum that he's going to lose there. Right now, the picture is bleak, but it's not yet certain Santorum will lose.

Intrade: Santorum Below 1 Percent

After losing the Illinois Primary a few weeks ago, Rick Santorum had dropped to a 2.5% chance to win the nomination, according to the Intrade market on the Republican nomination. After losing the Wisconsin Primary, Santorum's odds have hit rock bottom: He's currently trading at 0.7%. Mitt Romney is inching closer to the 100% mark, trading at 96.0%. For the first time, no other candidate is even in single-digits; Romney's competitors are all below the 1% mark.

Ron Paul, despite having failed to win a state so far, is in second place at 0.8%. Newt Gingrich is truly close to 0%, trading at 0.2% along with several candidates who didn't run (Sarah Palin, Chris Christie, Paul Ryan, etc.). Jeb Bush, who for whatever reason is a partial stand-in for the chance of a contested convention, is ahead of Gingrich, at 0.6%. But Intrade investors also feel the odds of a contested convention have fallen substantially: They give it just a 3% chance of occurring.

In fact, the Intrade markets on individual contests appear to be predicting an all-out sweep for Romney from this point forward. Before Wisconsin, they felt Santorum was relatively safe in his home state of Pennsylvania, giving him about a 2/3 chance of winning there. But now they rate the probability of a Romney upset in Pennsylvania at 84.7%. And Romney is almost certain to steal the big Southern prize, Texas: 92.4%, according to Intrade.

Intrade's high level of confidence of Romney winning Texas is particularly interesting, given Romney's weakness in the South so far. One possible explanation is that Intrade investors foresee Santorum dropping out of the race prior to the Texas Primary (May 29th). If they're right about Romney winning Pennsylvania, it's a real possibility.