Professor Bainbridge...on law, politics, religion, culture & food

Romney Resurgent?

As Maine goes, so goes the nation? Romney wins big in the Maine caucus. Moreover, there’s good news for Romney in the latest polls:

Amidst all of the stormy polling clouds, a little ray of sunshine has broken over the Romney campaign. Rasmussen shows Romney slowly climbing into a tie nationwide with John McCain in its daily tracking poll. It also shows John McCain gaining strength at the same time:

In the race for the Republican Presidential Nomination, it’s John McCain at 30%, Mitt Romney at 30%, and Mike Huckabee at 21%. Ron Paul is supported by 5% of Likely Republican Primary Voters (see recent daily numbers). Romney leads by sixteen percentage points among conservatives while McCain has a two-to-one advantage among moderate Primary Voters. Today is the first day of daily tracking for the general election. McCain leads Clinton 47% to 41%. A week ago McCain had an eight point advantage. New match-ups will be added in the coming days.

My initial reaction to the last debate was the nobody had scored a clear win, which was to McCain’s advantage. Did McCain’s tired and testy performance, however, raise questions in Feb 5 voters’ minds about McCain’s age and temperament? I still think the nomination is McCain’s to lose. He’s still got the lead in key states like California, New York, and New Jersey. He’s also still got Huckabee siphoning social conservative votes from Romney. Yet, given all the flaws McCain has as a GOP candidate, it wouldn’t be surprising if a lot of GOP voters are having second thoughts.