Mitt Romney won the Illinois primary last night, which figures, since it's a blue state and the GOP electorate is fairly moderate. Within Illinois, he won in the Chicago area and the northern part of the state, while losing in more conservative downstate.
Mitt has tended to do fairly well in blue states. Contests in the northeast are assumed to favor Romney, for example, and he has won in Michigan and Washington. Most people think he'll win in New York and California, as well as other contests in the northeast and the west coast.
Put another way, Romney has tended to do better in states that, if he's the nominee, he will almost certainly lose in the fall. Pres. Obama did something similar in 2008. He racked up victories in red states which enabled him to survive getting beat by Hillary in blue states.
That's the similarity. The difference is that Pres. Obama did this through caucuses. Caucuses tend to favor two things: good organization, and fervor on the part of a goal-directed minority.
In this race, that would tend to reflect the strategy of Santorum more than that of Romney. Organization doesn't count for much on the GOP side, but fervor does and that has tended to favor Santorum in the caucuses.
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