TPM Reader DB on McCain-Romney
I have always thought that if Romney could get McCain one on one, especially in closed primary states, he’d likely beat him. All these Super Tuesday states where McCain is “leading” in polls taken recently may be a bit deceptive because they’re still polling significant numbers for Huck and Rudy. If it becomes obvious that Huck and Rudy are out of it, then McCain may have to get a high enough per cent of real Republicans to win an essentially two man race–in other words, he might need at or near 50%. He’s out of line with his party on enough issues, that I think it is questionable he could do that.
This is definitely possible. In fact, in the northeast a lot of the most recent polls (obviously not that recent) have Giuliani either ahead of McCain or coming in second. So presumably those numbers will be reshuffled pretty soon. And there’s a general dearth of good polls for a lot of the Super Tuesday states.
It comes back to the question of just how much of that fabled anti-McCain sentiment among base Republicans is really out there.
