Romney’s surge
Mitt Romney is 10 points ahead of John McCain in New Hampshire according to the latest Zogby poll. Last week Romney hit 32 percent — 10 ahead of Giuliani and nine ahead of McCain — in a WBZ poll, which the Zogby results are confirming. What might account for this remarkable jump since last month?
For one, Romney’s put in the time. He’s logged 10 more New Hampshire visits than McCain and 13 more than Rudy Giuliani. In New Hampshire, that matters, which McCain knows and Rudy evidently does not. Giuliani’s local team knows it, but it appears that his national team does not.
Romney also is talking the talk. He sounds more conservative than his other top competitors at the moment, and he’s got a strong presence in person that neither McCain nor Giuliani has right now. Both seem unsure of themselves, like they’re still trying to find their footing, while Romney seems confident and comfortable with himself and his message.
That came across in the debates, which seemed to help Romney more than his competitors. I’ll be curious to see how Romney fares after the June 3 debate here in Manchester.
I’m not sure how much the presence of so many Massachusetts ex-pats has affected the numbers. One school of thought is that Republicans from Massachusetts would gravitate toward Romney because they know him better. Another is that they’d be turned off to him because they know him better. Republican witnesses to Romney’s flip-flops might be less inclined to support him. But if they were impressed with what he accomplished in Massachusetts, and simply giddy to have him in office instead of another Mass. liberal, then they might have a generally warm feeling for him. I don’t know which, if either, is more accurate. Would be interesting to see some polling on that.
What is safe to say is that Romney should keep doing what he’s doing. He’s gone from as low as 4 or 5 percent in late 2006/early 2007 in some polls (13 percent in Zogby’s January poll and 21 percent in WBZ’s January poll) to 35 percent in May. He weathered the flip-flop questions, for now, and has shown that he can gain the trust of Republicans in both New Hampshire and Iowa. If I were on the McCain or Giuliani teams, I’d start coming up with a new strategy right now.
Comment from William Smith of Manchester: I have to think that McCain is done and, at this point, he won’t be elected President of his local Kiwanis chapter, let alone President of the United States.
His appearing on a stage yesterday with Ted Kennedy announcing that immigration deal has doomed his chances at receiving his party’s nomination.
Romney is in a great position right now and his supporters have to be very encouraged by recent developments.
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