Thread: GOP faces Iowa's final 100 hours

GOP faces Iowa's final 100 hours

GOP faces Iowa's final 100 hours
By Cameron Joseph - 12/30/11 06:00 AM ET

The biggest question in Iowa a little more than 100 hours before the caucuses begin is whether Rick Santorum can coalesce conservative support in the state and catch front-runners Mitt Romney and Ron Paul.

Santorum has leaped into the conversation with polls showing him running solidly in the top three, but he still needs to gain ground to overtake Romney and Paul.

“Is this momentum that he has enough to launch him through the ceiling to the top, or just to put him in a respectable place?” asked Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa). “At this point, I just don’t know.”

Republicans across Iowa said Santorum’s surge is for real and has been building for weeks. But both Romney and Paul are in a strong position. While there is consensus that those three will top the leader board on Jan. 3 it’s unclear whether Santorum can catch up in the closing days of the campaign.

“The last time we talked I was a little skeptical [of Santorum’s rise] mainly because I think social conservatives have been hoping so much to have someone to coalesce behind they were projecting their hopes a little bit,” said Steve Deace, an influential conservative talk radio host in Des Moines. “But that’s changed ... He’s got the momentum right now.”

Santorum has worked Iowa harder than any other candidate, spending nearly 100 days there in the past year and visiting all 99 counties, many on multiple occasions. He’s been rewarded with slowly swelling crowds — and the endorsements of prominent Iowa social conservatives including Bob Vander Plaats, who ran former Gov. Mike Huckabee’s winning 2008 Iowa campaign and finished a strong second place in the GOP gubernatorial primary last year.

In the two latest polls of Iowa voters Santorum received 16 percent support, a big bump from the low single digits he’d been at for months.

Romney and Paul remain at the front of the pack in the latest polls, with little distance between them and their support ranging between 20 and 25 percent depending on the pollster.

Paul has the best field organization in the state, and nearly won the Iowa Straw Poll in Ames last August. He has polled in the double digits for months and has seen support for his candidacy tick up after some effective ads hammering the other candidates and touting his anti-abortion rights bona fides.

While Paul has come under attack for racist comments in newsletters published under his name in the 1980s and 1990s, many in the state say that those attacks are actually helping his campaign.

Bob Johnson, a Dubuque-area Tea Party leader and Paul backer, said, “Because there’s so much distaste for the big media stations it’s kind of having a coalescing effect for the candidate that gets picked on by the mainstream media.”

Deace agreed. “The reality is the more people try to discredit Ron Paul, call him kooky and crazy, they’re actually helping him,” he said. “All these attempts to expose Paul as some anti-Semitic racist are just adding more votes to Paul’s column.”

Romney’s campaign has long sought to downplay the importance of the Iowa caucuses but as of late has stepped up its efforts there. He is in the middle of a four-day swing through the state, and will be back Saturday after a quick trip to New Hampshire. He’s also planning on being in Iowa the day after the caucuses, and voiced confidence he’ll finish strongly.

“The numbers that are showing up are a lot more than we'd expected. And their level of excitement and enthusiasm and their willingness to caucus on my behalf is encouraging," he said on Wednesday. "So the response I'm getting is really quite heartening."

Romney has a solid base of support from his strong effort four years ago, and he has quietly kept in touch with many of those who backed him last time.

“I think that Romney has a real chance to win in Iowa,” said King. “He’s built a foundation here that people from a national perspective have forgotten about, and he’s well known here, it didn’t take long to light things up again.”

Santorum’s surge has been aided by the collapse of Rep. Michele Bachmann and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, two candidates chasing the same types of socially conservative voters.

Gingrich has been barraged by negative ads from the other candidates, and his poll position has plummeted from first to fourth place in the state. He has been badly outspent on the airwaves and has almost no field organization in Iowa.

Bachmann has suffered a series of major setbacks in recent days as well: Her state campaign chairman jumped ship for Paul’s campaign, leading to her accusing him of being bribed to leave. After another top Bachmann staffer defended the chairman’s actions, he was fired.

The former chairman, State Sen. Kent Sorenson, pushed back strongly. “Sadly, the values I most appreciated in Congresswoman Bachmann appear to have gone out the window in a last-minute effort to salvage what’s left of her campaign,” he said in a statement.

Rick Perry has also struggled — his latest attacks were aimed at Santorum, showing how quickly the former senator has risen in the field. But despite millions of dollars on ads, Perry has seen little movement in his poll numbers in the state.

http://thehill.com/homenews/campaign...um-romney-paul



Now there trying to push Santorum, these RINO'S just don't quit do they....

New poll finds Romney and Paul in neck-and-neck battle for Iowa
By Jonathan Easley - 12/30/11 06:33 AM ET

Mitt Romney and Ron Paul are battling for the top spot in Iowa but the second tier of candidates is closing in, according to a NBC News-Marist poll released on Friday.

Romney leads the poll of likely Iowa caucus-goers at 23 percent, followed by Paul at 21 percent.

However, the second tier of candidates, led by Rick Santorum and Rick Perry, are suddenly within striking distance of the frontrunners.

Santorum came in third at 15 percent, followed by Perry at 14 percent.

Newt Gingrich has fallen to fifth place at 13 percent. The former House speaker led the same poll earlier this month at 28 percent, but has been battered by his rivals over his divorces and ties to Freddie Mac.

Michele Bachmann is at six percent.

This is the second poll this week to show momentum building within the Santorum campaign.

Santorum is up nine points from the previous NBC-Marist poll, when he finished in last place among the candidates that are actively campaigning in Iowa.

But the poll also shows a surge for Perry, who is up four points since the last poll and only trails Santorum by one percent. The Texas governor is also one of the most likely second choices of voters in the poll, trailing only Romney at 21 percent, which is an eight point gain over the previous poll.

Poll watchers in the state have been keeping a close eye on Santorum, Perry and Bachmann because evangelical voters in the state have yet to coalesce around a candidate, and many believe the bloc could turn out to provide a surprise showing for one of them.

 Those voters turned out in the 2008 race for the White House and propelled former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee to victory.

However, the poll shows that Tea Party supporters are divided between Santorum and Perry, which could significantly limit either candidate's upside on caucus day.

Santorum leads among Tea Party supporters at 20 percent, followed by Romney and Paul at 17 percent, Gingrich at 16 percent, Perry at 15 percent and Bachmann at 10 percent.

This is a devastating poll for the Bachmann campaign, which this week lost its Iowa chairman to the Paul campaign.




http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/...erry-moving-in

To the Wire: 2 Iowa Polls Show Santorum Moving Ahead of Gingrich into 3rd; 2 Show Romney Leading; 1 Shows Paul; 1 Shows 3-Way Tie
By Terence P. Jeffrey
December 29, 2011
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Rick Santorum, Newt Gingrich

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich of Georgia and former Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania. (AP Photo/Jim Cole)

(CNSNews.com) - Four polls released this week of likely Iowa caucus voters show a tight and shifting race, with former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney leading in two, Rep. Ron Paul leading in one, and Romney, Paul and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich virtually tied in another.

Two of the polls show former Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania moving ahead of Gingrich into third place.

A Rasmussen Reports poll of 750 likely Republican caucus goers that was conducted Wednesday gave Romney 23 percent, Paul 22 percent, Santorum 16 percent, and Gingrich and Texas Gov. Rick Perry 13 percent each. Rep. Michele Bachmann of Minnesota was at 5 percent in this poll and former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman was at 3 percent. The poll's margin of error was +/- 4 points.

A CNN poll of 452 likely Republican caucus goers completed on Tuesday put Romney at 25 percent, Paul at 22 percent, Santorum at 16 percent, Gingrich at 14 percent, Perry at 11 percent, Bachmann at 9 percent and Huntsman at 1 percent. This poll had a margin of error of +/- 4.5 points.

Another poll completed Tuesday—by Public Policy Polling—showed Ron Paul in first place with 24 percent. In this poll, Romney was second with 20 percent, Gingrich was third with 13 percent, Bachmann was fourth with 11 percent, and Perry and Santorum were tied for fifth with 10 percent. Huntsman had 5 percent for seventh place. This poll, which surveyed 565 likely caucus goers, had a margin of error of +/-4.1 percent.

A fourth poll completed Wednesday—by Insider Advantate/Majority Opinion Research—surveyed 429 likely Iowa caucus goers. It showed Paul, Romney and Gingrich in a virtual tie, with Paul at 17.3 percent, Romney at 17.2 percent, and Gingrich at 16.7 percent. Santorum placed fourth in this poll with 13.4 percent, followed by Bachmann with 11.8 percent, Perry with 10.5 percent, and Huntsman with 2.8 percent. The 429 likely caucus goers surveyed in this poll included 298 Republicans, 117 Independents, and 14 Democrats.

http://cnsnews.com/news/article/wire...eading-1-shows