Romney “First in the West” – Mock Convention Predicts Romney Will Dominate Nevada Caucuses

Washington & Lee Mock Convention projects a landslide win for Mitt Romney in the Nevada Caucuses. We do not expect Newt Gingrich to challenge Romney for first place, but Gingrich is poised for a decisive second place finish barring extreme late momentum from Ron Paul. Despite early polls showing Santorum pushing into third place, Ron Paul’s strong Nevada organization should allow him to outpace the former Pennsylvania Senator. Going into Saturday’s caucus, we expect Romney to garner at least 45% of the vote, and he could easily break the 50% threshold on Saturday night. Gingrich should take 24-30%, with Paul edging into third with 12-18%, and Santorum winning the remaining 6-12%.

Rationale

Romney will carry strong momentum from his resounding victory in Florida into Nevada’s “First in the West” Caucus, a caucus that Romney was already poised to succeed in regardless of his results in the preceding primaries. Since his landslide victory in the caucus during the 2008 election cycle, Romney has maintained the most well-funded and established organization on the ground in Nevada. He has secured important endorsements from many of the most influential elected Republicans in the state, including Congressman Joe Heck and Congressman Mark Amodei, the former chair of the state GOP. Romney has remained committed to his foothold in Nevada over the past four years and is the only current candidate to have delivered a major policy speech in the state, unveiling his jobs plan in Las Vegas in September of last year. The demographics of Republican voters in the state’s caucus also strongly favor the Romney campaign. Mormons make up approximately 25% of likely Republican caucus goers and overwhelmingly favor Romney, who usually garners more than 80% of the Mormon vote.

Gingrich is backed by millions of dollars in financing from Las Vegas casino mogul Sheldon Adelson, but his hastily-organized campaign efforts in Nevada are a mess, marred by a recent struggle between his local and national campaign advisers about whether to tour the rural areas of the state to obtain support before the caucus. While the Nevada population lacks the Evangelical Christian influence to carry him to a win over Romney’s established organization, he will receive enough support from tea-party voters and those looking for an alternative to Romney to take second place.

Some recent polling suggests that Santorum will edge for Paul for third place, but Paul’s grassroots mobilization efforts are hard to quantify in polling data, and we believe that his supporters will show up and boost him above Santorum, especially considering that Santorum has already begun to campaign in Missouri and has no more official events scheduled in Nevada prior to the close of polls tomorrow night. Paul, specifically, has focused most of his campaign on caucus states like Nevada. Based on his strong turnout in the 2008 Nevada Caucus that resulted in a second place finish, we expect Paul to again exceed expectations indicated by recent polls and edge Santorum for third.

Implications

Though Romney has always been expected to win the Nevada caucuses, the sheer scale of his victory in the Silver State will perpetuate Romney’s post-Florida momentum. While this momentum will be more relevant to national perception than the highly localized caucuses over the next week, it should at least slightly improve Romney’s status in already friendly territory. The margin of victory is especially important to the Romney camp, though, because it will allow him to shirk off any potential underwhelming performances in the low turnout elections leading up to Arizona and Michigan at the end of the month. For the Gingrich campaign, the result in Nevada should come as no surprise, but it is absolutely essential for Gingrich to continue to finish ahead of Santorum throughout the rest of the month. If the former Speaker fails to do so, and Santorum continues to maintain a viable presence in the race, it will severely reduce Gingrich’s chances of overtaking Romney as the schedule turns south in March.

Prepared by Nevada State Chair Spencer Frantz, Political Chair Zach Wilkes, and the Mock Convention Political Team