By: Mark DiCamillo and Mervin Field, Field Research Corporation
February 22, 2012 - In each of three prior Field Polls measuring California GOP presidential preferences, support for former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum amounted to just one or two percentage points. However, over the past two weeks the proportion of GOP voters in this state favoring Santorum has been increasing dramatically. Currently, 25% of California Republicans are supporting his candidacy and he now trails former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney by just six points, who is preferred by 31%.
At the same time, support for former House Speaker Newt Gingrich has fallen dramatically. Last November 23% of California Republicans favored Gingrich. Now, his support stands at just 12%. Meanwhile support for Congressman Ron Paul has grown to where he is now in third place with 16% of the preferences. Another 14% of Republicans are undecided.
Republican voter preferences in this state were changing significantly during the approximate twoweek period in which the poll was conducted. During the first half of the poll, Romney was comfortably ahead of Santorum 38% to 18%. However, during the poll's second half, which was completed after Santorum's victories over Romney in the GOP primary in Missouri and the Colorado and Minnesota caucuses, Santorum's support in California increased to 25%, while support for Romney fell to 31%.
Presidential preferences differ widely across subgroups of the GOP electorate
Romney is still leading – but not by as much as he was last November – among key subgroups of the California GOP electorate. This includes Republican voters living in the state's coastal counties, those who are not strong conservatives, voters who do not identify a lot with the Tea Party, are not born-again Christians, are under age fifty, and are men.
Santorum either leads Romney or is close among Republicans who are strongly conservatives in politics, voters living in the state's inland counties, those identifying a lot with the Tea Party, are born-again Christians, voters age 50 or older and women.
Big changes in GOP voter impressions of Santorum and Gingrich since last November
While California Republican voters continue to have a largely favorable view of Romney, their views of Santorum have increased markedly since last November. Three months ago slightly more GOP voters in this state held a negative (25%) than positive view (20%) of Santorum. Now, about twice as many hold a favorable impression of him (40%) as have an unfavorable view (22%). Republican voter perceptions of Gingrich were highly favorable last November. However, impressions of the former House Speaker have declined significantly since then. At present, a 52% majority of California Republicans see him in a negative light, while only 35% view him positively. In each Field Poll conducted since September, pluralities of California GOP voters have held more negative than positive impressions of Paul. This continues in the current poll, with 50% viewing him unfavorably and 24% favorably.
Diminishing satisfaction with the GOP candidate field
While California Republicans have never been too enthusiastic about this year's GOP presidential candidates, their satisfaction with the candidate field has declined further over the past five months. Last September 19% of Republicans in this state said they were very satisfied with the candidates running for the GOP presidential nomination. Now, just 10% say this. Over this same period, the proportion of California Republicans not satisfied with their party's candidate field has increased from 27% to 39%.
Overview of the GOP presidential election race
Early last year more than ten candidates indicated that they would contest the Republican nomination or were viewed as likely candidates. By November that number had dropped to eight, and now just four remain in active contention.
The delegate selection process began in earnest with the Iowa caucuses on January 3. Since then eight states have held primary elections or caucuses and a total of 194 delegates to the GOP convention have been awarded. Romney, Santorum and Gingrich each have won at least one of these contests. Romney currently leads in the delegate count with 98, Santorum is second with 44, Gingrich third with 30, and Paul with 20.
However, this total represent less than 10% of all GOP delegates to be awarded. A candidate must obtain at least 1,144 delegates out of the 2,286 total attending the national convention, to be held in late August, to become the party's nominee. This year's Republican party delegate allocation system is a mix of proportional representation, non-binding caucuses, winner-take-all primaries, or a hybrid of different allocation methods.
California, with its prize of 172 delegates, will hold its primary on June 5, toward the end of the primary season, with the delegates being awarded primarily on a winner-take-all basis within congressional district. This means that the candidate winning the most votes in each of the state's 53 congressional districts gets all of the delegates from that district.
In most of the recent presidential election years, one of the candidates typically gathered a majority of committed delegates long before the convention, making the actual nominating process a routine exercise. However, given the continuing wide open nature of this year's nomination contest, and the fact that proportionally more states are awarding delegates on a proportionate basis, each of the candidates – including Ron Paul – will likely come to the convention with committed delegate blocs of various sizes.
The unsettled nature of Republican voter preferences may eventually result in an open convention, with the nominee selected only after a number of different rounds of voting have taken place. While it hasn't happened in a long time, there is also a possibility that someone else who has not participated in the primary or caucus contests could be chosen at the convention.
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