Wednesday, January 09, 2008

The McCain Weakness   [Rich Lowry]

This is it: Conservatives were 54% of the electorate and McCain lost to Romney among them by seven points. When the race moves south, conservatives will probably be 75-80% of the electorate, and they will presumably dominate in closed primaries. But this is the thing: At the outset, it looked like the way the early states were stacked up would help Romney. But once Romney lost Iowa, they were stacked up to help McCain. The Arizona senator might be able to all but knock Romney out of the race in Michigan with another strong showing among independents, meaning he could possibly KO Romney without ever beating him handily among Republicans. Weird, huh? Then, with Romney gone, McCain is presumably competing with Huckabee and Rudy (although Fred is still lurking) for those conservative voters and that's a fight he could well win.

Other numbers I found interesting from last night: among voters who approved of the Iraq war (62%), Romney actually beat McCain 37-33. Among voters who disapprove of the war (36%), McCain beat Romney handily, 44-17. (Geraghty notes it here.) McCain, predictably, beat Romney by four points among voters very/somewhat worried about another major terror attack in the U.S., but oddly sweeped those voters not too/not at all worried, 40-18.

Immigration clearly worked for Romney. It was perhaps his strongest point. 22% of voters said it was most important to them, and he wiped up among them, 53-20. 

Finally, there's this troubling data. McCain won among voters who care "a great deal," "somewhat," and "not much" whether a candidate shares their religious beliefs. The only category Romney won is those people (33%) who said that care "not at all," where he beat McCain 38-33. This accords with Iowa, where Romney got beaten among those who cared "a great deal" and "somewhat," and had his best margin over Huckabee—39-2—among those who cared "not at all."

01/09 04:46 PMShare