Republican Race Is Still A Mess

With Bachmann and Perry falling from grace and the personal problems of Herman Cain, I have heard several pundits saying the race now belongs solely to Mitt Romney. They would give him the nomination by default -- because he hasn't been as bad a candidate as all the others have been. I'm still not ready to accept that. While it's true that Romney hasn't been as foolish-looking as some of his opponents, it's also true that he has yet to prove he can win over a majority of Republican delegates.

There are still a whole lot of Republican voters out there who simply don't like or trust Mitt Romney. Some fundamentalists will avoid voting for him because of his religion (mormonism), and others because of his flip-flopping on many issues like abortion, global warming and health care. There are three new nationwide polls out, and while Romney does lead in a couple of them, none of them show him with overwhelming support. Here are those poll results:

McClatchy Poll (November 8-10) [5.5 point margin of error]
Mitt Romney...............23%
Newt Gingrich...............19%
Herman Cain...............17%
Ron Paul...............10%
Rick Perry...............8%
Michele Bachmann...............5%
Jon Huntsman...............1%
Rick Santorum...............1%
Don't know...............17%

Economist/YouGov Poll (November 5-8) [4 point margin of error]
Mitt Romney...............24%
Herman Cain...............21%
Newt Gingrich...............16%
Ron Paul...............7%
Rick Perry...............7%
Michele Bachmann...............7%
Jon Huntsman...............5%
Rick Santorum...............2%
Gary Johnson...............1%
Don't know...............11%

Poll Position (November 8) [3 point margin of error]
Herman Cain...............24.4%
Mitt Romney...............19.5%
Newt Gingrich...............19.0%
Rick Perry...............7.3%
Ron Paul...............5.5%
Michele Bachmann...............3.9%
Jon Huntsman...............2.3%
Someone else...............3%
Don't know...............15.1%

While these polls don't show us who the eventual winner will be, we can glean a few things from them, such as:

* Newt Gingrich is making a comeback and is now among the leaders. Can he stay there, or will he fade like Bachmann and Perry did? Only time will tell.
* There is no clear favorite, and none of the leaders show a remarkable amount of support. All three of the current leaders' support is weak -- at least so far.
* Rick Perry and Ron Paul are in trouble. I would write them off, but both have a good deal of money and that will allow them to stick around for a while. There is still a remote possibility that an effective TV ad campaign could revive their campaigns.
* Bachmann, Huntsman, Johnson and Santorum are just wasting their time (and what little money they have). They will probably drop out by the end of January.
* There are still a significant number of Republicans who have not made up their minds.