Romney made a fantastic recovery this week in the polls, up between 10-14 points and is now almost a shoo in for Florida, pretty remarkable considering the fact that only two weeks ago he was trailing desperately, and people were saying that it could be Gingrich for the nomination. Or is it, as I have said before, I've thought for a long time Romney's going to win the nomination, he's got the most methodical, most well thought out national campaign, which instantly puts him above candidates like Santorum and Paul, who have much smaller focused campaigns, but even so, did the debates really cause the recent shift in polling, first lifting Gingrich up, and then dropping him?
On a basic level it could be seen to be debate performances, Romney numbers dropped after New Hampshire, when he did very poorly in some of the debates compared to Gingrich. Basically he got cocky, started talking like the nomination was his, which no one wants to here, especially not the third state to vote. however after loosing South Carolina, he's really picked himself up, and gave a really well prepared debate, and look his numbers started to rise, and low and behold, Gingrich correspondingly por performance caused his numbers to drop. Well look at that, theres practically a clear correlation.
Well yes and no, while a strong debate performance certainly helped Romney, Gingrich surge was really that, a surge, and like all the other candidates to surge (remember when Bachman won the Iowa straw poll?) they drop, Gingrich surge just lasted longer, because, after Romney, he has the second most constant and well planned national campaign. I'd have been willing to bet, that had Gingrich still given a good performance in the debate (as well as Romney's correspondingly good performance) Romney still would have gone on to win the nomination.
Why well firstly although momentum is hugely importance in the race, the next lot of states to vote in early February are already pretty favourable to Romney, he won Nevada by a stagering 40% in 2008, Maine's part of new england and Gingrich isn't even on the ballet in Minnesota, not to mention the large percentage of Mormon voters, (who vote in the republican caucus) who almost always vote Romney. Another important point here, caucuses (which all the states are), not to mention non-binding caucuses always have a lower turnout rate, and so really benefit a long term, grass roots campaign, which Romney has.
In fact the next primaries, Arizona and Missouri aren't till the end of February, so even if Romney were to looseFlorida, he would have plenty of time to turn his campaign around, admitably so would everyone else, but point being, Romney could recover because of his strong campaign, and quiet frankly funds. Especially in the bigger states, air time is very expensive, so with the much bigger 'super-pac' and own personal funds, Romney is in a very good position, in fact I believe another large reason florida turned around so easily for him, was because of the amount of advertising dollars he poured into it
So to bring upon the original question, how much influence do debates have? I'd have to say not a huge amount. In the way that debates can either help or hinder momentum, they are definitely important, but important as momentum is, it cannot replace a well thought out and executed campaign (see: Santorum) which is the reason why every person other than Romney has surged, every other campaign has a rather ad-hoc nature, not strong enough to sustain the length of the campaign, while Romney has remained consistant, despite bad debate performances, despite other candidates surging, because his campaign is the best. and that campaign may very well lead him to victory.
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