Republican 2012 Presidential Candidate

In a previous article entitled Who Will be President in 2013, we discussed what the impact of reapportionment will have on the next Presidential Election. We never really answered the question of which individual will be President in 2013. That is because in large measure, it depends upon who will be the Republican candidate in 2012. The hard fact of the matter is that you cannot beat somebody with nobody and the Republican candidates are pretty much a collection of nobodies. Other than Romney, Huckabee and Palin, the rest of the candidates do not have enough name recognition to get elected.

Palin has the strongest base support but unless things change radically, she would lose as badly as Goldwater did in 1964 for the exact same reasons. Goldwater was successfully painted as a racist and too stupid to become President by the mainstream media. This was in spite of the fact that Goldwater's book, Conscience of a Conservative, was a best seller. Likewise Sarah Palin has best seller books but that will not help her when her approval levels are seriously upside down. They have gotten worse since the shooting in Tucson even though she had nothing to do with the shooter. It is a sad commentary that intelligent, brave and principled people can be so easily marginalized by the mainstream media but it does not change the results any.

That leaves us with Romney and Huckabee who might be able to beat Obama. Right now, neither of them could do that. The only polling firm that has been steadily testing various Republican possibilities by state is Public Policy Polling. They are a Democrat oriented firm but their polls are generally reliable and show little signs of partisan bias. As we pointed out in our last article, everything depends upon what happens in the new battleground states. If the election were held today, Obama would carry the same states he did in 2008 with the possible exception of Indiana and be easily re-elected as the following table demonstrates:

Party	State	2008 Margin	2010 Margin	Obama Poll %	Huckabee Poll %	Romney Poll %	2012 Votes	Party Totals
D	District of Columbia	85.74%					3	3
D	Hawaii	45.26%	24.57%				4	7
D	Vermont	37.01%	32.54%				3	10
D	Rhode Island	27.85%	18.46%				4	14
D	New York	26.69%	21.20%				29	43
D	Massachusetts	25.81%	27.70%				11	54
D	Maryland	25.44%	26.93%				10	64
D	Illinois	25.10%	7.14%				20	84
D	Delaware	25.00%	15.74%				3	87
D	California	24.06%	10.81%	54%	39%	36%	55	142
D	Connecticut	22.37%	18.97%				7	149
D	Maine	17.32%	12.07%				4	153
D	Washington	17.18%	6.75%				12	165
D	Michigan	16.47%	7.68%				16	181
D	Oregon	16.35%	3.99%				7	188
D	New Jersey	15.57%	0.64%	53%	36%	37%	14	202
D	New Mexico	15.13%	3.32%				5	207
D	Wisconsin	13.90%	11.90%	46%	41%	42%	10	217
D	Nevada	12.49%	6.90%	51%	41%	46%	6	223
D	Pennsylvania	10.32%	0.53%	46%	44%	42%	20	243
D	Minnesota	10.24%	2.04%	47%	40%	42%	10	253
I	New Hampshire	9.61%	6.88%				4	257
I	Iowa	9.53%	13.12%	47%	43%	41%	6	263
I	Colorado	8.95%	5.27%	47%	42%	41%	9	272
I	Virginia	6.30%	12.57%	48%	44%	43%	13	285
I	Ohio	4.54%	11.75%	45%	44%	42%	18	303
I	Florida	2.82%	20.70%	46%	44%	44%	29	332
I	Indiana	1.03%	18.78%				11	343
I	North Carolina	0.33%	11.78%	47%	45%	44%	15	358
R	Missouri	0.13%	19.71%	42%	49%	47%	10	180
R	Montana	2.26%	26.57%	41%	51%	50%	3	170
R	Georgia	5.21%	31.29%				16	167
R	South Dakota	8.41%	2.23%	41%	47%	46%	3	151
R	Arizona	8.52%	12.46%	44%	48%	49%	11	148
R	North Dakota	8.63%	9.81%				3	137
R	South Carolina	8.98%	16.14%	43%	49%	49%	9	134
R	Texas	11.77%	34.72%	42%	55%	49%	38	125
R	West Virginia	13.12%	13.21%	37%	54%	50%	5	87
R	Mississippi	13.17%	10.02%				6	82
R	Nebraska	14.93%	40.02%	38%	51%	49%	5	76
R	Kansas	14.96%	31.45%				6	71
R	Tennessee	15.07%	28.75%				11	65
R	Kentucky	16.23%	28.41%				8	54
R	Louisiana	18.63%	33.79%				8	46
R	Arkansas	19.85%	17.28%				6	38
R	Alaska	21.54%	38.44%				3	32
R	Alabama	21.58%	43.03%				9	29
R	Idaho	25.43%	27.82%				4	20
R	Utah	28.18%	31.29%				6	16
R	Oklahoma	31.29%	35.27%				7	10
R	Wyoming	32.24%	45.94%				3	3

On the other hand, Romney and Huckabee are within striking distance in the battleground states. Romney pulls better in the blue states but not enough to carry them. As a practical matter, right now Huckabee does better in the purple states and is the only Republican who might beat Obama in those battleground states. Obviously all of this could change and we would like to see Rasmussen poll these purple states and do match-ups between Obama and the leading Republican candidates as a cross check on Public Policy Polling.

The column marked 2012 Margin is the margin that the Republican candidates collectively got in the various states. As you can see, those Republican candidates even carried some blue states like Michigan, New Jersey, Wisconsin, Nevada and Pennsylvania. That explains the huge number of seats that the Republicans picked up in 2010. Still notice that the Obama margin always beats the House margin in the blue states. That is because the minorities that tend to support Democratic candidates turn out poorly in midterm elections but do show up much better in Presidential elections. On the other hand, the purple states have the House margin better than the Obama margin except in New Hampshire and Colorado.

If Huckabee could do as well as the Republican House candidates did, he would eek out an electoral college win 272 to 266. That would mean he would have to carry Iowa in addition to the Republican leaning states of Virginia, Ohio, Florida, Indiana and North Carolina. The PPP poll results show that Obama is ahead by only three points in Pennsylvania 47 to 44% so that is another possibility. A lot will depend on who is the Republican candidate against Senator Bob Casey in Pennsylvania and right now only Rick Santorum has any chance and he is behind 48 to 41%. The open Senate seat in Virginia favors the Republicans and a win there might put Huckabee over the top. Likewise if Jeb Bush will run against Senator Nelson in Florida, that could likewise help Huckabee in Florida. It is also possible that Senator Lugar will help Huckabee in Indiana since he should win easily. North Carolina does not have a senator up for election in 2012 so a strong showing by Republican House candidates will be required there.