WeAskAmerica/FOX News: Romney leads in Illinois

[Tender Branson]

37% Romney
31% Santorum
14% Gingrich
  8% Paul

Pollster We Ask America, based in Springfield, IL, contacted the 1,933 likely Republican voters who participated in our survey on Wednesday, accurate to within plus/minus 2.2 percentage points.

http://www.myfoxchicago.com/dpp/news/elections/mitt-romney-leads-rick-santorum-6-points-illinois-primary-election-republican-gop-presidential-candidates-poll-20120315

[Tender Branson]

Paul and Gingrich should drop out now. It's about time.

Paul should endorse his pal Romney and Gingrich should endorse Santorum and they should encourage their delegates to vote for Romney or Santorum at the convention (if this is possible).

What reason is there for Paul to stay in now ? He didn't win a state, and has no chance to get more than 15% anywhere, maybe in SD or MT - in all other remaining states he'll stay at the 10% mark.

Gingrich can only win NC, no other state is anywhere close to voting for Newt.

So: GET THE F**K OUT GUYS ! So that we can have a real 2-man race !

[Tender Branson]

FWIW, We Ask America is a pretty terrible pollster.

Every pollster had it's problems this year, but the general topline here makes sense.

WAA for example got AZ and MI right, so there's hope for them.

[Tender Branson]

Paul and Gingrich should drop out now. It's about time.

Paul should endorse his pal Romney and Gingrich should endorse Santorum and they should encourage their delegates to vote for Romney or Santorum at the convention (if this is possible).

No, Gingrich shouldn't endorse Santorum.  That would just allow his pledged delegates to become free agents, with many of them probably going to Romney.  He should suspend his campaign, not endorse anyone else, and hold his delegates in reserve, so that he has leverage, in the event of a brokered convention scenario.

Wouldn't this do more harm than good ? Because if Gingrich drops out and endorses Santorum and Santorum goes on to win a few very important states (TX, NC, IN, KY, WV, PA, maybe MD, OR too), then these "free agents" would be more likely to support Santorum than Romney. But if he does not endorse, Santorum might run behind Romney in several of those states and Gingrich's "leverage" at the convention would be about zero, because Romney has the necessary delegates already.

[Tender Branson]

If Gingrich really drops out after IL or LA, and endorses Santorum, maybe he could even convince Sheldon Adelson to write a 50 Mio. $ check for Santorum for the ultimate battles in NC/IN/WV and then later TX and CA. This would badly damage the Romney money machine (unless he writes himself a check for 50 Mio. $).

[Tender Branson]

If Gingrich really drops out after IL or LA, and endorses Santorum, maybe he could even convince Sheldon Adelson to write a 50 Mio. $ check for Santorum for the ultimate battles in NC/IN/WV and then later TX and CA. This would badly damage the Romney money machine (unless he writes himself a check for 50 Mio. $).

Adelson HATES Santorum...

Equally, if these numbers are in fact correct... and they look reasonable, Romney should be worried about Santorum's underpolling in TN, MS and AL.

Maybe he hates Romney more ... ?!

[Tender Branson]

I really don't understand why Santorum wasted two days campaigning at Puerto Rico (a WTA contest where he had little hope to begin with) instead of barnstorming Illinois.

It's only WTA if the winner breaks 50%.  Otherwise it's proportional.  (Though I suspect that Romney will break 50%.)

Romney got 54% of FL Hispanics, but only 38% among AZ Hispanics.

I guess he ends up winning PR with about 45-50%.