Colorado, Minnesota, Missouri and Florida predictions contest winners
We’ve tallied the results from our Colorado, Minnesota, Missouri predictions contest and found a winner. We also have a winner from Florida, which we somehow neglected to announce. (Sorry about that.)
For the “Mini Tuesday” results, we asked for the winner of each contest. No one predicted former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum’s three-state sweep, so we took the answer that came closest to former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney’s Colorado total.
Ron Paul still waiting for elusive first victory
Rep. Ron Paul’s (R-Texas) campaign may have blown its best chance at winning a state in the Republican presidential contest last week in Maine.
But there will be other opportunities in the weeks ahead.
The final results from Maine showed Paul losing to Mitt Romney by fewer than 200 votes. His campaign is crying foul over one county having postponed its caucus, but the result seems set in stone.
Pew poll: Rick Santorum catches Mitt Romney
Rick Santorum has tied Mitt Romney in national support among Republicans, according to a new Pew Research Center survey.
Gallup also found a statistical tie between the two.
Conventional wisdom often has it that Romney’s position shifts are a known quantity from his 2008 run — they are “baked into the cake,” so opposition research and negative ads are unlikely to change voters’ perceptions much. This survey suggests otherwise.
Why Obama’s budget is smart politics
President Obama released a $3.8 trillion budget this morning that includes tax increases, continued infrastructure spending aimed at getting the country out of the economic crisis, and less debt reduction than Obama had previously promised.
And Republicans are pouncing, calling it an irresponsible budget-buster.
That argument was a winner in the 2010 election; today, though, Obama’s budget is a smart political document — at least when it comes to his 2012 reelection campaign.
National Review to Newt Gingrich: Drop out
The National Review wants former House speaker Newt Gingrich to call it quits.
The GOP presidential candidate has long had an uneasy relationship with the mainstream conservative press in general and National Review in particular, and he will likely dismiss the editorial as “establishment” meddling.
The paper’s harsh assessment is likely the tip of the iceberg, however, and Gingrich will be forced to defend his own relevance going forward in the campaign — never a good place for a candidate to be.
GOP presidential race enters national phase
The Republican presidential race enters a new phase today: A distinctly national one.
While the first month-plus of the GOP contest has been handled mostly one state at a time and has been dominated by some of the smaller states in the union, the next phase brings the race into bigger states holding their contests on the same day as one another.
Republican presidential candidates, from left, former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum, former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney and former House speaker Newt Gingrich pose for a photo at the start of the South Carolina Republican presidential candidate debate in Myrtle Beach, S.C., in January. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)
And that means that the days of everyone focusing intently on individual states for days or a week at a time are over.
By all rights, that should favor the candidate with the money and the national organization, Mitt Romney.
Then again, the word “should” doesn’t have a great track record in this year’s presidential race.
Mitt Romney holds off Ron Paul in Maine
Mitt Romney has won the Maine caucuses, turning aside a valiant effort from Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) and getting back on the winning side of the ledger after a tough week.
Results of the week-long caucuses released Saturday evening by the Maine Republican Party showed Romney with 39 percent of the vote, Paul with 36 percent, Rick Santorum with 18 percent and Newt Gingrich with 6 percent.
Coupled with his victory in Saturday’s straw poll at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington, the Maine win gives the GOP front-runner and former Massachusetts governor a substantial boost heading into a 17-day period in which there will be no contests.
CPAC straw poll: Mitt Romney wins
Mitt Romney won the Conservative Political Action Conference straw poll on Saturday, taking 38 percent of the vote at the annual gathering of party activists in Washington, D.C.
Romney stole the crown from Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas), who has won the contest the past two years but did not appear before the CPAC crowd this year.
N.C. Rep. Mike McIntyre won’t run for governor
Romney plays up conservatism at CPAC; Obama lays out contraception compromise; McIntyre won’t run for governor in North Carolina; and Rep. Spencer Bachus faces an insider-trading probe.
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CPAC 2012: Republican candidates speak on Day 2
The Fix team is live-blogged the Conservative Political Action Conference.
KEY LINKS:
Watch live video of CPAC Day 2 speeches
Agenda: Who is speaking and when
Occupy movement stages protest outside CPAC
Romney: ‘Severely conservative’
Huckabee: ‘We are all Catholics now’
Rick Santorum: Don’t abandon principles for ‘hollow victory’
Full coverage of CPAC Day 1
5:30 p.m. | Wrapping up day 2
That’s it for the Fix blog on day 2 of CPAC. Thanks for following us today. Check PostPolitics for updates from the third and final day of the conference.
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