Super Tuesday Polls Show McCain, Romney and Huckabee Splitting States

National   |   Steven Ertelt   |   Jan 29, 2008   |   9:00AM   |   WASHINGTON, DC

Super Tuesday Polls Show McCain, Romney and Huckabee Splitting States Email this article
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by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
January 29,
2008

Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) — After Florida Republicans make their presidential views known, the next Republican battleground plays out over the nearly two dozen states participating in Super Tuesday. A look at the current polls indicates John McCain is in the best shape in most of the states followed by Mike Huckabee and Mitt Romney.

Naturally, McCain fares best in his home state of Arizona where surveys show him with about 40 percent of the Republican vote and Romney at about 20 percent.

California voters side with McCain giving him a 31-23 percent advantage over Romney, and Giuliani and Huckabee are at 11 percent each. Illinois Republicans favor McCain 31 to 20 percent over Romney with Huckabee and Giuliani in low double digits.

McCain also leads in the northeast, despite the presence of both Romney and Giuliani in their stomping grounds. He leads Giuliani 39 to 16 in Connecticut, is ahead 29 to 26 percent in New Jersey, and even leads in New York by a 32-22 percentage point margin.

The senator has a 37 to 28 percent lead over Huckabee in Oklahoma while Romney draws the support of 18 percent there.

Romney holds a lead in Colorado, a heavily Mormon state that rewards him with 43 percent of the GOP support there. McCain has 24 percent and Huckabee 17 percent. As expected, he also leads in his home state of Massachusetts with a 50 to 29 percent lead over McCain.

Mike Huckabee fares best in the southern states near Arkansas, where he is a former governor.

In Alabama, he is tied at 27 percent with McCain while Romney pulls in the support of 15 percent. Georgia Republicans favor Huckabee by 34 to 19 percent over McCain.

Huckabee and McCain are tied in Missouri, where the leading pro-life group recently issued an endorsement for Huckabee, and the former governor leads in Tennessee, where pro-life groups have endorsed him following the departure of Fred Thompson.

Minnesota, Delaware, Montana, North Dakota, Utah, Arkansas, Alaska, and West Virginia also vote in Super Tuesday. Romney is expected to win easily in Utah and Huckabee will likely capture Arkansas.

With a close race, some political observers are looking at the delegate totals with the potential that the battle for the Republican nomination could go all the way to Minneapolis this summer. Mitt Romney currently leads with 59 delegates, Huckabee has 40, McCain 36, Ron Paul 4, and Giuliani 1.

On Super Tuesday, most of the states award delegates based on a proportion of the votes in the primary or caucus.

Those that award delegates on a winner-take all basis include Missouri, (a tossup between McCain and Huckabee), as well as Arizona, New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut — all states where McCain is currently leading. Utah and Montana do as well, which would favor Romney, and Delaware, a state where McCain is likely leading.

Because the southern states give out delegates on a proportional basis, Huckabee’s ability to add to his delegate totals is weakened. Should the campaign go to a brokered convention, however, Huckabee may have earned enough delegates to play a role in deciding the eventual nominee should no one win enough outright.

Republican voters in Maine head to the polls on February 1 in a race that has garnered little in the way of national attention.

Following the Super Tuesday vote, Republicans in Kansas, Louisiana and Washington head to the polls, and then GOP voters in Virginia, Maryland and Wisconsin. The rest of the states do not cast primary ballots until March or later.